Shakespeare

Wear your heart on your sleeve

Meaning

Display one's emotions openly.

Origin

This phrase may derive from the custom at middle ages jousting matches. Knights are
said to have worn the colours of the lady they were supporting, in cloths or ribbons tied to
their arms.

The term doesn't date from that period though and is first recorded in Shakespeare's
Othello, 1604. In the play, the treacherous Iago's plan was to feign openness and
vulnerability in order to appear faithful:

Iago:
It is sure as you are Roderigo,
Were I the Moor, I would not be Iago:
In following him, I follow but myself;
Heaven is my judge, not I for love and duty,
But seeming so, for my peculiar end:
For when my outward action doth demonstrate
The native act and figure of my heart
In compliment extern, 'tis not long after
But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve
For daws to peck at: I am not what I am.

A fool's paradise
Meaning

A state of happiness based on false hope.

Origin

An early phrase, first recorded in the Paston Letters, 1462:

"I wold not be in a folis paradyce."

Shakespeare later used it in Romeo and Juliet, 1592.

Nurse:
Now, afore God, I am so vexed, that every part about
me quivers. Scurvy knave! Pray you, sir, a word:
and as I told you, my young lady bade me inquire you
out; what she bade me say, I will keep to myself:
but first let me tell ye, if ye should lead her into
a fool's paradise, as they say, it were a very gross
kind of behavior, as they say: for the gentlewoman
is young; and, therefore, if you should deal double
with her, truly it were an ill thing to be offered
to any gentlewoman, and very weak dealing.

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet

Meaning

What matters is what something is, not what it is called.

Origin

From Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, 1600:

JULIET:
'Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
What's Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,
And for that name which is no part of thee
Take all myself.

A story, much favoured by tour guides, and as such highly suspect, is that in this line
Shakespeare was also making a joke at the expense of the Rose Theatre. The Rose was a
local rival to his Globe Theatre and is reputed to have had less than effective sanitary
arrangements. The story goes that this was a coy joke about the smell. This certainly has
the whiff of folk etymology about it, but it might just be true.