Shakespeare Quotes

Werewolves and silver bullets!” Shakespeare coughed a quick laugh and shook his head. “Lord, what fools these mortals be!

~ Michael Scott

Reply not to me with a fool-born jest.

~ William Shakespeare

There is more in the world than is dreamt of in your philosophy, Doctor - or in the Merck Manual.

~ Douglas Preston

I quickly learned, however, that a university education is not a prerequisite to reading Shakespeare. After all, his original audience was not college-educated. Neither was he.

~ Laura Bates

For this last, Before and in Corioli, let me say, I cannot speak him home: he stopp'd the fliers; And by his rare example made the coward Turn terror into sport: as weeds before A vessel under sail, so men obey'd And fell below his stem: his sword, death's stamp, Where it did mark, it took; from face to foot He was a thing of blood, whose every motion Was timed with dying cries: alone he enter'd The mortal gate of the city, which he painted With shunless destiny; aidless came off, And with a sudden reinforcement struck Corioli like a planet: now all's his: When, by and by, the din of war gan pierce His ready sense; then straight his doubled spirit Re-quicken'd what in flesh was fatigate, And to the battle came he; where he did Run reeking o'er the lives of men, as if 'Twere a perpetual spoil: and till we call'd Both field and city ours, he never stood To ease his breast with panting.

~ William Shakespeare

Nay, Nay! Try thou not.But do thou or do thou not, For there is no try.

~ Ian Doescher

So Shakespeare stole, but he did wonderful things with his plunder. He's like somebody who nicks your old socks and then darns them.

~ Mark Forsyth

Shakespeare was not a genius. He was, without the distant shadow of doubt, the most wonderful writer who ever breathed. But not a genius. No angels handed him his lines, no fairies proofread for him. Instead, he learnt techniques, he learnt tricks, and he learnt them well.

~ Mark Forsyth

Go, prick thy face and over-red thy fear,Thou lily-livered boy.

~ William Shakespeare

Impressive, most impressive, worthy lad,Thine Obi-Wan hath taught thee well, and thouHast master'd all thy fears. Now, go! ReleaseThine anger, for thy hate alone can strikeMe down!

~ Ian Doescher

You can spend all day trying to think of some universal truth to set down on paper, and some poets try that. Shakespeare knew that it's much easier to string together some words beginning with the same letter.

~ Mark Forsyth

The king stood in a pool of blue light, unmoored.

~ Emily St. John Mandel

If we wish to know the force of human genius we should read Shakespeare. If we wish to see the insignificance of human learning we may only study his commentators. [On the Ignorance of the Learned]

~ William Hazlitt

O Luke, I would not lose thee as I lostDarth Vader. His betrayal made my lifeA bleak and tragic thing. Thy loss untoThe dark would make my death a hellish, coldEternity.

~ Ian Doescher

Of all mad matches never was the likeBeing mad herself, she’s madly mated.

~ William Shakespeare

It is gaol that finally reveals to me the beauty of Shakespeare, the spirit in his words, the jaw-dropping audacity of his language.

~ Christos Tsiolkas

This place looks like the last scene in Hamlet.

~ Patricia Briggs

I know Verona as I do my own body.

~ Lois Leveen

To be and not to be, that is the quantum question

~ Dean Cavanagh

Shakespeare is getting flyblown; a paternal government might well forbid writing about him, as they put his monument at Stratford beyond the reach of scribbling fingers. With all this buzz of criticism about, one may hazard one's conjectures privately, make one's notes in the margin; but, knowing that someone has said it before, or said it better, the zest is gone. Illness, it its kingly sublimity, sweeps all that aside and leaves nothing but Shakespeare and oneself.

~ Virginia Woolf

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

~ Julia Gregson

The English language [during the Elizabethan era] wasn't standardized. There were no official dictionaries. There was no cultural belief that words should always be spelled the same way. So people spelled things however they heard them or however made sense. I mean the name Shakespeare had something like 16 different spellings, and the way he spelled it isn't the way we spell it.- School of Night - pg 44

~ Bayard Louis

By the time you have a platform for saying what you want, you’ve already become part of the system. It’s how it works.

~ Ingela Bohm

That they will find each other during the play, once more, in the words of Shakespeare.

~ Gayle Forman

Men from children nothing differ.

~ William Shakespeare

Get you gone, you dwarf,You minimus of hindering knotgrass made,You bead, you acorn!

~ William Shakespeare

Weigh oath with oath, and you will nothing weigh,Your vows to her and me, put in two scales,Will even weigh, and both as light as tales.

~ William Shakespeare

Brief as the lightning in the collied night;That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and Earth,And ere a man hath power to say Behold!The jaws of darkness do devour it up.So quick bright things come to confusion.

~ William Shakespeare

They say an old man is twice a child

~ William Shakespeare

To sue to live, I find I seek to die; And, seeking death, find life.

~ William Shakespeare

The fiend gives the more friendly counsel.

~ William Shakespeare

You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things!O you hard hearts, you cruel men of Rome,Knew you not Pompey?

~ William Shakespeare

Why do people who read Shakespeare still spend hours watching shitty TV or staring out of the window or arguing about whose dinner party to go to?

~ Glen Duncan

Mad I call it, for to define true madness, what is't to be nothing else but mad?

~ William Shakespeare

Alack, when once our grace we have forgot,Nothing goes right; we would and we would not.

~ William Shakespeare

A condensed Shakespeare with all of the dull parts removed, leaving only the great moments of drama: ghosts, and bloodied daggers, and dying kings.

~ John Connolly

Years and years ago, there was a production of The Tempest, out of doors, at an Oxford college on a lawn, which was the stage, and the lawn went back towards the lake in the grounds of the college, and the play began in natural light. But as it developed, and as it became time for Ariel to say his farewell to the world of The Tempest, the evening had started to close in and there was some artificial lighting coming on. And as Ariel uttered his last speech, he turned and he ran across the grass, and he got to the edge of the lake and he just kept running across the top of the water — the producer having thoughtfully provided a kind of walkway an inch beneath the water. And you could see and you could hear the plish, plash as he ran away from you across the top of the lake, until the gloom enveloped him and he disappeared from your view.And as he did so, from the further shore, a firework rocket was ignited, and it went whoosh into the air, and high up there it burst into lots of sparks, and all the sparks went out, and he had gone.When you look up the stage directions, it says, ‘Exit Ariel.

~ Tom Stoppard

Thou of thyself thy sweet self dost deceive.

~ William Shakespeare

He does it with a better grace, but I do it more natural.

~ William Shakespeare

In my mind's eye

~ William Shakespeare