Things hid and barred, you mean, from common sense? (KING: Ay, that is study’s god-like recompense.) Come on, then, I will swear to study so, To know the thing I am forbid to know: As thus, to study where I well may dine, When I to feast expressly am forbid; Or study where to meet some mistress fine, When mistresses from common sense are hid; Or, having sworn too hard-a-keeping oath, Study to break it, and not break my troth. If study’s gain be thus, and this be so, Study knows that which yet it doth not know. Swear me to this, and I will ne’er say no. (KING: These be the stops that hinder study quite, And train our intellects to vain delight.) Why, all delights are vain, but that most vain Which, with pain purchased, doth inherit pain: As painfully to pore upon a book To seek the light of truth, while truth the while Doth falsely blind the eyesight of his look. Light seeking light doth light of light beguile; So, ere you find where light in darkness lies, Your light grows dark by losing of your eyes. Study me how to please the eye indeed By fixing it upon a fairer eye, Who dazzling so, that eye shall be his heed, And give him light that it was blinded by. Study is like the heaven’s glorious sun, That will not be deep-searched with saucy looks; Small have continual plodders ever won, Save base authority from others’ books. These earthly godfathers of heaven’s lights, That give a name to every fixed star, Have no more profit of their shining nights Than those that walk and wot not what they are. Too much to know is to know naught but fame, And every godfather can give a name.

Berowne Monologue from Love's Labour's Lost

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