"Spot Passages"

       Spot Passages.  We learned them for Miss Anderson, our high school English teacher.  Each of us had to come up, sit by her desk, and recite the passage for the week to her. 

                    “Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleeve of care.”

I’ve thought of it many, many times since, and I had and still have it in my mind when needed.  (See Sunday, March 10, 2013, e.g.)  Macbeth, Act II, Scene 2.  We did read the play, of course.
 
       Another spot passage, Act I, Scene 7:

                 “I have no spur to prick the sides of my intent, but                          only vaulting ambition, which o’erleaps itself and falls                      on th’other.”

I’ve accused myself of that not a few times.  But Shakespeare had Macbeth say it first!