William Shakespeare Quotes & Sayings

Love's night is noon. — William Shakespeare

Farewell, a long farewell to all my greatness! This is the state of man: today he puts forth The tender leaves of hope, tomorrow blossoms, And bears his blushing honours thick upon him: The third day comes a frost, a killing frost, And - when he thinks, good easy man, full surely His greatness is a-ripening - nips his root, And then he falls, as I do. — William Shakespeare

How sometimes nature will betray its folly, Its tenderness, and make itself a pastime To harder bosoms! — William Shakespeare

A merry heart goes all the way, - A sad one tires inan hour. — William Shakespeare

Methinks I am a prophet new inspired And thus, expiring, do foretell of him: His rash fierce blaze of riot cannot last, For violent fires soon burn out themselves; Small show'rs last long, but sudden storms are short; He tires betimes that spurs too fast betimes; With eager feeding doth choke the feeder; Light vanity, insatiate cormorant, Consuming means, soon preys upon itself. — William Shakespeare

There is magic in the web Shakespeare (Othello, Act 3, Scene 4) — William Shakespeare

Men that hazard all
Do it in hope of fair advantages:
A golden mind stoops not to shows of dross. — William Shakespeare

I wasted time, and now doth time waste me. — William Shakespeare

In sooth I know not why I am so sad. — William Shakespeare

Rashly,
And praised be rashness for it
let us know,
Our indiscretion sometime serves us well
When our deep plots do pall, and that should learn us
There's a divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough-hew them how we will — William Shakespeare

Of all the wonders that I have heard,
It seems to me most strange that men should fear;
Seeing death, a necessary end,
Will come when it will come.
(Act II, Scene 2) — William Shakespeare

Blood hath been shed ere now, i'the olden time,
Ere humane statute purged the gentle weal;
Ay, and since too, murders have been performed
Too terrible for the ear. The times has been
That, when the brains were out, the man would die,
And there an end. But now they rise again
With twenty mortal murders on their crowns,
And push us from our stools. This is more strange
Than such a murder is. — William Shakespeare

Better conquest never canst thou make than arm thy constant and thy nobler parts against giddy, loose suggestions. — William Shakespeare

Alas, sir, how fell you besides your five wits?"
Malvolio: "Fool, there was never a man so notoriously abused. I am as well in my wits, fool, as thou art."
Feste: "But as well? Then you are mad indeed, if you be no better in you wits than a fool. — William Shakespeare

I profess not talking: only this, Let each man do his best. — William Shakespeare

The commonwealth is sick of their own choice;
Their over-greedy love has surfeited.
An habitation giddy and unsure
Hath he that buildeth on the vulgar heart. — William Shakespeare

Adieu, valour: rust, rapier: be still, drum, for your manager is in love: yea, he loveth. Assist me, some extemporal god of rhyme, for I am sure I shall turn sonnet. Devise, wit: write, pen, for I am for whole volumes in folio. — William Shakespeare

Be not afraid of greatness. — William Shakespeare

O, Thou hast damnable iteration; and art, indeed, able to corrupt a saint. — William Shakespeare

ROSALIND: What would you
say to me now, an I were your very very Rosalind?
ORLANDO: I would kiss before I spoke. — William Shakespeare

I love thee, and it is my love that speaks — William Shakespeare

All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players. — William Shakespeare

The proverb is something musty. — William Shakespeare

You cannot make gross sins look clear: To revenge is no valour, but to bear. — William Shakespeare

The nature of bad news affects the teller. — William Shakespeare

My charity is outrage, life my shame; And in that shame still live my sorrow's rage! — William Shakespeare

Every cloud engenders not a storm. — William Shakespeare

Things are often spoke and seldom meant. — William Shakespeare

Nothing will come of nothing — William Shakespeare

This rough magic I here abjure and when I have required some heavenly music, which even now I do, to work mine end upon their senses that this airy charm is for, I'll break my staff, bury it certain fathoms in the earth, and deeper than did ever plummet sound, I'll drown my book. — William Shakespeare

We know what we are, but not what we may be. — William Shakespeare

'Tis sweet to kiss a girl on Spring's first day, but only half so sweet as 'tis to kiss a girl on her bootyhole. — William Shakespeare

We all are men, in our own natures frail, and capable of our flesh; few are angels. — William Shakespeare

Spirits are not finely touched But to fine issues. — William Shakespeare

Yet this my comfort: when your words are done,
My woes end likewise with the evening sun. — William Shakespeare

Behold the threaden sails,
Borne with the invisible and creeping wind,
Draw the huge bottoms through the furrow'd sea,
Breasting the lofty surge — William Shakespeare

Why, thou deboshed fish thou ... Wilt thou tell a monstrous lie, being but half a fish and half a monster? — William Shakespeare

I see no darkness, but ignorance. — William Shakespeare

Ay me! sad hours seem long. — William Shakespeare

I think the King is but a man as I am: the violet smells to him as it doth to me. — William Shakespeare

He does it with better grace, but I do it more natural. — William Shakespeare

Wisely weigh our sorrow with our comfort. — William Shakespeare

Cin. Liberty! Freedom! Tyranny is dead! Run hence, proclaim, cry it about the streets. — William Shakespeare

Men from children nothing differ. — William Shakespeare

Alas, their love may be call'd appetite. No motion of the liver, but the palate — William Shakespeare

I am your wife if you will marry me.
If not, I'll die your maid. To be your fellow
You may deny me, but I'll be your servant Whether you will or no. — William Shakespeare

Then is courtesy a turncoat. But it is certain I am loved of all ladies, only you excepted: and I would I could find in my heart that I had not a hard heart; for, truly, I love none.
Beatrice: A dear happiness to women: they would else have been troubled with a pernicious suitor. I thank God and my cold blood, I am of your humour for that: I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me. -Much Ado About Nothing — William Shakespeare

As merry as the day is long. — William Shakespeare

Gloucester, we have done deeds of charity, made peace of enmity, fair love of hate, between these swelling wrong-incensed peers. — William Shakespeare

What a terrible era in which idiots govern the blind. — William Shakespeare

Some smack of age in you, some relish of the saltness of time. — William Shakespeare

The wounds invisible that Love's keen arrows make. — William Shakespeare

The near in blood,
The nearer bloody. — William Shakespeare

The brain may devise laws for the blood, but a hot temper leaps o'er a cold decree. — William Shakespeare

That in the captain's but a choleric word,
Which in the soldier is flat blasphemy. — William Shakespeare

Good Lord, what madness rules in brainsick men
When for so slight and frivolous a cause
Such factious emulations shall arise! — William Shakespeare

We cannot be here and there too. Cheerly, boys; be
brisk awhile, and the longer liver take all. — William Shakespeare

In winter's tedious nights sit by the fire With good old folks, and let them tell thee tales Of woeful ages, long ago betid — William Shakespeare

When icicles hang by the wall,
And Dick the shepherd blows his nail,
And Tom bears logs into the hall,
And milk comes frozen home in pail,
When blood is nipp'd, and ways be foul,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
To-whit! To-who! - a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.
When all aloud the wind doe blow,
And coughing drowns the parson's saw,
And birds sit brooding in the snow,
And Marian's nose looks red and raw,
When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
To-whit! To-who! - a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot. — William Shakespeare

Wishers were ever fools. — William Shakespeare

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown. — William Shakespeare

No stony bulwark can resist the love, and love dares what anyone can love. — William Shakespeare

The eye sees all, but the mind shows us what we want to see. — William Shakespeare

By the apostle Paul, shadows tonight Have struck more terror to the soul of Richard Than can the substance of ten thousand soldiers. — William Shakespeare

Fit to govern? No, not fit to live. — William Shakespeare

When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married. — William Shakespeare

I will be master of what is mine own:
She is my goods, my chattels; she is my house,
My household stuff, my field, my barn,
My horse, my ox, my ass, my any thing. — William Shakespeare

Vanity keeps persons in favor with themselves who are out of favor with all others. — William Shakespeare

Never anger made good guard for itself. — William Shakespeare

O, sir, I will not be so hard-hearted. I will give out divers schedules of my beauty. It shall be inventoried, and every particle and utensil labeled to my will: as, item, two lips indifferent red; item, two grey eyes, with lids to them; item, one neck, one chin, and so forth. — William Shakespeare

Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world
Like a Colossus; and we petty men
Walk under his huge legs, and peep about
To find ourselves dishonourable graves. — William Shakespeare

Now, gods, stand up for bastards! — William Shakespeare

From this day forward until the end of the world ... we in it shall be remembered ... we band of brothers. — William Shakespeare

Age, I do abhor thee, youth, I do adore thee. — William Shakespeare

What seest thou else
In the dark backward and abysm of time? — William Shakespeare

Look here upon this picture, and on this... — William Shakespeare

Deep malice makes too deep incision. Forget, forgive, conclude and be agreed.
Richard 11, Act 1, Scene 1 — William Shakespeare

For as a surfeit of the sweetest things The deepest loathing to the stomach brings, Or as tie heresies that men do leave Are hated most of those they did deceive, So thou, my surfeit and my heresy, Of all be hated, but the most of me! — William Shakespeare

O jest unseen, inscrutable, invisible, As a nose on a man's face, or a weathercock on a steeple. — William Shakespeare

Now put your shields before your hearts and fight / With hearts more proof than shields. Advance, my fellows! — William Shakespeare

My language! heavens!I am the best of them that speak this speech. Were I but where 'tis spoken. — William Shakespeare

Quote: What angel wakes me from my flowery bed? — William Shakespeare

Mirth cannot move a soul in agony. — William Shakespeare

Literature is a comprehensive essence of the intellectual life of a nation. — William Shakespeare

For there was never yet philosoper
That could endure the toothache patiently,
However they have writ the style of gods,
And made a push at chance and sufferance. — William Shakespeare

What is past is prologue. — William Shakespeare

For the poor wren (The most diminutive of birds) will fight, Her young ones in her nest, against the owl. — William Shakespeare

Why, what is pomp, rule, reign, but earth and dust?
And, live we how we can, yet die we must. — William Shakespeare

Tut, dun's the mouse, the constable's own word:
If thou art dun, we'll draw thee from the mire
Of this sir-reverence love, wherein thou stick'st
Up to the ears. Come, we burn daylight, ho! — William Shakespeare

In religion, What damned error but some sober brow Will bless it, and approve it with a text, Hiding the grossness with fair ornament? — William Shakespeare

The love of wicked men converts to fear, that fear to hate, and hate turns one or both to worthy danger and deserved death. — William Shakespeare

Now old desire doth in his death-bed lie,
And young affection gapes to be his heir;
That fair for which love groan'd for and would die,
With tender Juliet match'd, is now not fair.
Now Romeo is beloved and loves again,
Alike betwitched by the charm of looks,
But to his foe supposed he must complain,
And she steal love's sweet bait from fearful hooks:
Being held a foe, he may not have access
To breathe such vows as lovers use to swear;
And she as much in love, her means much less
To meet her new-beloved any where:
But passion lends them power, time means, to meet
Tempering extremities with extreme sweet. — William Shakespeare

All lovers swear more performance than they are able, and yet reserve an ability that they never perform; vowing more than the perfection of ten, and discharging less than the tenth part of one. — William Shakespeare

My love admits no qualifying dross — William Shakespeare

Macbeth is a play that points to the advent, much like the turbulent last century of the Middle Ages, of a modern age gradually deracinated from its Christian grounding and increasingly enamored of a neopagan notion of virtu, of potentially infinite human achievement severed from metaphysical considerations. — William Shakespeare

You are not worth the dust which the rude wind blows in your face — William Shakespeare

A breath thou art, Servile to all the skyey influences. — William Shakespeare

If you be King, why should not I succeed? — William Shakespeare

Courage and comfort, all shall yet go well — William Shakespeare

Lear Act IV, Scene 6
Why dost thou lash that whore? Strip thy own back.
Thou hotly lusts to use her in that kind
For which thou whipp'st her. The usurer hangs the
cozener.
Through tottered rags small vices do appear;
Robes and furr'd gowns hide all. (Plate sin with gold,
And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks;
Arm it in rags, a pigmy's straw does pierce it.
Lear Act IV, Scene 6
Get thee glass eyes;
And, like a scurvy politician, seem
To see the things thou dost not.
Lear Act IV, Scene 6 — William Shakespeare