Quotes & Sayings About Kings Shakespeare

Time's the king of men; he's both their parent, and he is their grave, and gives them what he will, not what they crave. — William Shakespeare

For 'tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings, Carry them here and there; jumping o'er times, Turning the accomplishment of many years Into an hour-glass: for the which supply, Admit me Chorus to this history; Who prologue-like your humble patience pray, Gently to hear, kindly to judge, our play. — William Shakespeare

Even so; an't please your worship, Brakenbury,
You may partake of any thing we say:
We speak no treason, man; we say the King
Is wise and virtuous, and his noble queen
Well struck in years, fair, and not jealous;
We say that Shore's wife hath a pretty foot,
A cherry lip, a bonny eye, a passing pleasing tongue;
And that the Queen's kindred are made gentlefolks. — William Shakespeare

They do not abuse the king that flatter him. For flattery is the bellows blows up sin; The thing the which is flattered, but a spark To which that blast gives heat and stronger glowing; — William Shakespeare

All that makes a writer is the ability to write strongly and directly from some unaccountable and almost invincible personal prejudice like Stevensons in favor of all being happy as kings no matter if consumptive, or Hardy against God for the blunder of sex, or Sinclair Lewis' against small American towns, or Shakespeare's mixed, at once against and in favor of life itself. I take it that everybody has the prejudice and spends some time feeling for it to speak and write from. But most people end as they begin by acting out the prejudices of other people. — Robert Frost

King Henry: But what a point, my lord, your falcon made, And what a pitch she flew above the rest! To see how God in all his creatures works! Yea, man and birds are fain of climbing high. Suffolk: No marvel, an it like your majesty, My lord protectors hawks do tower so well; They know their masters loves to be aloft, And bears his thoughts above his falcon's pitch. Gloucester: My lord, 'tis but a base ignoble mind That mounts no higher than a bird can soar. — William Shakespeare

Is this government of Britain's Isle, and this the royalty of Albion's King? — William Shakespeare

Sonnet 29
When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possess'd,
Desiring this man's art and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;
For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings. — William Shakespeare

Time is the king of men. — William Shakespeare

O King, believe not this hard-hearted man! — William Shakespeare

So doth the greater glory dim the less:
A substitute shines brightly as a king
Until a king be by. — William Shakespeare

For centuries before Google, MIT, and IDEO, modern hotbeds of innovation, we struggled to explain any kind of creation, from the universe itself to the multitudes of ideas around us. While we can make atomic bombs, and dry-clean silk ties, we still don't have satisfying answers for simple questions like: Where do songs come from? Are there an infinite variety of possible kinds of cheese? How did Shakespeare and Stephen King invent so much, while we're satisfied watching sitcom reruns? Our popular answers have been unconvincing, enabling misleading, fantasy-laden myths to grow strong. — Scott Berkun

The king-becoming graces,
As justice, verity, temp'rance, stableness,
Bounty, perseverance, mercy, lowliness,
Devotion, patience, courage, fortitude,
I have no relish of them, but abound
In the division of each several crime,
Acting in many ways. — William Shakespeare

Oh, as the tragedies of Shakespeare have revealed, the fall of kings is but fodder for the riches entertainments. — Robert Alexander

An earnest conjuration from the King,
As England was his faithful tributary,
As love between them like the palm might flourish,
As peace should still her wheaten garland wear
And stand a comma 'tween their amities,
And many such-like as's of great charge,
That, on the view and knowing of these contents,
Without debatement further, more or less,
He should the bearers put to sudden death,
Not shriving time allow'd. — William Shakespeare

A condensed Shakespeare with all of the dull parts removed, leaving only the great moments of drama: ghosts, and bloodied daggers, and dying kings. — John Connolly

Heaven is above all yet; there sits a judge, That no king can corrupt. — William Shakespeare

And nothing can we call our own but death
And that small model of the barren earth
Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.
For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground
And tell sad stories of the death of kings. — William Shakespeare

He that plays the king shall be welcome- his Majesty shall
have tribute of me; the adventurous knight shall use his foil and
target; the lover shall not sigh gratis; the humorous man shall
end his part in peace; the clown shall make those laugh whose
lungs are tickle o' th' sere; and the lady shall say her mind
freely, or the blank verse shall halt fort. — William Shakespeare

From kings to groundlings, Shakespeare made his work profound for everybody. That is how it should be. There is no hierarchy in theatre. It makes everyone part of a collective. — Lee Hall

No might nor greatness in mortality Can censure 'scape; back- wounding calumny The whitest virtue strikes. What king so strong Can tie the gall up in the slanderous tongue? — William Shakespeare

Do you take me for a sponge, my lord? hamlet: Ay, sir; that soaks up the king's countenance, his rewards, his authorities. But such officers do the king best service in the end: he keeps them, like an ape, in the corner of his jaw; first mouthed, to be last swallowed: when he needs what you have gleaned, it is but squeezing you, and, sponge, you shall be dry again. rosencrantz: I understand you not, my lord. hamlet: I am glad of it: a knavish speech sleeps in a foolish ear. — William Shakespeare

There's such divinity doth hedge a king. That treason doth but peep to what it would. — William Shakespeare

From the American retelling of Romeo and Juliet in West Side Story to the Japanese adaptation of King Lear in Ran, Shakespeare's cultural influence is virtually limitless. — Gordon Smith

Time's glory is to command contending kings,
To unmask falsehood, and bring truth to light. — William Shakespeare

To lapse in fulness Is sorer than to lie for need, and falsehood Is worse in kings than beggars. — William Shakespeare

All of that art-for-art's-sake stuff is BS," she declares. "What are these people talking about? Are you really telling me that Shakespeare and Aeschylus weren't writing about kings? All good art is political! There is none that isn't. And the ones that try hard not to be political are political by saying, 'We love the status quo.' We've just dirtied the word 'politics,' made it sound like it's unpatriotic or something." Morrison laughs derisively. "That all started in the period of state art, when you had the communists and fascists running around doing this poster stuff, and the reaction was 'No, no, no; there's only aesthetics.' My point is that is has to be both: beautiful and political at the same time. I'm not interested in art that is not in the world. And it's not just the narrative, it's not just the story; it's the language and the structure and what's going on behind it. Anybody can make up a story. — Toni Morrison

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

Sit down: thou art no flatterer:
I thank thee for it; and heaven forbid
That kings should let their ears hear their
faults hid! — William Shakespeare

The king hath note of all that they intend, by interception which they dream not of. — William Shakespeare

Besides, our nearness to the King in love
Is near the hate of those love not the King. — William Shakespeare

Let us our lives, our souls,
Our debts, our careful wives,
Our children, and our sins, lay on the King! — William Shakespeare

The Thane of Cawdor lives,
A prosperous gentleman; and to be King
Stands not within the prospect of belief,
No more than to be Cawdor. — William Shakespeare

Myself
a prince by fortune of my birth,
Near to the king in blood, and near in love
Till you did make him misinterpret me
Have stooped my neck under your injuries
And sighed my English breath in foreign clouds,
Eating the bitter bread of banishment,
Whilst you have fed upon my signories,
Disparked my parks and felled my forest woods,
From my own windows torn my household coat,
Rased out my imprese, leaving me no sign,
Save men's opinions and my living blood,
To show the world I am a gentleman. — William Shakespeare

Kings had their clowns, the people their actors and musicians. Shakespeare was scheduled as a servant. It is thus that successful stupidity has always treated genius. — Robert Green Ingersoll

Titus Andronicus, my lord the Emperor
Sends thee this word, that, if thou love thy sons,
Let Marcus, Lucius, or thyself, old Titus,
Or any one of you, chop off your hand
And send it to the King: he for the same
Will send thee hither both thy sons alive,
And that shall be the ransom for their fault. — William Shakespeare

Historically, Macbeth is one of the greatest kings Scotland ever had. He was on the throne for 19 years, and he simply has this dreadful reputation because Shakespeare manipulated history for the benefit of James I, who was paying him to write the play to blacken Macbeth's name. — David Hewson

Time's glory is to calm contending kings To unmask falsehood and bring truth to light To stamp the seal of time in aged things To wake the morn and sentinel the night To wrong the wronger till he render right To ruinate proud buildings with thy hours And smear with dust their glittering golden towers - Shakespeare, The Rape of Lucrece — Ken Follett

O King, be loyal to the royal within you. — William Shakespeare

King Lear is undoubtedly the greatest play ever written by Shakespeare - or anybody else for that matter. Hamlet is certainly great, but it doesn't contain as many elements of humanity as we see in Lear. — Paul Scofield

I heard a bird so sing, Whose music, to my thinking, pleased the king. — William Shakespeare

The color of the king doth come and go,
Between his purpose and his conscience,
Like heralds 'twixt two dreadful battles set:
His passion is so ripe, it needs must break. — William Shakespeare

This royal throne of kings, this sceptered isle, This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, This other Eden, demi-paradise, This fortress built by Nature for herself Against infection and the hand of war, This happy breed of men, this little world, This precious stone set in the silver sea, Which serves it in the office of a wall Or as a moat defensive to a house, Against the envy of less happier lands,
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England. — William Shakespeare

The quality of mercy is not strain'd, It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest; It blesseth him that gives and him that takes: 'Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes The throned monarch better than his crown; His sceptre shows the force of temporal power, The attribute to awe and majesty, Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings; But mercy is above this sceptred sway; It is enthroned in the hearts of kings, It is an attribute to God himself; And earthly power doth then show likest God's When mercy seasons justice. — William Shakespeare

For my grief's so great
That no supporter but the huge firm earth
Can hold it up: here I and sorrows sit;
Here is my throne, bid kings come bow to it.
(Constance, from King John, Act III, scene 1) — William Shakespeare

Nice customs curtsy to great kings. — William Shakespeare

When I closed in "King Lear" I went into a period of depression for about three weeks, and every actor I've talked to who's ever played a major, major Shakespeare role has done this. — Frank Langella

HENRY, EARL OF RICHMOND:
True hope is swift and flies with swallow's wings,
Kings it makes gods, and meaner creatures kings. — William Shakespeare

When daffodils begin to peer,
With heigh! the doxy, over the dale,
Why, then comes in the sweet o' the year;
For the red blood reigns in the winter's pale.
The white sheet bleaching on the hedge,
With heigh! the sweet birds, O, how they sing!
Doth set my pugging tooth on edge;
For a quart of ale is a dish for a king. — William Shakespeare

Though [Abraham Lincoln] never would travel to Europe, he went with Shakespeare's kings to Merry England; he went with Lord Byron poetry to Spain and Portugal. Literature allowed him to transcend his surroundings. — Doris Kearns Goodwin

The king is but a man, as I am; the violet smells to him as it doth to me; the element shows to him as it doth to me; all his senses have but human conditions; his ceremonies laid by, in his nakedness he appears but a man; and though his affections are higher mounted than ours, yet, when they stoop, they stoop with the like wing. — William Shakespeare

Playing Shakespeare is really tiring. You never get to sit down, unless you're the king. — Josephine Hull

Think when we talk of horses, that you see them Printing their proud hoofs i' the receiving earth; For 'tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings, Carry them here and there; jumping o'er times, Turning the accomplishment of many years Into an hour-glass: — William Shakespeare

Had I but served my God with half the zeal I served my king, he would not in mine age have left me naked to mine enemies. — William Shakespeare

Within the hollow crown That rounds the mortal temples of a king Keeps Death his court. — William Shakespeare

My crown is called content, a crown that seldom kings enjoy. — William Shakespeare

Love's not love When it is mingled with regards that stand Aloof from th' entire point. — William Shakespeare

If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me. — William Shakespeare

A substitute shines brightly as a king
Until a king be by, and then his state
Empties itself, as dot an inland brook
Into the main of waters. — William Shakespeare

Kent. Where's the king? Gent. Contending with the fretful elements; Bids the wind blow the earth into the sea, Or swell the curled waters 'bove the main, That things might change or cease; tears his white hair, Which the impetuous blasts, with eyeless rage, Catch in their fury and make nothing of; Strives in his little world of man to outscorn The to-and-fro-conflicting wind and rain. This night, wherein the cub-drawn bear would couch, The lion and the belly-pinched wolf Keep their fur dry, unbonneted he runs, And bids what will take all. — William Shakespeare

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

What infinite heart's-ease Must kings neglect that private men enjoy! And what have kings that privates have not too, Save ceremony, save general ceremony? — William Shakespeare

Such thanks as fits a king's remembrance. — William Shakespeare

I think Shakespeare got drunk after he finished King Lear. That he had a ball writing it. — Louis Auchincloss

Young Adam Cupid, he that shot so trim, When King Cophetua loved the beggar-maid! — William Shakespeare

Poetry's the speech of kings. You're one of those
Shakespeare gives the comic bits to: prose!
All poetry (even Cockney Keats?) you see
's been dubbed by [Us] into RP,
Received Pronunciation, please believe [Us]
your speech is in the hands of the Receivers. — Tony Harrison

Like Patience gazing on kings' graves, and smiling
Extremity out of act. — William Shakespeare

Whoever wrote Shakespeare is a working class hero be he an aristocrat or a peasant. Shakespeare is a great leveler. We're presented with kings, queens, emperors and giants who feel the same things as everyone else: jealousy, love, anger, bitterness, grief, loss. — Rhys Ifans

This sleep is sound indeed; this is a sleep
That from this golden rigol hath divorc'd
So many English kings. — William Shakespeare

Canst thou, O partial sleep, give thy repose to the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude, and in the calmest and most stillest night, with all appliances and means to boot, deny it to a king? — 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

'Tis thought the king is dead; we will not stay. The bay trees in our country are all wither'd. — William Shakespeare

I'll be damned for never a king's son in Christendom. — William Shakespeare

My Crown is in my heart, not on my head:
Not deck'd with Diamonds, and Indian stones:
Nor to be seen: my Crown is call'd Content,
A Crown it is, that seldom Kings enjoy. — William Shakespeare

Gives not the hawthorn bush a sweeter shade To shepherds, looking on their silly sheep, Than doth a rich embroider'd canopy To kings that fear their subjects treachery? — William Shakespeare

Till our King Henry had shook hands with Death. — William Shakespeare

Here I and sorrows sit; Here is my throne, bid kings come bow to it. — William Shakespeare

For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground
And tell sad stories of the death of kings;
How some have been deposed; some slain in war,
Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed;
Some poison'd by their wives: some sleeping kill'd;
All murder'd: for within the hollow crown
That rounds the mortal temples of a king
Keeps Death his court and there the antic sits,
Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp,
Allowing him a breath, a little scene,
To monarchize, be fear'd and kill with looks,
Infusing him with self and vain conceit,
As if this flesh which walls about our life,
Were brass impregnable, and humour'd thus
Comes at the last and with a little pin
Bores through his castle wall, and farewell king!
Act 3, Scene 2 — William Shakespeare

Why is the public so interested in movies about the wealthy? My answer is that Shakespeare wrote about kings. That's where the action is. And it's the classic, cathartic thing. You get to indulge in a lifestyle you're not part of, a tragic error leads to a downfall, and you get to say, 'Thank God I'm not him.' — Nicholas Jarecki

Why did she want to stay in England? Because the history she was interested in had happened here, and buried deep beneath her analytical mind was a tumbled heap of Englishness in all its glory, or kings and queens, of Runnymede and Shakespeare's London, of hansom cabs and Sherlock Holmes and Watson rattling off into the fog with cries of 'The game's afoot,' of civil wars bestrewing the green land with blood, of spinning jennies and spotted pigs and Churchill and his country standing small and alone against the might of Nazi Germany. It was a mystery to her how this benighted land had produced so many great men and women, and ruled a quarter of the world and spread its language and law and democracy across the planet. — Elizabeth Aston

The presence of a king engenders love
Amongst his subjects, and his royal friends. — William Shakespeare

A king of infinite space — William Shakespeare

Crowns have their compass-length of days their date-
Triumphs their tomb-felicity, her fate-
Of nought but earth can earth make us partaker,
But knowledge makes a king most like his Maker. — William Shakespeare

The king's name is a tower of strength. — William Shakespeare

One day, out of irritation, I said, you know all of those years with the Royal Shakespeare Company, all those years of playing kings and princes and speaking black verse, and bestriding the landscape of England was nothing but a preparation for sitting in the captain's chair of the Enterprise. — Patrick Stewart

People are fascinated by the rich: Shakespeare wrote plays about kings, not beggars. — Dominick Dunne