William Shakespeare Quotes

He that is proud eats up himself: pride is his own glass, his own trumpet, his own chronicle.

~ William Shakespeare

. . . I will not be sworn, but love may trans-form me to an oyster, but, I’ll take my oath on it, till hehave made an oyster of me, he shall never make me sucha fool.

~ William Shakespeare

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

~ William Shakespeare

She moves me not, or not removes at least affection's edge in me.

~ William Shakespeare

Our reasons are not prophets When oft our fancies are.

~ William Shakespeare

Were such things here as we do speak about?Or have we eaten on the insane rootThat takes the reason prisoner?

~ William Shakespeare

... and yet, to say the truth, reason and love keep little company together now-a-days...

~ William Shakespeare

... reason andlove keep little company together now-a-days...

~ William Shakespeare

The expedition of my violent love outrun the pauser, reason.

~ William Shakespeare

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks within his bending sickle's compass come.

~ William Shakespeare

In faith, I do not love thee with mine eyes,For they in thee a thousand errors note; But 'tis my heart that loves what they despise,Who in despite of view is pleased to dote

~ William Shakespeare

But thought’s the slave of life, and life time’s fool;And time, that takes survey of all the world,Must have a stop. O, I could prophesy,But that the earthy and cold hand of deathLies on my tongue

~ William Shakespeare

The time approachesThat will with due decision make us knowWhat we shall say we have and what we owe.Thoughts speculative their unsure hopes relate,But certain issue strokes must arbitrate;Towards which, advance th

~ William Shakespeare

What if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord?Or to the dreadful summit of the cliffThat beetles o'er his base into the sea,And there assume some other horrible formWhich might deprive your sovereignty of reasonAnd draw you into madness? Think of it.[The very place puts toys of desperation,Without more motive, into every brainThat looks so many fathoms to the seaAnd hears it roar beneath.]

~ William Shakespeare

The skies are painted with unnumber'd sparks,They are all fire and every one doth shine

~ William Shakespeare

There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'stBut in his motion like an angel sings,Still quiring [making music] to the young-eyed cherubins; Such harmony is in immortal souls,But whilst this muddy vesture of decayDoth grossly close us in, we cannot hear it.

~ William Shakespeare

Care keeps his watch in every old man’s eye,And where care lodges, sleep will never lie.

~ William Shakespeare

O Mistress mine, where are you roaming?O, stay and hear; your true love's coming,That can sing both high and low:Trip no further, pretty sweeting;Journeys end in lovers meeting,Every wise man's son doth know.What is love? 'Tis not hereafter;Present mirth hath present laughter;What's to come is still unsure:In delay there lies not plenty;Then, come kiss me, sweet and twenty,Youth's a stuff will not endure.

~ William Shakespeare

If I were to kiss you then go to hell, I would. So then I can brag with the devils I saw heaven without ever entering it.

~ 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

Be bloody, bold, and resolute. Laugh to scornThe power of man, for none of woman bornShall harm Macbeth.

~ William Shakespeare

To be thus is nothing, but to be safely thus...

~ William Shakespeare

Sometime [Queen Mab] driveth o'er a soldier's neck, And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats,Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades,Of healths five fathom deep; and then anonDrums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes,And being thus frighted, swears a prayer or twoAnd sleeps again

~ William Shakespeare

Love is not loveWhich alters when it alteration finds,Or bends with the remover to remove.O no, it is an ever-fixed markThat looks on tempests and is never shaken;It is the star to every wand'ring bark,Whose worth's unknown, although his height be t

~ William Shakespeare

Sleep that knits up the raveled 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.

~ William Shakespeare

Shake off this downy sleep, death’s counterfeit,And look on death itself!

~ William Shakespeare

What, all so soon asleep! I wish mine eyesWould, with themselves, shut up my thoughts...

~ William Shakespeare

Thy best of rest is sleep,And that thou oft provok'st; yet grossly fear'stThy death, which is no more.

~ William Shakespeare

Your tale, sir, would cure deafness.

~ William Shakespeare

My story being done,She gave me for my pains a world of sighs:She swore,––in faith, twas strange, 'twas passing strange;'Twas pitiful, 'twas wondrous pitiful:She wish'd she had not heard it, yet she wish'dThat heaven had made her such a man: she thank'd me,And bade me, if I had a friend that lov'd her,I should but teach him how to tell my story.And that would woo her.

~ William Shakespeare

...and what's his reason? I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us; do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example? Why, revenge! The villainy you teach me I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.

~ William Shakespeare

Mislike me not for my complexion,The shadowed livery of the burnished sun,To whom I am a neighbor and near bred.Bring me the fairest creature northward born,Where Phoebus' fire scarce thaws the icicles,And let us make incision for your loveTo prove whose blood is reddest, his or mine.

~ William Shakespeare

But if the cause be not good, the king himself hath a heavy reckoning to make, when all those legs and arms and heads, chopped off in battle, shall join together at the latter day and cry all 'We died at such a place;' some swearing, some crying for a surgeon, some upon their wives left poor behind them, some upon the debts they owe, some upon their children rawly left. I am afeard there are few die well that die in a battle; for how can they charitably dispose of anything, when blood is their argument? Now, if these men do not die well, it will be a black matter for the king that led them to it; whom to disobey were against all proportion of subjection.[Henry V, Act IV Scene I]

~ William Shakespeare

From too much liberty, my Lucio, libertyAs surfeit is the father of much fast,So every scope of the immoderate useTurns to restraint. Our natures do pursue, -Like rats that ravin down their proper bane, - A thirsty evil; and when we drink we die.

~ William Shakespeare

PORTERThis is a lot of knocking! Come to think of it, if a man were in charge of opening the gates of hell to let people in, he would have to turn the key a lot.

~ William Shakespeare

To be now a sensible man, by and by a fool, and presently abeast!

~ William Shakespeare

Nought’s had, all’s spent, where our desire is got without content.

~ William Shakespeare

He stopped the flyersAnd by his rare example made the cowardTurn terror into sport. As weeds beforeA vessel under sail, so men obeyedAnd fell below his stem. His sword, Death's stamp,Where it did mark, it took; from face to footHe was a thing of blood, whose every motionWas timed with dying cries. Alone he enteredThe mortal gate o' th' city, which he paintedWith shunless destiny; aidless came offAnd with a sudden reinforcement struckCorioles like a planet. Now all's his,When by and by the dim of war gan pierceHis ready sense; then straight his doubled spiritRequickened what in flesh was fatigate,And to the battle came he, where he didRun reeking o'er the lives of men as if'Twere a perpetual spoil; and till we calledBoth field and city ours, he never stoodTo ease his breast with panting.

~ William Shakespeare

Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful.

~ William Shakespeare

O, that's a brave man! He writes brave verses, speaks brave words, swears brave oaths, and breaks them bravely

~ William Shakespeare