William Shakespeare: Quotes

  • Action
    Action is eloquence.Shakespeare: Coriolanus
  • Action
    If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches and poor men's cottages princes' palaces.Shakespeare: The Merchant of Venice
  • Adolescence
    I would there were no age between sixteen and three-and-twenty, or that youth would sleep out the rest; for there is nothing in the between but getting wenches with child, wronging the ancientry, stealing, fighting.Shakespeare: The Winter's Tale
  • Adversity
    Sweet are the uses of adversity,
    Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
    Wears yet a precious jewel in his head.
    Shakespeare: As You Like It
  • Age and Aging
    Last scene of all,
    That ends this strange eventful history,
    Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
    Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans every thing.
    Shakespeare: As You Like It
  • Age and Aging
    When the age is in, the wit is out.Shakespeare: Much Ado About Nothing
  • Ambition
    Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself
    And falls on the other [side].
    Shakespeare: Macbeth
  • Ambition
    When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept:
    Ambition should be made of sterner stuff.
    Shakespeare: Julius Caesar
  • Animals
    A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!Shakespeare: Richard III
  • Betrayal
    Et tu, Brute!Shakespeare: Julius Caesar
  • Birth
    When we are born, we cry that we are come
    To this great stage of fools.
    Shakespeare: King Lear
  • Borrowing and Lending
    Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
    For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
    And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
    Shakespeare: Hamlet
  • Brevity
    Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit,
    And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes,
    I will be brief.
    Shakespeare: Hamlet
  • Children and Childhood
    How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is
    To have a thankless child!
    Shakespeare: King Lear
  • Choice
    There's small choice in rotten apples.Shakespeare: The Taming of the Shrew
  • Clothing
    Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
    But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy;
    For the apparel oft proclaims the man.
    Shakespeare: Hamlet
  • Conceit, Egotism, and Vanity
    Self-love, my liege, is not so vile a sin
    As self-neglecting.
    Shakespeare: Henry V
  • Conscience
    Thus conscience does make cowards of us all.Shakespeare: Hamlet
  • Conscience
    Conscience is but a word that cowards use,
    Devised at first to keep the strong in awe.
    Shakespeare: Richard III
  • Courage
    But screw your courage to the sticking-place,
    And we'll not fail.
    Shakespeare: Macbeth
  • Courage
    Courage mounteth with occasion.Shakespeare: King John
  • Cowardice
    Cowards die many times before their deaths;
    The valiant never taste of death but once.
    Shakespeare: Julius Caesar
  • Crime
    The robb'd that smiles steals something from the thief.Shakespeare: Othello
  • Custom and Tradition
    But to my mind, though I am native here
    And to the manner born, it is a custom
    More honor'd in the breach than the observance.
    Shakespeare: Hamlet
  • Danger
    Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.Shakespeare: Henry IV, Part I
  • Disappointment
    Oft expectation fails and most oft there
    Where most it promises, and oft it hits
    Where hope is coldest and despair most fits.
    Shakespeare: All's Well That Ends Well
  • Doubt and Skepticism
    Modest doubt is call'd
    The beacon of the wise.
    Shakespeare: Troilus and Cressida
  • Doubt and Skepticism
    Our doubts are traitors
    And make us lose the good we oft might win
    By fearing to attempt.
    Shakespeare: Measure for Measure
  • England and the English
    This royal throne of kings, this scepter'd 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, . . .
    This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.
    Shakespeare: Richard II
  • Excess
    They are as sick that surfeit with too much as they that starve with nothing.Shakespeare: The Merchant of Venice
  • Excess
    To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,
    To throw a perfume on the violet,
    To smooth the ice, or add another hue
    Unto the rainbow, or with taper light
    To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish,
    Is wasteful and ridiculous excess.
    Shakespeare: King John
  • Excuses
    And oftentimes excusing of a fault
    Doth make the fault the worse by the excuse.
    Shakespeare: King John
  • Faithfulness and Loyalty
    O heaven! were man
    But constant, he were perfect.
    Shakespeare: The Two Gentlemen of Verona
  • Familiarity
    Sweets grown common lose their dear delight.Shakespeare: Sonnet CII
  • Fashion
    The fashion wears out more apparel than the man.Shakespeare: Much Ado About Nothing
  • Fate
    Men at some time are masters of their fates:
    The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
    But in ourselves, that we are underlings.
    Shakespeare: Julius Caesar
  • Faults and Weaknesses
    They say, best men are moulded out of faults;
    And, for the most, become much more the better
    For being a little bad.
    Shakespeare: Measure for Measure
  • Fear
    Present fears
    Are less than horrible imaginings.
    Shakespeare: Macbeth
  • Fear
    When our actions do not,
    Our fears do make us traitors.
    Shakespeare: Macbeth
  • Fools and Foolishness
    Lord, what fools these mortals be!Shakespeare: A Midsummer Night's Dream
  • Fools and Foolishness
    The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.Shakespeare: As You Like It
  • Generations
    Crabbed age and youth cannot live together:
    Youth is full of pleasance, age is full of care.
    Shakespeare: The Passionate Pilgrim
  • Gifts and Giving
    For to the noble mind
    Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind.
    Shakespeare: Hamlet
  • Glory
    Glory is like a circle in the water,
    Which never ceaseth to enlarge itself
    Till by broad spreading it disperse to nought.
    Shakespeare: Henry VI, Part I
  • God
    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.
    Shakespeare: Henry VIII
  • Goodness
    How far that little candle throws his beams!
    So shines a good deed in a naughty world.
    Shakespeare: The Merchant of Venice
  • Greatness
    But be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatnessand some have greatness thrust upon 'em.Shakespeare: Twelfth Night
  • Guilt
    Here's the smell of the blood still: all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.Shakespeare: Macbeth
  • Guilt
    So full of artless jealousy is guilt,
    It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.
    Shakespeare: Hamlet
  • Guilt
    The lady doth protest too much, methinks.Shakespeare: Hamlet
  • Happiness
    I were but little happy, if I could say how much.Shakespeare: Much Ado About Nothing
  • Haste
    If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well
    It were done quickly.
    Shakespeare: Macbeth
  • Haste
    Wisely and slow; they stumble that run fast.Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet
  • Haste
    Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow.Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet
  • Hatred and Dislike
    I do desire we may be better strangers.Shakespeare: As You Like It
  • Help
    'Tis not enough to help the feeble up,
    But to support him after.
    Shakespeare: Timon of Athens
  • Honesty
    Ay, sir; to be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of ten thousand.Shakespeare: Hamlet
  • Honor
    Set honorin one eye and death i' the other
    And I will look on both indifferently;
    For let the gods so speed me as I love
    The name of honor more than I fear death.
    Shakespeare: Julius Caesar
  • Hospitality
    A hundred thousand welcomes. I could weep
    And I could laugh, I am light and heavy.
    Welcome.
    Shakespeare: Coriolanus
  • Hospitality
    Unbidden guests
    Are often welcomest when they are gone.
    Shakespeare: Henry VI, Part I
  • Humans and Human Nature
    We are such stuff
    As dreams are made on, and our little life
    Is rounded with a sleep.
    Shakespeare: The Tempest
  • Humans and Human Nature
    How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,
    That has such people in 't!
    Shakespeare: The Tempest
  • Hypocrisy
    One may smile, and smile, and be a villain.Shakespeare: Hamlet
  • Imagination
    The lunatic, the lover and the poet
    Are of imagination all compact.
    Shakespeare: A Midsummer Night's Dream
  • Infidelity
    Die for adultery! No:
    The wren goes to't, and the small gilded fly
    Does lecher in my sight.
    Shakespeare: King Lear
  • Inspiration
    O! for a Muse of fire, that would ascend
    The brightest heaven of invention!
    Shakespeare: Henry V
  • Jealousy and Envy
    Trifles light as air
    Are to the jealous confirmations strong
    As proofs of holy writ.
    Shakespeare: Othello
  • Jealousy and Envy
    O! beware, my lord, of jealousy;
    It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock
    The meat it feeds on.
    Shakespeare: Othello
  • Justice
    Use every man after his desert, and who should 'scape whipping?Shakespeare: Hamlet
  • Laughter and Smiles
    There's daggers in men's smiles.Shakespeare: Macbeth
  • Law and Lawyers
    The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.Shakespeare: Henry VI, Part II
  • Leaders and Rulers
    Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.Shakespeare: Henry IV, Part II
  • Leisure
    If all the year were playing holidays,
    To sport would be as tedious as to work.
    Shakespeare: Henry IV, Part I
  • Life
    Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
    That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
    And then is heard no more: it is a tale
    Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
    Signifying nothing.
    Shakespeare: Macbeth
  • Life
    Life is as tedious as a twice-told tale
    Vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man.
    Shakespeare: King John
  • Life
    All the world's a stage,
    And all the men and women merely players;
    They have their exits and their entrances;
    And one man in his time plays many parts,
    His acts being seven ages.
    Shakespeare: As You Like It
  • Loss
     Wise men ne'er sit and wail their loss,
    But cheerly seek how to redress their harms.
    Shakespeare: Henry VI, Part III
  • Loss
    He that is robb'd, not wanting what is stol'n,
    Let him not know't, and he's not robb'd at all.
    Shakespeare: Othello
  • Loss
    Praising what is lost
    Makes the remembrance dear.
    Shakespeare: All's Well That Ends Well
  • Love
    Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
    Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
    Shakespeare: Sonnet XVIII
  • Love
    Let me not to the marriage of true minds
    Admit impediments. Love is not love
    Which alters when it alteration finds
    Or bends with the remover to remove.
    O, no! it is an ever-fixèd mark
    That looks on tempests and is never shaken.
    Shakespeare: Sonnet XVI
  • Love
    The course of true love never did run smooth.Shakespeare: A Midsummer Night's Dream
  • Love
    If thou remember'st not the slightest folly
    That ever love did make thee run into,
    Thou hast not loved.
    Shakespeare: As You Like It
  • Men
    Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more,
     Men were deceivers ever,
    One foot in sea and one on shore,
     To one thing constant never.
    Shakespeare: Much Ado About Nothing
  • Men
    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? man delights not me—no, nor women neither.Shakespeare: Hamlet
  • Men
    His life was gentle, and the elements
    So mix'd in him that Nature might stand up
    And say to all the world, “This was a man!”
    Shakespeare: Julius Caesar
  • Mental Illness
    Though this be madness, yet there is method in't.Shakespeare: Hamlet
  • Mental Illness
    I am but mad north-north-west: when the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw.Shakespeare: Hamlet
  • Mercy and Compassion
    Nothing emboldens sin so much as mercy.Shakespeare: Timon of Athens
  • Mercy and Compassion
    The quality of mercy is not strain'd,
    It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
    Upon the place beneath: it is twice bless'd;
    It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
    Shakespeare: The Merchant of Venice
  • Military
    Then a soldier,
    Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
    Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel,
    Seeking the bubble reputation
    Even in the cannon's mouth.
    Shakespeare: As You Like It
  • Music
     If music be the food of love, play on;
    Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
     The appetite may sicken, and so die.
    Shakespeare: Twelfth Night
  • Music
    Is it not strange that sheeps' guts should hale souls out of men's bodies?Shakespeare: Much Ado About Nothing
  • Names
    What's in a name? that which we call a rose
     By any other name would smell as sweet.
    Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet
  • Nature
    One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.Shakespeare: Troilus and Cressida
  • Necessity
    Teach thy necessity to reason thus;
    There is no virtue like necessity.
    Shakespeare: Richard II
  • News and Newspapers
    The nature of bad news infects the teller.Shakespeare: Antony and Cleopatra
  • Opportunity
    There is a tide in the affairs of men,
    Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
    Omitted, all the voyage of their life
    Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
    Shakespeare: Julius Caesar
  • Pain and Suffering
    For there was never yet philosopher
    That could endure the toothache patiently.
    Shakespeare: Much Ado About Nothing
  • Parents and Parenthood
    It is a wise father that knows his own child.Shakespeare: The Merchant of Venice
  • Parting
    Good night, good night! parting is such sweet sorrow,
    That I shall say good nighttill it be morrow.
    Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet
  • Passion
    Give me that man
    That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him
    In my heart's core, ay, in my heart of heart,
    As I do thee.
    Shakespeare: Hamlet
  • Patience
    How poor are they that have not patience!
    What wound did ever heal but by degrees?
    Shakespeare: Othello
  • Possessions and Property
    For it so falls out
    That what we have we prize not to the worth
    Whiles we enjoy it, but being lack'd and lost,
    Why, then we rack the value, then we find
    The virtue that possession would not show us
    Whiles it was ours.
    Shakespeare: Much Ado About Nothing
  • Praise and Flattery
    I will praise any man that will praise me.Shakespeare: Antony and Cleopatra
  • Praise and Flattery
    But when I tell him he hates flatterers,
    He says he does, being then most flattered.
    Shakespeare: Julius Caesar
  • Prayer
    My words fly up, my thoughts remain below:
    Words without thoughts never to heaven go.
    Shakespeare: Hamlet
  • Providence
    There's a divinity that shapes our ends,
    Rough-hew them how we will.
    Shakespeare: Hamlet
  • Prudence and Foresight
    The better part of valor is discretion.Shakespeare: Henry IV, Part I
  • Regret
    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.
    Shakespeare: Sonnet XXX
  • Reputation
    Reputation is an idle and most false imposition; oft got without merit, and lost without deserving.Shakespeare: Othello
  • Reputation
    Men's evil manners live in brass; their virtues
    We write in water.
    Shakespeare: Henry VIII
  • Reputation
    Who steals my purse steals trash; 'tis something, nothing;
    'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands;
    But he that filches from me my good name
    Robs me of that which not enriches him
    And makes me poor indeed.
    Shakespeare: Othello
  • Rest
    Our foster-nurse of nature is repose.Shakespeare: King Lear
  • Revenge
    Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot
    That it do singe yourself.
    Shakespeare: Henry VIII
  • Rich and Poor
    Through tatter'd clothes small vices do appear;
    Robes and furr'd gowns hide all.
    Shakespeare: King Lear
  • Sex
    Is it not strange that desire should so many years outlive performance?Shakespeare: Henry IV, Part II
  • Sleep
    Methought I heard a voice cry “Sleep no more!
    Macbeth does murder sleep,” the innocent sleep,
    Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleave of care,
    The death of each day's life, sore labor's bath,
    Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,
    Chief nourisher in life's feast.
    Shakespeare: Macbeth
  • Society
    Society is no comfort
    To one not sociable.
    Shakespeare: Cymbeline
  • Sorrow
    When sorrows come, they come not single spies,
    But in battalions.
    Shakespeare: Hamlet
  • Strength
    It is excellent
    To have a giant's strength; but it is tyrannous
    To use it like a giant.
    Shakespeare: Measure for Measure
  • Suicide
    To be, or not to be: that is the question:
    Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
    The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
    Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
    And by opposing end them?
    Shakespeare: Hamlet
  • Taste
    The play, I remember, pleased not the million; 'twas caviar to the general.Shakespeare: Hamlet
  • The Bible
    The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.Shakespeare: The Merchant of Venice
  • The Devil
      The spirit that I have seen
    May be the devil: and the devil hath power
    To assume a pleasing shape.
    Shakespeare: Hamlet
  • The Past
    What's past is prologue.Shakespeare: The Tempest
  • The Present
    Past and to come seems best; things present worst.Shakespeare: Henry IV, Part II
  • The Self
    This above all: to thine own self be true,
    And it must follow, as the night the day,
    Thou canst not then be false to any man.
    Shakespeare: Hamlet
  • The Self
    Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie,
    Whichwe ascribe to heaven.
    Shakespeare: All's Well That Ends Well
  • The Supernatural
    There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
    Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
    Shakespeare: Hamlet
  • Theater and Film, Actors and Acting
    The play's the thing
    Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.
    Shakespeare: Hamlet
  • Theater and Film, Actors and Acting
    Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue: but if you mouth it, as many of your players do, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines.Shakespeare: Hamlet
  • Thought
    There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.Shakespeare: Hamlet
  • Thought
    Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look;
    He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.
    Shakespeare: Julius Caesar
  • Time
    Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
    Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
    To the last syllable of recorded time,
    And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
    The way to dusty death.
    Shakespeare: Macbeth
  • Time
    Come what come may
    Time and the hour runs through the roughest day.
    Shakespeare: Macbeth
  • Times of Day
    'Tis now the very witching time of night,
    When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out
    Contagion to this world.
    Shakespeare: Hamlet
  • Unhappiness
    Misery acquaints a man with strange bed-fellows.Shakespeare: The Tempest
  • Vice and Sin
    There is no vice so simple but assumes
    Some mark of virtue on his outward parts.
    Shakespeare: The Merchant of Venice
  • Vice and Sin
    The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices
    Make instruments to plague us.
    Shakespeare: King Lear
  • Virtue
    So our virtues
    Lie in the interpretation of the time.
    Shakespeare: Coriolanus
  • Women
    Frailty, thy name is woman!Shakespeare: Hamlet
  • Women
    Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale
    Her infinite variety: other women cloy
    The appetites they feed; but she makes hungry
    Where most she satisfies.
    Shakespeare: Antony and Cleopatra