William Shakespeare Quotes

Thou whoreson zed! Thou unnecessary letter! My lord, if you will give me leave, I will tread this unbolted villain into mortar, and daub the wall of a jakes with him. *all cheer for Shakespearean insults*

~ William Shakespeare

But men may construe things after their fashion, Clean from the purpose of the things themselves.

~ William Shakespeare

To die, is to be banish'd from myself; And Silvia is myself: banish'd from her, Is self from self: a deadly banishment! What light is light, if Silvia be not seen? What joy is joy, if Silvia be not by? Unless it be to think that she is by, And feed upon the shadow of perfection.Except I be by Silvia in the night, There is no music in the nightingale; Unless I look on Silvia in the day, There is no day for me to look upon; She is my essence, and I leave to be, If I be not by her fair influence Foster'd, illumin'd, cherish'd, kept alive.

~ William Shakespeare

She is drowned already, sir, with salt water, though I seem to drown her remembrance again with more.

~ William Shakespeare

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

~ William Shakespeare

Pleasure and revenge have ears more deaf than adders to the voice of any true decision.

~ William Shakespeare

What do I fear? Myself? There’s none else by.Richard loves Richard; that is, I and I.

~ William Shakespeare

[Act 5, Scene 4, ROSALIND] If I were a woman I would kiss as many of you as had beards that pleased me, complexions that liked me and breaths that I defied not: and, I am sure, as many as have good beards or good faces or sweet breaths will, for my kind offer, when I make curtsy, bid me farewell.

~ William Shakespeare

If I could write the beauty of your eyesAnd in fresh numbers number all your graces,The age to come would say 'this poet lies! Such heaven never touched earthly faces

~ William Shakespeare

Must I observe you? Must I stand & crouchUnder your testy humour? By the gods, You shall digest the venom ofyour spleen,Though it do split you, for, from thisday forth, I'll use you for my mirth, yea,for my laughter, when you are waspish.

~ William Shakespeare

No, take more! What may be sworn by, both divine and human, Seal what I end withal! This double worship, Where [one] part does disdain with cause, the other Insult without all reason; where gentry, title, wisdom, Cannot conclude but by the yea and no Of general ignorance— it must omit Real necessities, and give way the while To unstable slightness. Purpose so barr’d, it follows Nothing is done to purpose. Therefore beseech you— You that will be less fearful than discreet; That love the fundamental part of state More than you doubt the change on’t; that prefer A noble life before a long, and wish To jump a body with a dangerous physic That’s sure of death without it— at once pluck out The multitudinous tongue; let them not lick The sweet which is their poison. Your dishonor Mangles true judgment, and bereaves the state Of that integrity which should become’t; Not having the power to do the good it would, For th’ ill which doth control’t.

~ William Shakespeare

Turn hell-hound, turn.

~ William Shakespeare

How true a twain Seemeth this concordant one! Love hath reason, Reason none, If what parts, can so remain.

~ William Shakespeare

Timon: I’ll beat thee, but I should infect my hands.

~ William Shakespeare

Timon: Would thou wert clean enough to spit upon!

~ William Shakespeare

O mother, mother!What have you done? Behold, the heavens do ope,The gods look down, and this unnatural sceneThey laugh at. O my mother, mother! O!You have won a happy victory to Rome;But, for your son,--believe it, O, believe it,Most dangerously you have with him prevail'd,If not most mortal to him.

~ William Shakespeare

Tis like she comes to speak of Cassio’s death,The noise was high. Ha! No more moving?Still as the grave. Shall she come in? Were ’t good?I think she stirs again—No. What’s best to do?If she come in, she’ll sure speak to my wife—My wife! my wife! what wife? I have no wife.Oh, insupportable! Oh, heavy hour!Methinks it should be now a huge eclipseOf sun and moon, and that th' affrighted globeShould yawn at alteration.

~ William Shakespeare

I’ll prove the prettier fellow of the two and wear my dagger with the braver grace

~ William Shakespeare

The rest is silence.

~ William Shakespeare

I can say little more than I have studied, and that question's out of my part.

~ William Shakespeare

Then the conceit of this inconstant staySets you rich in youth before my sight,Where wasteful Time debateth with Decay,To change your day of youth to sullied night;And all in war with Time for love of you,As he takes from you I engraft you new.

~ William Shakespeare

And shake the yoke of inauspicious starsFrom this world-wearied flesh. Eyes, look your last!

~ William Shakespeare

For all that beauty that doth cover theeIs but the seemly raiment of my heart,Which in thy breast doth live, as thine in me.How can I then be elder than thou art?

~ William Shakespeare

To give yourself away keep yourself still,And you must live drawn by your own sweet skill.

~ William Shakespeare

But from thine eyes my knowledge I derive,And, constant stars, in them I read such art,As truth and beauty shall together thriveIf from thyself to store thou wouldst convert;Or else of thee I prognosticate,Thy end is truth's and beauty's doom and date.

~ William Shakespeare

Then, were not summer's distillation leftA liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass,Beauty's effect with beauty were bereft,Nor it nor no remembrance what it was.But flowers distilled, though they with winter meet,Leese but their show; their substance still lives sweet.

~ William Shakespeare

Then of thy beauty do I question make,That thou among the wastes of time must go,Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake,And die as fast as they see others grow.

~ William Shakespeare

I have more care to staythan will to go.

~ William Shakespeare

This is a way to kill a wife with kindness,And thus I'll curb her mad and headstrong humour.He that knows better how to tame a shrew,Now let him speak. 'Tis charity to show.

~ William Shakespeare

She vied so fast, protesting oath after oath,that in a twink she won me to her love.O, you are novices. 'Tis a world to seeHow tame, when men and women are alone,A meacock wretch can make the curstest shrew.

~ William Shakespeare

Beatrice: I wonder that you will still be talking, Signior Benedick: nobody marks you.Benedick: What, my dear Lady Disdain! are you yet living?

~ William Shakespeare

BEROWNE: What time o' day?ROSALINE: The hour that fools should ask.

~ William Shakespeare

By this reckoning he is more a shrew than she.

~ William Shakespeare

For I am born to tame you, Kate,And bring you from a wild Kate to a KateComfortable as other household Kates.

~ William Shakespeare

Of all matches never was the like.

~ William Shakespeare

Mother, I will look to like. If looking liking moves.

~ William Shakespeare

They are but beggars that can count their worth, But my true love is grown to such excess I cannot sum up half of my wealth.

~ William Shakespeare

Your honour's players, hearing your amendment, Are come to play a pleasant comedy,For so your doctors hold it very meet,Seeing too much sadness hath congealed your blood,And melancholy is the nurse of frenzy.Therefore they thought it good you hear a play,And frame your mind to mirth and merriment,Which bars a thousand harms and lenghtens life.

~ William Shakespeare

I have drunk,and seen the spider.(Leontine, Act II Scene I)

~ William Shakespeare

From women's eyes this doctrine I derive:They are the ground, the books, the academes,From whence doth spring the true Promethean fire.

~ William Shakespeare