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Quotes by William Shakespeare

Greatest English dramatist & poet (1564 - 1616)

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.

To thine own self be true -; And it must follow as the night the day; Thou canst not be false to any man

All's well that ends well....

Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie.

There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.

When my love swears that she is made of truth, I do believe her, though I know she lies.

Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.

Love all, trust a few. Do wrong to none.

Life is 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 tall Tale, Told by an Idiot, full of Sound and Fury, Signifying nothing."

Not Hercules could have knock'd out his brains, for he had none.

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.

Have more than thou showest; Speak less than thou knowest.

Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice.

Neither a borrower nor a lender be; For loan oft loses both itself and friend; And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry [economy].

Costly thy habit [dress] as thy purse can buy; But not expressed in fancy - rich, not gaudy. For the apparel oft proclaims the man.

We are advertis'd by our loving friends.

Love sought is good, but giv'n unsought is better.

Go to your bosom; Knock there, and ask your heart what it doth know.

The better part of valor is discretion, in the which better part I have saved my life.

If all the year were playing holidays; To sport would be as tedious as to work.

I would fain die a dry death.

Now would I give a thousand furlongs of sea for an acre of barren ground.

What seest thou elseIn the dark backward and abysm of time?

I, thus neglecting worldly ends, all dedicated To closeness and the bettering of my mind.

Like one Who having into truth, by telling of it, Made such a sinner of his memory, To credit his own lie.

My library Was dukedom large enough.

Knowing I lov'd my books, he furnish'd me From mine own library with volumes that I prize above my dukedom.

From the still-vexed Bermoothes.

I will be correspondent to command, And do my spiriting gently.

Fill all thy bones with aches.

Come unto these yellow sands, And then take hands: Courtsied when you have, and kiss'd The wild waves whist.

Full fathom five thy father lies; Of his bones are coral made; Those are pearls that were his eyes: Nothing of him that doth fade But doth suffer a sea-change Into something rich and strange.

The fringed curtains of thine eye advance.

There's nothing ill can dwell in such a temple: If the ill spirit have so fair a house, Good things will strive to dwell with 't.

A very ancient and fish-like smell.

He that dies pays all debts.

A kind Of excellent dumb discourse.

Our revels now are ended. These our actors, As I foretold you, were all spirits, and Are melted into air, into thin air: And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff As dreams are made on; and our little life Is rounded with a sleep.

Where the bee sucks, there suck I; In a cowslip's bell I lie.

Merrily, merrily shall I live now, Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.

Home-keeping youth have ever homely wits.

I have no other but a woman's reason: I think him so, because I think him so.

O, how this spring of love resembleth The uncertain glory of an April day!

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

That man that hath a tongue, I say, is no man,If with his tongue he cannot win a woman.

How use doth breed a habit in a man!

Come not within the measure of my wrath.

I will make a Star-chamber matter of it.

It is a familiar beast to man, and signifies love.

If there be no great love in the beginning, yet heaven may decrease it upon better acquaintance, when we are married and have more occasion to know one another: I hope, upon familiarity will grow more contempt.

Thou art the Mars of malcontents.

Here will be an old abusing of God's patience and the king's English.

We burn daylight.

Why, then the world's mine oyster, Which I with sword will open.

This is the short and the long of it.

We have some salt of our youth in us.

I cannot tell what the dickens his name is.

Your hearts are mighty, your skins are whole.

This is the third time; I hope good luck lies in odd numbers.... There is divinity in odd numbers, either in nativity, chance, or death.

Our doubts are traitors, And make us lose the good we oft might win By fearing to attempt.

Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall.

The law hath not been dead, though it hath slept.

The hand that hath made you fair hath made you good.

Truth is truth To the end of reckoning.

They say, best men are moulded out of faults, And, for the most, become much more the better For being a little bad.

What's mine is yours, and what is yours is mine.

Small cheer and great welcome makes a merry feast.

He wears his faith but as the fashion of his hat.

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.

Silence is the perfectest herald of joy: I were but little happy, if I could say how much.

I thank God I am as honest as any man living that is an old man and no honester than I.

A man in all the world's new fashion planted, That hath a mint of phrases in his brain.

He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his argument.

They have been at a great feast of languages, and stolen the scraps.

A jest's prosperity lies in the ear Of him that hears it, never in the tongue Of him that makes it.

For aught that I could ever read,Could ever hear by tale or history,The course of true love never did run smooth.

Lord, what fools these mortals be!

When he is best, he is a little worse than a man; and when he is worst, he is little better than a beast.

I dote on his very absence.

My meaning in saying he is a good man, is to have you understand me that he is sufficient.

The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.

It is a wise father that knows his own child.

The little foolery that wise men have makes a great show.

Hereafter, in a better world than this, I shall desire more love and knowledge of you.

I met a fool i' the forest, A motley fool.

True is it that we have seen better days.

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...

The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.

No profit grows where is no pleasure ta'en; In brief, sir, study what you most affect.

No legacy is so rich as honesty.

Praising what is lost Makes the remembrance dear.

If music be the food of love, play on; Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting, The appetite may sicken, and so die. That strain again! it had a dying fall: O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound That breathes upon a bank of violets, Stealing and giving odour!

If this were played upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction.

What's gone and what's past help Should be past grief.

Life is as tedious as a twice-told tale Vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man.

This England never did, nor never shall, Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror.

This royal throne of kings, this sceptred 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.

If all the year were playing holidays, To sport would be as tedious as to work.

He hath eaten me out of house and home.

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more, Or close the wall up with our English dead! In peace there's nothing so becomes a man As modest stillness and humility; But when the blast of war blows in our ears, Then imitate the action of the tiger: Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood.

There is occasions and causes why and wherefore in all things.

The gaudy, blabbing, and remorseful day Is crept into the bosom of the sea.

And many strokes, though with a little axe, Hew down and fell the hardest-timbered oak.

An honest tale speeds best, being plainly told.

True hope is swift, and flies with swallow's wings; Kings it makes gods, and meaner creatures kings.

A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!

'T is better to be lowly born, And range with humble livers in content, Than to be perked up in a glistering grief, And wear a golden sorrow.

The end crowns all, And that old common arbitrator, Time, Will one day end it.

Sweet mercy is nobility's true badge.

But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.

O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?

What's in a name? That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet.

This bud of love, by summer's ripening breath, May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet.

Good night, good night! parting is such sweet sorrow, That I shall say good night till it be morrow.

A plague o' both your houses!

Every man has his fault, and honesty is his.

We have seen better days.

Beware the ides of March.

Let me have men about me that are fat, Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o' nights: Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look; He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.

But, for my own part, it was Greek to me.

Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once. Of all the wonders that I yet have heard, It seems to me most strange that men should fear; Seeing that death, a necessary end, Will come when it will come.

Et tu, Brute!

How many ages hence Shall this our lofty scene be acted over In states unborn and accents yet unknown!

Cry "Havoc," and let slip the dogs of war.

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears; I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones.

For Brutus is an honourable man; So are they all, all honourable men.

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.

And oftentimes, to win us to our harm, The instruments of darkness tell us truths, Win us with honest trifles, to betray's In deepest consequence.

Yet do I fear thy nature; It is too full o' the milk of human kindness.

Is this a dagger which I see before me, The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee. I have thee not, and yet I see thee still. Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible To feeling as to sight? or art thou but A dagger of the mind, a false creation, Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?

The attempt and not the deed Confounds us.

Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.

By the pricking of my thumbs,Something wicked this way comes. Open, locks, Whoever knocks!

Out, damned spot! out, I say!

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, 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. Out, out, brief candle! 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 taleTold by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.

Lay on, Macduff, And damn'd be him that first cries, "Hold, enough!"

A little more than kin, and less than kind.

Frailty, thy name is woman!

He was a man, take him for all in all, I shall not look upon his like again.

Beware Of entrance to a quarrel; but being in, Bear't that the opposed may beware of thee. Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice; Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment. Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy, But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy; For the apparel oft proclaims the man.

Neither a borrower nor a lender be; For loan oft loses both itself and friend, And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry. 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.

But to my mind, though I am native here And to the manner born, it is a custom More honoured in the breach than the observance.

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

Leave her to heaven And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge, To prick and sting her.

Every man has business and desire, Such as it is.

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

Brevity is the soul of wit.

Though this be madness, yet there is method in 't.

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 devil hath power To assume a pleasing shape.

The play's the thingWherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.

Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny. Get thee to a nunnery, go.

I have heard of your paintings too, well enough; God has given you one face, and you make yourselves another.

O, woe is me,To have seen what I have seen, see what I see!

The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

Hamlet: Do you see yonder cloud that's almost in shape of a camel?Polonius: By the mass, and 'tis like a camel, indeed.Hamlet: Methinks it is like a weasel. Polonius: It is backed like a weasel. Hamlet: Or like a whale? Polonius: Very like a whale.

O, my offence is rank, it smells to heaven;It hath the primal eldest curse upon 't, A brother's murder.

My words fly up, my thoughts remain below:Words without thoughts never to heaven go.

I must be cruel, only to be kind:Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind.

For 'tis the sport to have the engineerHoist with his own petard...

So full of artless jealousy is guilt,It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.

We know what we are, but know not what we may be.

A hit, a very palpable hit.

The rest is silence.

Now cracks a noble heart. Good night sweet prince:And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!

Although the last, not least.

Nothing will come of nothing.

How sharper than a serpent's tooth it isTo have a thankless child!

Oh, that way madness lies; let me shun that.

The worst is notSo long as we can say, "This is the worst."

Pray you now, forget and forgive.

The gods are just, and of our pleasant vicesMake instruments to plague us.

I will wear my heart upon my sleeveFor daws to peck at.

I am not merry; but I do beguileThe thing I am, by seeming otherwise.

Excellent wretch! Perdition catch my soul,But I do love thee! and when I love thee not, Chaos is come again.

Speak to me as to thy thinkings, As thou dost ruminate, and give thy worst of thoughts The worst of words.

Good name in man and woman, dear my lord, Is the immediate jewel of their souls: 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.

O, beware, my lord, of jealousy!It is the green-eyed monster which doth mockThe meat it feeds on.

He that is robb'd, not wanting what is stolen,Let him not know 't, and he's not robb'd at all.

O, now, for ever Farewell the tranquil mind! farewell content! Farewell the plumed troop and the big wars That make ambition virtue! O, farewell! Farewell the neighing steed and the shrill trump, The spirit-stirring drum, the ear-piercing fife, The royal banner, and all quality, Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war! And, O you mortal engines, whose rude throats The immortal Jove's dread clamours counterfeit, Farewell! Othello's occupation's gone!

I understand a fury in your words,But not the words.

'Tis neither here nor there.

My salad days,When I was green in judgment.

Small to greater matters must give way.

Age cannot wither her, nor custom staleHer infinite variety.

Since Cleopatra died, I have liv'd in such dishonour that the gods Detest my baseness.

I have Immortal longings in me.

The game is up.

No, 'tis slander, Whose edge is sharper than the sword, whose tongue Outvenoms all the worms of Nile, whose breath Rides on the posting winds, and doth belie All corners of the world.

I have not slept one wink.

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.

Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing.

Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments: love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds.

Cursed be he that moves my bones.

O, I am slain!

I like this place, and willingly would waste my time in it.

Be not afraid of greatness: some men are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them.

To be a well-flavored man is the gift of fortune, but to write or read comes by nature.

Oh God, that men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains!

Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once.

There's a divinity that shapes our ends, Rough-hew them how we will.

What a deformed thief this fashion is.

The more pity, that fools may not speak wisely what wise men do foolishly.

Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind; And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.

But love is blind and lovers cannot see The pretty follies that themselves commit; For if they could, Cupid himself would blush To see me thus transformed to a boy.

Though inclination be as sharp as will, My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent, And, like a man to double business bound, I stand in pause where I shall first begin, And both neglect.

Do not, for one repulse, forego the purpose that you resolved to effect.

In a false quarrel there is no true valour.

Strong reasons make strong actions.

Glory is like a circle in the water, Which never ceaseth to enlarge itself, Till by broad spreading it disperses to naught.

Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind.

When griping grief the heart doth wound, and doleful dumps the mind opresses, then music, with her silver sound, with speedy help doth lend redress.

See first that the design is wise and just: that ascertained, pursue it resolutely; do not for one repulse forego the purpose that you resolved to effect.

I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.

I feel within me a peace above all earthly dignities, a still and quiet conscience.

Sweet are the uses of adversity, which, like a toad, though ugly and venomous, wears yet a precious jewel in its head.

Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore, So do our minutes hasten to their end.

While thou livest keep a good tongue in thy head.

He is winding the watch of his wit; by and by it will strike.

You cram these words into mine ears against the stomach of my sense.

Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind.

Nothing emboldens sin so much as mercy.

Their understanding Begins to swell and the approaching tide Will shortly fill the reasonable shores That now lie foul and muddy.

We do not keep the outward form of order, where there is deep disorder in the mind.

How poor are they who have not patience! What wound did ever heal but by degrees.

Virtue and genuine graces in themselves speak what no words can utter.

Your face, my thane, is as a book where men May read strange matters...

Pity is the virtue of the law, and none but tyrants use it cruelly.

The soul of this man is in his clothes.

It is not enough to help the feeble up, but to support him after.

Ill deeds are doubled with an evil word.

Blow, blow, thou winter wind Thou art not so unkind, As man's ingratitude.

How use doth breed a habit in a man.

I wish you well and so I take my leave, I Pray you know me when we meet again.

Lady you bereft me of all words, Only my blood speaks to you in my veins, And there is such confusion in my powers.

Mine honour is my life; both grow in one; take honour from me and my life is done.

Praising what is lost makes the remembrance dear.

Thy words, I grant are bigger, for I wear not, my dagger in my mouth.

For they are yet ear-kissing arguments.

I must be cruel only to be kind; Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind.

Thou art all the comfort, The Gods will diet me with.

I pray thee cease thy counsel, Which falls into mine ears as profitless as water in a sieve.

Assume a virtue, if you have it not.

And thus I clothe my naked villainy With old odd ends, stol'n forth of holy writ; And seem a saint, when most I play the devil.

So may he rest, his faults lie gently on him!

His life was gentle; and the elements So mixed in him, that Nature might stand up, And say to all the world, THIS WAS A MAN!

When we are born, we cry, that we are come To this great stage of fools.

He who has injured thee was either stronger or weaker than thee. If weaker, spare him; if stronger, spare thyself.

I pray you bear me henceforth from the noise and rumour of the field, where I may think the remnant of my thoughts in peace, and part of this body and my soul with contemplation and devout desires.

Conversation should be pleasant without scurrility, witty without affectation, free without indecency, learned without conceitedness, novel without falsehood.

A wretched soul, bruised with adversity, We bid be quiet when we hear it cry; But were we burdened with like weight of pain, As much or more we should ourselves complain.

I am not bound to please thee with my answers.

Be great in act, as you have been in thought.

The peace of heaven is theirs that lift their swords, in such a just and charitable war.

I hate ingratitude more in a man than lying, vainness, babbling, drunkenness, or any taint of vice whose strong corruption inhabits our frail blood.

Thou shalt be both the plaintiff and the judge of thine own cause.

Free from gross passion or of mirth or anger constant in spirit, not swerving with the blood, garnish'd and deck'd in modest compliment, not working with the eye without the ear, and but in purged judgement trusting neither? Such and so finely bolted didst thou seem.

In peace there's nothing so becomes a man as modest stillness and humility.

I did never know so full a voice issue from so empty a heart: but the saying is true 'The empty vessel makes the greatest sound'.

The trust I have is in mine innocence, and therefore am I bold and resolute.

The sands are number'd that make up my life.

And since you know you cannot see yourself, so well as by reflection, I, your glass, will modestly discover to yourself, that of yourself which you yet know not of.

God bless thee; and put meekness in thy mind, love, charity, obedience, and true duty!

Courage mounteth with occasion.

I shall despair. There is no creature loves me; And if I die no soul will pity me: And wherefore should they, since that I myself Find in myself no pity to myself?

False face must hide what the false heart doth know.

In peace there's nothing so becomes a man As modest stillness and humility; But when the blast of war blows in our ears, Then imitate the action of the tiger: Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood.

Love goes toward love as schoolboys from their books; but love from look, toward school with heavy looks.

Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently. For in the very torrent, tempest, and as I may say, whirlwind of passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness.

Things won are done; joy's soul lies in the doing.

What the great ones do, the less will prattle of

Let the coming hour overflow with joy, and let pleasure drown the brim.

Our bodies are our gardens to which our wills are gardeners.

He that commends me to mine own content Commends me to the thing I cannot get.

O, it is excellent to have a giant's strength; but it is tyrannous to use it like a giant.

Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind.

O that a man might know the end of this day's business ere it come!

I do begin to have bloody thoughts.

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

Come what come may, Time and the hour runs through the roughest day.

There was a star danced, and under that was I born.

If Love be rough with you, be rough with Love, prick Love for pricking, and you beat Love down.

But no perfection is so absolute, That some impurity doth not pollute.

My tongue will tell the anger of mine heart, Or else my heart, concealing it, will break.

He that is giddy thinks the world turns round.

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

Simply the thing that I am shall make me live.

Things are neither good nor bad but thinking makes it so.

Love is a gross exaggeration of the difference between one person and everyone else.

Action is eloquence.

All the world's a stage, and all the men and women are merely players.

I must be cruel, only to be kind.

Love looks not with thine eyes, but with thine mind, Therefore is win'd Cupid painted blind.

Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds.

I wasted time, now time doth waste me.

If rough be love with you, be rough with love.

No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity, but I know none, therefore am no beast.

The course of true love was never easy.

When sorrows come, they come not single spies, But in battalions.

Love comforteth like sunshine after rain.

Life is a tale told by an idiot -- full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

I am wealthy in my friends.

For Orpheus' lute was strung with poets' sinews, Whose golden touch could soften steel and stones, Make tigers tame, and huge leviathans Forsake unsounded deeps to dance on sands.

Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs, Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers’ eyes, Being vexed, a sea nourished with lovers’ tears. What is it else? A madness most discreet, A choking gall and a preserving sweet.

When lenity and cruelty play for a kingdom, the gentler gamester is the soonest winner.

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

How my achievements mock me!

Though I am not naturally honest, I am so sometimes by chance.

At Christmas I no more desire a rose Than wish a snow in May's new-fangled mirth; But like of each thing that in season grows.

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.

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.

It is meant that noble minds keep ever with their likes; for who so firm that cannot be seduced.

Oft expectation fails, and most oft where most it promises; and oft it hits where hope is coldest; and despair most sits.

In time we hate that which we often fear.

He is not great who is not greatly good.

Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind; the thief doth fear each bush an officer.

There is a history in all men's lives.

It is the mind that makes the body rich; and as the sun breaks through the darkest clouds, so honor peereth in the meanest habit.

Those that are good manners at the court are as ridiculous in the country, as the behavior of the country is most mockable at the court.

My words fly up, my thoughts remain below.Words without thoughts never to heaven go.

Each present joy or sorrow seems the chief.

In false quarrels there is no true valor.

Our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything.

Gold is worse poison to a man's soul, doing more murders in this loathsome world, than any mortal drug.

It is a kind of good deed to say well; and yet words are not deeds.

We know what we are, but not what we may be.

I had rather have a fool make me merry, than experience make me sad.