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Good times for a change
See, the luck I've had
Can make a good man
Turn bad
So please, please, please
Let me, let me, let me
Let me get what I want
This time
Haven't had a dream in a long time
See, the life I've had
Can make a good man bad
So for once in my life
Let me get what I want
Lord knows, it would be the first time
Lord knows, it would be the first time. The Smiths, Please Please Let Me Get What I Want
In a world full of adversity we must dare to dream. Rob Burrows, variations and attributions
You see, I have a dream. A dream that one day all people – Human, Jem’Hadar, Ferengi, Cardassians – stand together in peace. Around my dabo tables. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine s3e2: The Search II ***** Quark
And now we’re just playing out this dream … the slow circling of the dream by a once promising species and the sappy ever more desperate belief in this country that there is some sort of American dream which has merely been displaced. George Carlin, Brain Droppings audio
That’s why they call it the American Dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it. George Carlin
‘What a life – the life of a dreamer – I am always building castles in the air. Isambard Kingdom Brunel, cited Rob Bell, Brunel: The Man Who Built Britain, Channel 5 2017
What happens when you realise the dream is true? Richard Dawkins, Sex, Death and the Meaning of Life II, Channel 4 2012
Don’t let them destroy your dreams. Pastor Brown, Brixton Pentecostal Church, cited Life and Death the Pentecostal Way, BBC 2016
What is life? A Frenzy. What is life? An illusion, a shadow, a fiction. And the greatest good is of slight worth, as all life is a dream, and dreams and dreams. Pedro Calderon de la Barca
We live as we dream – alone. Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness
Perhaps life is just that ... a dream and a fear. Joseph Conrad
Life is perhaps most wisely regarded as a bad dream between two awakenings, and every day is a life in miniature. Eugene O’Neill, Marco Millions, 1928
True, I talk of dreams,
Which are the children of an idle brain,
Begot of nothing but vain fantasy,
Which is as thin of substance as the air. William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet I iv 97-100, Mercutio to Romeo
I never had a dream, past the wit of man to say what dream it was. William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream IV i 211
The eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen, man’s hand is not able to taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report, what my dream was. ibid. IV i 218
If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumbered here
While these visions did appear. ibid. V ii 54
For I did dream of money-bags tonight. William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice II v 18, Shylock to Jessica and Lancelot
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. William Shakespeare, Hamlet I v 167-168, Hamlet to Horatio
I could be bounded in a nut-shell, and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams. ibid. II ii 251-252, Hamlet
A dream itself is but a shadow. ibid. II ii 255, Hamlet
To be, or not to be – that is the question.
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? – To die – to sleep –
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to; ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die – to sleep –
To sleep! Perchance to dream. Aye, there’s the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. There’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office … ibid. III i 56-73
Ere we will eat our meal in fear, and sleep
In the affliction of these terrible dreams
That shake us nightly. Better be with the dead,
Whom we to gain our peace have sent to peace,
Than on the torture of the mind to lie
In restless ecstasy. William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Macbeth III iii @19, Macbeth
Poor wretches that depend
On greatness’ favour dream as I have done,
Wake and find nothing. But, alas, I swerve.
Many dream not to find, neither deserve,
And yet are steeped in favours. William Shakespeare, Cymbeline V v @221, Posthumus
Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul
Of the wide world dreaming on things to come. William Shakespeare, Sonnet 107
We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep. The Tempest 2010 starring Helen Mirren & Felicity Jones & Chris Cooper & Russell Brand & Reeve Carney & Tom Conti & Alan Cumming & Dimon Hounsou & Alfred Molina & Ben Whishaw et al, director Julie Taymor
Tell me not, in mournful numbers
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.
Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, A Psalm to Life, 1838
Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled dreams, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave. ibid.
Science is based on curiosity ... Space for the dreamers to dream. Science Britannica III: Clear Blue Skies, BBC 2014
Now, my own suspicion is that the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose. I have read and heard many attempts at a systematic account of it, from materialism and theosophy to the Christian system or that of Kant, and I have always felt that they were much too simple. I suspect that there are more things in heaven and earth that are dreamed of, or can be dreamed of, in any philosophy. That is the reason why I have no philosophy myself, and must be my excuse for dreaming. J B S Haldane, Possible Worlds