Quotes & Sayings About Beauty William Shakespeare

O! she doth teach the torches to burn bright
It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night
Like a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear;
Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear.
- Romeo - — William Shakespeare

Be not self-willed, for thou art much too fair
To be death's conquest and make worms thine heir. — William Shakespeare

To me, fair friend, you never shall be old,
For as you were when first your eye I ey'd
So seems your beauty still. — William Shakespeare

That if you be honest and fair, your honesty should admit no discourse to your beauty. — William Shakespeare

The most peerless piece of earth, I think, that e' er the sun shone bright on. — William Shakespeare

The even mead, that erst brought sweetly forth The freckled cowslip, burnet, and green clover, Wanting the scythe, all uncorrected, rank, Conceives by idleness, and nothing teems But hateful docks, rough thistles, kecksies, burrs, Losing both beauty and utility. — William Shakespeare

Sir, I love you more than words can wield the matter; dearer than eye-sight, space, and liberty, beyond waht can be valued, rich or rare; no less than life, with grace, health, beauty, honor; as much as child e'er loved, or father found; a love that makes breath poor, and speech unable; beyond all manner of so much I love you. — William Shakespeare

When I do count the clock that tells the time,
And see the brave day sunk in hideous night;
When I behold the violet past prime,
And sable curls all silver'd o'er with white;
When lofty trees I see barren of leaves
Which erst from heat did canopy the herd,
And summer's green all girded up in sheaves
Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard,
Then of thy beauty do I question make,
That thou among the wastes of time must go,
Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake
And die as fast as they see others grow;
And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make defence
Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence. — William Shakespeare

Things growing to themselves are growth's abuse:
Seeds spring from seeds and beauty breedeth beauty; — William Shakespeare

For she had eyes and chose me. — William Shakespeare

O, then I see Queen Mab hath been with you ...
She is the fairies' midwife, and she comes
In shape no bigger than an agate stone
On the forefinger of an alderman,
Drawn with a team of little atomi
Athwart men's noses as they lie asleep. — William Shakespeare

Beauty is but a vain and doubtful good;
A shining gloss that vadeth suddenly;
A flower that dies when first it 'gins to bud;
A brittle that's broken presently;
A doubtful good, a gloss, a glass, a flower,
Lost, vaded, broken, dead within an hour.
And as goods lost are seld or never found,
As vaded gloss no rubbing will refresh,
As flowers dead lie withered on the ground,
As broken glass no cement can redress;
So beauty blemished once, for ever lost,
In spite of physic, painting, pain and cost. — William Shakespeare

Golden lads and girls all must, like chimmney-sweepers, come to dust. — William Shakespeare

For as you were when first yout eye I eyed,such seems your beauty still — William Shakespeare

Look on beauty, and you shall see 'tis purchased by the weight; which therein works a miracle in Nature, making them lightest that wear most of it: so are those crisped snaky golden locks which make such wanton gambols with the wind upon supposed fairness, often known to be the dowry of a second head, the skull that bred them in the sepulchre. — William Shakespeare

The Devil hath power
To assume a pleasing shape. — William Shakespeare

From women's eyes this doctrine I derive:
They sparkle still the right Promethean fire;
They are the books, the arts, the academes,
That show, contain and nourish all the world. — William Shakespeare

Thine eyes I love, and they, as pitying me,
Knowing thy heart torment me with disdain,
Have put on black and loving mourners be,
Looking with pretty ruth upon my pain.
And truly not the morning sun of heaven
Better becomes the grey cheeks of the east,
Nor that full star that ushers in the even,
Doth half that glory to the sober west,
As those two mourning eyes become thy face:
O! let it then as well beseem thy heart
To mourn for me since mourning doth thee grace,
And suit thy pity like in every part.
Then will I swear beauty herself is black,
And all they foul that thy complexion lack — William Shakespeare

For thee I'll lock up all the gates of love
And on my eyelids shall conjecture hang,
To turn all beauty into thoughts of harm,
And never shall it be more gracious. — William Shakespeare

What you do
Still betters what is done. When you speak, sweet.
I'ld have you do it ever: when you sing,
I'ld have you buy and sell so, so give alms,
Pray so; and, for the ordering your affairs,
To sing them too: when you do dance, I wish you
A wave o' the sea, that you might ever do
Nothing but that; move still, still so,
And own no other function: each your doing,
So singular in each particular,
Crowns what you are doing in the present deed,
That all your acts are queens. — William Shakespeare

O Prosperina,
For the flowers now that, frighted, thou let'st fall
From Dis's wagon; daffodils,
That come before the swallow dares, and take
The winds of March with beauty; violets dim,
But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes
Or Cytherea's breath; pale primroses,
That die unmarried, ere they can behold
Bright Phoebus in his strength
a malady
Most incident to maids; bold oxlips and
The crown imperial; lilies of all kinds,
The flower-de-luce being one. — William Shakespeare

Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce than with honesty? — William Shakespeare

O, let not virtue seek Remuneration for the thing it was; For beauty, wit, High birth, vigour of bone, desert in service, Love, friendship, charity, are subjects all To envious and calumniating time. — William Shakespeare

For all that beauty that doth cover thee
Is but the seemly raiment of my heart,
Which in thy breast doth live, as thine in me.
How can I then be elder than thou art? — William Shakespeare

What say you, can you love the gentleman?
This night you shall behold him at our feast.
Read o'er the volume of young Paris' face,
And find delight writ there with beauty's pen;
Examine every married lineament,
And see how one another lends content;
And what obscured in this fair volume lies
Find written in the margent of his eyes.
This precious book of love, this unbound lover,
To beautify him only lacks a cover.
The fish lives in the sea, and 'tis much pride
For fair without the fair within to hide.
That book in many's eyes doth share the glory,
That in gold clasps locks in the golden story.
So shall you share all that he doth possess,
By having him, making yourself no less. — William Shakespeare

You lie, in faith; for you are call'd plain Kate,
And bonny Kate and sometimes Kate the curst;
But Kate, the prettiest Kate in Christendom
Kate of Kate Hall, my super-dainty Kate,
For dainties are all Kates, and therefore, Kate,
Take this of me, Kate of my consolation;
Hearing thy mildness praised in every town,
Thy virtues spoke of, and thy beauty sounded,
Yet not so deeply as to thee belongs,
Myself am moved to woo thee for my wife. — William Shakespeare

The Brightness of her cheek would shame those stars as daylight doth a lamp; her eyes in heaven would through the airy region stream so bright that birds would sing, and think it were not night. — William Shakespeare

Daffodils,
That come before the swallow dares, and take
The winds of March with beauty. — William Shakespeare

Wilt thou be daunted at a woman's sight? Aye, beauty's princely majesty is such, Confounds the tongue and makes the senses rough. — William Shakespeare

This goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory, this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? — William Shakespeare

Beauty is bought by judgement of the eye. — William Shakespeare

How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea, Whose action is no stronger than a flower? - Sonnet LXV — William Shakespeare

Who will believe my verse in time to come,
If it were fill'd with your most high deserts?
Though yet, heaven knows, it is but as a tomb
Which hides your life and shows not half your parts.
If I could write the beauty of your eyes
And in fresh numbers number all your graces,
The age to come would say 'This poet lies:
Such heavenly touches ne'er touch'd earthly faces.'
So should my papers yellow'd with their age
Be scorn'd like old men of less truth than tongue,
And your true rights be term'd a poet's rage
And stretched metre of an antique song:
But were some child of yours alive that time,
You should live twice; in it and in my rhyme. — William Shakespeare

Did my heart love till now? forswear it, sight! For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night. — William Shakespeare

Sin of self-love possesseth all mine eye,
And all my soul, and all my every part;
And for this sin there is no remedy,
It is so grounded inward in my heart.
Methinks no face so gracious is as mine,
No shape so true, no truth of such account,
And for myself mine own worth do define,
As I all other in all worths surmount.
But when my glass shows me myself indeed,
Beared and chopp'd with tann'd antiquity,
Mine own self-love quite contrary I read;
Self so self-loving were iniquity.
'Tis thee (myself) that for myself I praise,
Painting my age with beauty of thy days. — William Shakespeare

Marry, then, sweet wag, when thou art king, let not us that are squires of the night's body be called thieves of the day's beauty. Let us be Diana's foresters, gentlemen of the shade, minions of the moon, and let men say we be men of good government, being governed, as the sea is, by our noble and chaste mistress the moon, under whose countenance we steal. — William Shakespeare

One beautiful heart is better than thousand beautiful faces. So choose people having beautiful hearts rather than faces! — William Shakespeare

How much more doth beauty beauteous seem by that sweet ornament which truth doth give! — William Shakespeare

Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,
But bad mortality o'ersways their power,
How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,
Whose action is no stronger than a flower? — William Shakespeare

Friendship is constant in all other things
Save in the office and affairs of love.
Therefore all hearts in love use their own tongues.
Let every eye negotiate for itself,
And trust no agent; for beauty is a witch
Against whose charms faith melteth into blood. — William Shakespeare

Charmian: Kind sir, give me a good fortune.
Fortuneteller:
I don't make fortunes; I only see them.
Charmian:
Then see a good one for me.
Fortuneteller:
Your beauty will be even greater than it is now.
Charmian
(to the others) He means I'll get fat.
Iras
No, he means you'll use makeup when you're old.
Fortuneteller:
You will love more than you are loved.
Charmian:
I had rather heat my liver with drinking. — William Shakespeare

Time, whose millioned accidents creep in betwixt vows, and change decrees of kings, tan sacred beauty, blunt the sharpest intents, divert strong minds to the course of altering things. — William Shakespeare

Show me a mistress that is passing fair, what doth her beauty serve but as a note where I may read who pass'd that passing fair? — William Shakespeare

O, how this spring of love resembleth
The uncertain glory of an April day,
Which now shows all the beauty of the sun,
And by and by a cloud takes all away! — William Shakespeare

Beauty itself doth of itself persuade
The eyes of men without orator. — William Shakespeare

She is rich in beauty. — William Shakespeare

Were beauty under twenty locks kept fast, yet love breaks through and picks them all at last. — William Shakespeare

What is thy body but a swallowing grave,
Seeming to bury that posterity
Which, by the rights of time, thou needs must have
If thou destroy them not in dark obscurity?
If so, the world will hold thee in disdain,
Sith in thy pride so fair a hope is slain. — William Shakespeare

Is not birth, beauty, good shape, discourse, Manhood, learning, gentleness, virtue, youth, liberality, and such like, the spice and salt that season a man — William Shakespeare

For where is any author in the world Teaches such beauty as a woman's eye? — William Shakespeare

A woman moved is like a fountain troubled, Muddy, ill-seeming, thick, bereft of beauty. — William Shakespeare

PANDARUS
You are such a woman! A man knows not at what ward you
lie.
CRESSIDA
Upon my back, to defend my belly; upon my wit, to defend
my wiles; upon my secrecy, to defend mine honesty; my mask, to
defend my beauty; and you, to defend all these; and at all these
wards I lie at, at a thousand watches.
PANDARUS
Say one of your watches.
CRESSIDA
Nay, I'll watch you for that; and that's one of the
chiefest of them too. If I cannot ward what I would not have hit,
I can watch you for telling how I took the blow; unless it swell
past hiding, and then it's past watching. — William Shakespeare

So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows As yonder lady o'er her fellows shows. — William Shakespeare

He was too good to be
Where ill men were, and was the best of all
Amongst the rar'st of good ones- sitting sadly
Hearing us praise our loves of Italy
For beauty that made barren the swell'd boast
Of him that best could speak; for feature, laming
The shrine of Venus or straight-pight Minerva,
Postures beyond brief nature; for condition,
A shop of all the qualities that man
Loves woman for; besides that hook of wiving,
Fairness which strikes the eye-
CYMBELINE. — William Shakespeare

If I could write the beauty of your eyes And in fresh numbers number all your graces, The age to come would say, 'This poet lies; Such heavenly touches ne'er touch'd earthly faces.' — William Shakespeare

Then of thy beauty do I question make,
That thou among the wastes of time must go,
Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake,
And die as fast as they see others grow. — William Shakespeare

Fie, fie upon her! There's language in her eye, her cheek, her lip, Nay, her foot speaks; her wanton spirits look out at every joint and motive of her body. — 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

Beauty provoketh thieves sooner than gold. — William Shakespeare

Lo! in the orient when the gracious light Lifts up his burning head, each under eye Doth homage to his new-appearing sight, Serving with looks his sacred majesty; And having climb'd the steep-up heavenly hill, Resembling strong youth in his middle age, Yet mortal looks adore his beauty still, Attending on his golden pilgrimage: — William Shakespeare

Sonnet 130
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare. — William Shakespeare

She will outstrip all praise and make it halt behind her. — William Shakespeare

Virtue is beauty, but the beauteous evil.
Are empty trunks o'erflourished by the devil. — William Shakespeare

A blind man can't forget the eyesight he lost, show me any beautiful girl. How can her beauty not remind me of the one whose beauty surpasses hers? — William Shakespeare

A right fair mark, fair coz, is soonest hit. — William Shakespeare

Ay, truly, for the power of beauty will sooner transform honesty from what it is to a bawd than the force of honesty can translate beauty into his likeness. — William Shakespeare

Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth
And delves the parallels in beauty's brow. — William Shakespeare

Therefore was I created with a stubborn outside, with an aspect of iron, that when I come to woo ladies, I fright them. But, in faith, Kate, the elder I wax, the better I shall appear. My comfort is that old age, that ill layer-up of beauty, can do no more spoil upon my face. Thou hast me, if thou hast me, at the worst, and thou shalt wear me, if thou wear me, better and better. — William Shakespeare

Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,
Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend
More than cool reason ever comprehends.
The lunatic, the lover and the poet
Are of imagination all compact:
One sees more devils than vast hell can hold,
That is, the madman: the lover, all as frantic,
Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt:
The poet's eye, in fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;
And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen
Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name. — William Shakespeare

Nothing teems But hateful docks, rough thistles, kecksies, burs, Losing both beauty and utility. — William Shakespeare

His beauty shall in these black lines be seen, and they shall live, and he in them still green. — William Shakespeare

The tender spring upon thy tempting lip
Shows thee unripe; yet mayst thou well be tasted:
Make use of time, let not advantage slip;
Beauty within itself should not be wasted:
Fair flowers that are not gather'd in their prime
Rot and consume themselves in little time. — William Shakespeare

Beauty lives with kindness. — William Shakespeare

ELEANOR, DUCHESS OF GLOUCESTER:
Could I come near your beauty with my nails,
I could set my ten commandements in your face. — William Shakespeare

Then, were not summer's distillation left
A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass,
Beauty's effect with beauty were bereft,
Nor it nor no remembrance what it was.
But flowers distilled, though they with winter meet,
Leese but their show; their substance still lives sweet. — William Shakespeare

Turn him into stars and form a constellation in his image. His face will make the heavens so beautiful that the world will fall in love with the night and forget about the garish sun. — William Shakespeare

If virtue no delighted beauty lack, Your son-in-law is far more fair than black. — William Shakespeare

Well, in that hit you miss. She'll not be hit
With Cupid's arrow. She hath Dian's wit,
And, in strong proff of chastity well armed,
From Love's weak childish bow she lives uncharmed.
She will not stay the siege of loving terms,
Nor bide th' encounter of assailing eyes,
Nor ope her lap to saint-seducing gold.
O, she is rich in beauty; only poor
That, when she dies, with dies her store.
Act 1,Scene 1, lines 180-197 — William Shakespeare

O Death, made proud with pure and princely beauty! — William Shakespeare

And keep you in the rear of your affection,
Out of the shot and danger of desire,
The chariest maid is prodigal enough
If she unmasks her beauty to the moon. — William Shakespeare

Beauty within itself should not be wasted. — William Shakespeare

Death, that hath suck'd the honey of thy breath hath had no power yet upon thy beauty. — William Shakespeare

Let witchcraft join with beauty, lust with both! — William Shakespeare

Ah, she doth teach the torches to burn bright, it seems she hangs against the cheek of night like a rich jewel from an Ethiope's ear, beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear. — William Shakespeare

Tis beauty that doth oft make women proud; but, God He knows, thy share thereof is small. — William Shakespeare

Make use of time, let not advantage slip. — William Shakespeare

Had I no eyes but ears, my ears would love. That inward beauty and invisible;
Or were I deaf, thy outward parts would move each part in me that were but sensible: Though neither eyes nor ears, to hear nor see, yet should I be in love by touching thee.
'Say, that the sense of feeling were bereft me, and that I could not see, nor hear, nor touch, and nothing but the very smell were left me, yet would my love to thee be still as much; for from the stillitory of thy face excelling comes breath perfum'd that breedeth love by smelling. — William Shakespeare

Tis beauty truly blent, whose red and white
Nature's own sweet and cunning hand laid on. — William Shakespeare

For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright,
Who art as black as hell, as dark as night. — William Shakespeare

For honesty coupled to beauty, is to have honey a sauce to sugar. — William Shakespeare

From fairest creatures we desire increase, That thereby beauty's rose might never die, But as the riper should by time decease, His tender heir might bear his memory: — William Shakespeare

Could I come near your beauty with my nails, I'd set my ten commandments in your face. — William Shakespeare

To me, fair friend, you never can be old,
For as you were when first your eye I ey'd,
Such seems your beauty still. — William Shakespeare

PANDARUS
Well, well! Why, have you any discretion? Have you any
eyes? Do you know what a man is? Is not birth, beauty, good
shape, discourse, manhood, learning, gentleness, virtue, youth,
liberality, and such like, the spice and salt that season a man?
CRESSIDA
Ay, a minc'd man; and then to be bak'd with no date in
the pie, for then the man's date is out. — William Shakespeare

That thou art blamed shall not be thy defect,
For slander's mark was ever yet the fair;
The ornament of beauty is suspect,
A crow that flies in heaven's sweetest air. — William Shakespeare

There's her cousin, an she were not possessed with a fury, exceeds her as much in beauty as the first of May doth the last of December. — William Shakespeare