Sad Shakespeare Quotes & Sayings

For the first time in ten years, the March family gathered to perform the Twelfth Night Revels for the village of Blessingstoke, just as they had done in Master Shakespeare's day. The dragon breathed fire while the Turkish Knight brandished his sword at St. George, and when it was finished, the resurrected saint and his sad dragon stood in tableau while the white-robed chorus, of which Portia and I made two, sang of the blood-berried holly and the sweetly clinging ivy. Rather like Brisbane and myself, I thought fancifully. Both evergreen and hardy, one sturdy, one tenacious, and forever undivided. But now there was a new little branch grafted to our union. — Deanna Raybourn

I think," said antonio , "that the world is astage. Everybody has a part to play , and my part is sad part . — William Shakespeare

SONNET 57
Being your slave, what should I do but tend
Upon the hours and times of your desire?
I have no precious time at all to spend,
Nor services to do, till you require.
Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour
Whilst I, my sovereign, watch the clock for you,
Nor think the bitterness of absence sour
When you have bid your servant once adieu;
Nor dare I question with my jealous thought
Where you may be, or your affairs suppose,
But, like a sad slave, stay and think of nought
Save, where you are how happy you make those.
So true a fool is love that in your will,
Though you do any thing, he thinks no ill. — William Shakespeare

A traveler. By my faith, you have great reason to be sad. I fear you have sold your own lands to see other men's. Then to have seen much and to have nothing is to have rich eyes and poor hands. — William Shakespeare

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

The instruments of darkness tell us truths ... — William Shakespeare

All things that we ordained festival,
Turn from their office to black funeral;
Our instruments to melancholy bells,
Our wedding cheer to a sad burial feast,
Our solemn hymns to sullen dirges change,
Our bridal flowers serve for a buried corse,
And all things change them to the contrary. — William Shakespeare

Whats here a cup closed in my true loves hand poisin i see hath been his timeless end. oh churl drunk all and left no friendly drop to help me after. i will kiss thy lips some poisin doth hang on them, to help me die with a restorative. thy lips are warm.
yea noise then ill be brief oh happy dagger this is thy sheath. there rust and let me die. — William Shakespeare

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

The weight of this sad world, we must obey,
what we feel we must not say — William Shakespeare

Prince, thou art
sad. Get thee a wife, get thee a wife. There is no staff more
reverend than one tipped with horn. — William Shakespeare

The sad fact is that I love Dickens and Donne and Keats and Eliot and Forster and Conrad and Fitzgerald and Kafka and Wilde and Orwell and Waugh and Marvell and Greene and Sterne and Shakespeare and Webster and Swift and Yeats and Joyce and Hardy, really, really love them. It's just that they don't love me back. — David Nicholls

Was there ever such stuff as great as part of Shakespeare? Only one must not say so! But what think you? - What? - Is there not sad stuff? What? - What? — George III

30 When to the sessions of sweet silent thought I summon up remembrance of things past, I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought, And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste; Then can I drown an eye (unus'd to flow) For precious friends hid in death's dateless night, And weep afresh love's long since cancell'd woe, And moan th' expense of many a vanish'd sight; Then can I grieve at grievances foregone, And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan, Which I new pay as if not paid before: But if the while I think on thee, dear friend, All losses are restor'd, and sorrows end. — 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

O call not me to justify the wrong, That thy unkindness lays upon my heart, Wound me not with thine eye but with thy tongue, Use power with power, and slay me not by art, ... — William Shakespeare

ROSALIND (AS GANYMEDE): And your experience makes you sad. I had rather have a fool to make me merry than experience to make me sad
and to travel for it to. — William Shakespeare

Feste. Are you ready, sir?

Orsino. Ay; prithee, sing.
[Music] 945
SONG.

Feste. Come away, come away, death,
And in sad cypress let me be laid;
Fly away, fly away breath;
I am slain by a fair cruel maid. 950
My shroud of white, stuck all with yew,
O, prepare it!
My part of death, no one so true
Did share it.
Not a flower, not a flower sweet 955
On my black coffin let there be strown;
Not a friend, not a friend greet
My poor corpse, where my bones shall be thrown:
A thousand thousand sighs to save,
Lay me, O, where 960
Sad true lover never find my grave,
To weep there!
Orsino. There's for thy pains.
Feste. No pains, sir: I take pleasure in singing, sir.

Orsino. I'll pay thy pleasure then. 965

Feste. Truly, sir, and pleasure will be paid, one time or another.

From Twelfth Night, Act II, Scene 4. — William Shakespeare

The weight of this sad time we must obey,
Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.
The oldest hath borne most: we that are young
Shall never see so much, nor live so long. — William Shakespeare

It were a grief so brief to part with thee.
Farewell. — William Shakespeare

Aye me sad hours seem long — William Shakespeare

There's little of the melancholy element in her, my lord: she is never sad but when she sleeps; and not ever sad then; for I have heard my daughter say, she hath often dreamt of unhappiness, and waked herself with laughing. — William Shakespeare

I was sorry to have my name mentioned as one of the great authors, because they have a sad habit of dying off. Chaucer is dead, Spencer is dead, so is Milton, so is Shakespeare, and I'm not feeling so well myself. — Mark Twain

true apothecary thy drugs art quick — William Shakespeare

What's making you sad and your hours so long?
- Not having the thing that makes them short. — William Shakespeare

My death's sad tale may yet undeaf his ear. — William Shakespeare

There's very little authentic study of the humanities remaining. My research assistant came to me two years ago saying she'd been in a seminar in which the teacher spent two hours saying that Walt Whitman was a racist. This isn't even good nonsense. It's insufferable. — Harold Bloom

These are sad days in literature. Homer is dead. Shakespeare is dead. And I myself am not feeling at all well. — Mark Twain

But the Grateful Dead, as the fanatic fans point out, are a way of life: someone else's. Twentieth-century teenagers, especially American ones, have been brilliant at creating their own culture, their own music, clothes, and point(s) of view. It's sad and fraudulent that the kind of wholesale worship of some historical way of life has settled over so many young people, infecting them like a noxious gas ... I love the dead
grew up in the thrall of Shakespeare and Hank Williams and James Dean. And I adore the Rolling Stones. But there's a difference between cherishing "Satisfaction" and wearing Keith Richards' hair while doing Keith Richards' drugs. I don't want to be Keith Richards. I wanna be me. Not
like the neo-Deadheads
just another extra in an overblown costume drama about something that wasn't that interesting the first time around. — Sarah Vowell

Then the liars and swearers are fools, for there are liars and swearers enough to beat the honest men and hang up them. — William Shakespeare

I want to be William Shakespeare and Galileo and Robert Frost. I want to be Sappho. I want to be Jane Austen. I want to be Holden Caulfield and Marilyn Monroe and Joan of Arc. I'm sad to think they came before me in history, they made their mark without me.
But they were there.
They happened. — Brenna Yovanoff

These times of woe afford no time to woo. — William Shakespeare

I think it's sad that movies and television have caused the theatre to fade as a popular art form. I hope to get young people into the theatre and expose them to Shakespeare. — Kelly McGillis

Thou art as tyrannous, so as thou art, As those whose beauties proudly make them cruel; For well thou know'st to my dear doting heart Thou art the fairest and most precious jewel. — William Shakespeare

If I could describe myself, I'd say that I am a poetic gerd. (A geek and nerd combo) I love Shakespeare and romance, but sci-fi and action have a big slice of my heart. When I meet a man who can quote some Hitchcock out of thin air, do a perfect 'Timey Whimey' impression, play me some classic rock when I'm sad and can give a 'Gone with the Wind' kiss, I will have my soul mate. — Melanie Kay Taylor

Tis torture, and not mercy. Heaven is here Where Juliet lives, and every cat and dog And little mouse, every unworthy thing, Live here in heaven and may look on her, But Romeo may not. — William Shakespeare

I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano; A stage where every man must play a part, And mine is a sad one. — William Shakespeare

Ay me! sad hours seem long. — William Shakespeare

Let not the world see fear and sad distrust govern the motion of a kingly eye. — William Shakespeare

Come away, come away, Death,
And in sad cypress let me be laid;
Fly away, fly away, breath,
I am slain by a fair cruel maid.
My shroud of white stuck all with yew, O prepare it!
My part of death no one so true did share it.
Not a flower, not a flower sweet,
On my black coffin let there be strewn:
Not a friend, not a friend greet
My poor corpse, where my bones shall be thrown.
A thousand thousand sighs to save, lay me O where
Sad true lover never find my grave, to weep there! — William Shakespeare

Alas, that love, so gentle in his view,
Should be so tyrannous and rough in proof!
*It's sad. Love looks like a nice thing, but it's actually very rough when you experience it.* — William Shakespeare

Beshrew that heart that makes my heart to groan For that deep wound it gives my friend and me; Is't not enough to torture me alone, But slave to slavery my sweet'st friend must be? ... — William Shakespeare

Come,
Let's have one other gaudy night. Call to me
All my sad captains. Fill our bowls once more.
Let's mock the midnight bell. — William Shakespeare

This passion, and the death of a dear friend, would go near to make a man look sad. — William Shakespeare

What sad, short lives humans live! Each life a short pamphlet written by an idiot! Tut-tut, and all that. — Stephen King

In sooth I know not why I am so sad.
It wearies me, you say it wearies you;
But how I caught it, found it, or came by it,
What stuff 'tis made of, whereof it is born,
I am to learn; ... — William Shakespeare

But there stands the sword of my ancestor Sir Richard Vernon, slain at Shrewsbury, and sorely slandered by a sad fellow called Will Shakspeare, whose Lancastrian partialities, and a certain knack at embodying them, has turned history upside down, or rather inside out. — Walter Scott

David: And you think it can just evaporate? Even if at one time they loved one another?
Marx: That's one of the sad truths of existence. Nothing in this world is permanent. Even the characters created by the great Shakespeare will, in millions of years, cease to exist - when the universe runs its course and the lights go out. — Woody Allen

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

If you find him sad, say I am dancing. If in mirth, report that I am sudden sick. — William Shakespeare

I had rather have a fool to make me merry than experience to make me sad and to travel for it too! — William Shakespeare

A sad tale's best for winter. I have one of sprites and goblins. — William Shakespeare

Was there ever such thing as great Shakespeare? Only one must not say so! But what think you - what - was there not sad stuff? — George III

When King Lear dies in Act V, do you know what Shakespeare has written? He's written "He dies." That's all, nothing more. No fanfare, no metaphor, no brilliant final words. The culmination of the most influential work of dramatic literature is "He dies." It takes Shakespeare, a genius, to come up with "He dies." And yet every time I read those two words, I find myself overwhelmed with dysphoria. And I know it's only natural to be sad, but not because of the words "He dies." but because of the life we saw prior to the words. — Suzanne Weyn

Sonnet CVII

Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul
Of the wide world, dreaming on things to come,
Can yet the lease of my true love control,
Suppos'd as forfeit to a confin'd doom.
The mortal moon hath her eclipse endur'd,
And the sad augurs mock their own presage;
Incertainties now crown themselves assur'd,
And peace proclaims olives of endless age.
Now with the drops of this most balmy time
My love looks fresh, and Death to me subscribes,
Since, spite of him, I'll live in this poor rhyme,
While he insults o'er dull and speechless tribes:
And thou in this shalt find thy monument,
When tyrants' crests and tombs of brass are spent. — William Shakespeare

N sooth, I know not why I am so sad:
It wearies me; you say it wearies you;
But how I caught it, found it, or came by it,
What stuff 'tis made of, whereof it is born,
I am to learn;
And such a want-wit sadness makes of me,
That I have much ado to know myself. — William Shakespeare

Yet but three come one more.
Two of both kinds make up four.
Ere she comes curst and sad.
Cupid is a knavish lad.
Thus to make poor females mad. — William Shakespeare

So now I have confessed that he is thine, And I my self am mortgaged to thy will, My self I'll forfeit, so that other mine, Thou wilt restore to be my comfort still. — William Shakespeare

You are my true and honourable wife;
As dear to me as the ruddy drops
That visit my sad heart. — William Shakespeare