Shakespeare

This quote is from Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, spoken by Duke Orsino. He is frustrated by the course of his courtship with Olivia. He supposes that since a little music can give an appetite for love, too much music might cure an obsession. Here’s the rest of his soliloquy:

If music be the food of love, play on;

Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,

The appetite may sicken, and so die.

That strain again! It had a dying fall:

O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound,

That breathes upon a bank of violets,

Stealing and giving odor! Enough; no more:

'Tis not so sweet now as it was before.

O spirit of love! How quick and fresh art thou,

That, notwithstanding thy capacity

Receiveth as the sea, naught enters there,

Of what validity and pitch soar,

But falls into abatement and low price,

Even in a minute: so full of shapes is fancy

That it alone is high fantastical.