William Shakespeare Quotes

William Shakespeare (1564-1616) was an English playwright and poet. His works, including plays like Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, and Macbeth, are considered among the greatest in the English language. Shakespeare’s plays explore themes of love, tragedy, and human nature, making him one of the most influential figures in literature.

William Shakespeare Quotes

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

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.

Hell is empty and all the devils are here.

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.

To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.

God has given you one face, and you make yourself another.

Ignorance is the curse of God; knowledge is the wing wherewith we fly to heaven.

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

When a father gives to his son, both laugh; when a son gives to his father, both cry.

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

Better three hours too soon than a minute too late.

The course of true love never did run smooth.

Listen to many, speak to a few.

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 music be the food of love, play on.

It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.

As soon go kindle fire with snow, as seek to quench the fire of love with words.

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

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

Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind.

A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool.

Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.

Better a witty fool than a foolish wit.

The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.

But O, how bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man’s eyes.

Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt.

Women may fall when there’s no strength in men.

Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs.

It is a wise father that knows his own child.

Come, gentlemen, I hope we shall drink down all unkindness.

No legacy is so rich as honesty.

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

Love to faults is always blind, always is to joy inclined. Lawless, winged, and unconfined, and breaks all chains from every mind.

A peace is of the nature of a conquest; for then both parties nobly are subdued, and neither party loser.

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. On such a full sea are we now afloat. And we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures.

How far that little candle throws its beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world.

This above all; to thine own self be true.

An overflow of good converts to bad.

And why not death rather than living torment? To die is to be banish’d from myself; And Silvia is myself: banish’d from her Is self from self: a deadly banishment!

Men are April when they woo, December when they wed. Maids are May when they are maids, but the sky changes when they are wives.

The man that hath no music in himself, Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils.

Love sought is good, but given unsought, is better.

The empty vessel makes the loudest sound.

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

Now, God be praised, that to believing souls gives light in darkness, comfort in despair.

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

Who could refrain that had a heart to love and in that heart courage to make love known?

Words without thoughts never to heaven go.

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

Talking isn’t doing. It is a kind of good deed to say well; and yet words are not deeds.

The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.

O! Let me not be mad, not mad, sweet heaven; keep me in temper; I would not be mad!

How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child!

One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.

Pleasure and action make the hours seem short.

False face must hide what the false heart doth know.

A man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age.

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

Fishes live in the sea, as men do a-land; the great ones eat up the little ones.

I say there is no darkness but ignorance.

Let me embrace thee, sour adversity, for wise men say it is the wisest course.

Boldness be my friend.

Ambition should be made of sterner stuff.

I am not bound to please thee with my answer.

Love is too young to know what conscience is.

In time we hate that which we often fear.

Alas, I am a woman friendless, hopeless!

With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come.

Give thy thoughts no tongue.

Speak low, if you speak love.

And oftentimes excusing of a fault doth make the fault the worse by the excuse.

Reputation is an idle and most false imposition; oft got without merit, and lost without deserving.

Life every man holds dear; but the dear man holds honor far more precious dear than life.

I may neither choose who I would, nor refuse who I dislike; so is the will of a living daughter curbed by the will of a dead father.

The robbed that smiles, steals something from the thief.

Having nothing, nothing can he lose.

No, I will be the pattern of all patience; I will say nothing.

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

Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice.

The golden age is before us, not behind us.

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

If you can look into the seeds of time, and say which grain will grow and which will not, speak then unto me.

God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another.

They do not love that do not show their love.

I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.

What’s done can’t be undone.

The most peaceable way for you, if you do take a thief, is, to let him show himself what he is and steal out of your company.

The lunatic, the lover, and the poet, are of imagination all compact.

Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall.

The love of heaven makes one heavenly.

Love is not love that alters when it alteration finds.

As he was valiant, I honour him. But as he was ambitious, I slew him.

I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano; A stage where every man must play a part, And mine is a sad one.

To do a great right do a little wrong.

If we are marked to die, we are enough to do our country loss; and if to live, the fewer men, the greater share of honor.

But men are men; the best sometimes forget.

‘Tis not enough to help the feeble up, but to support them after.

There’s no art to find the mind’s construction in the face.

My crown is called content, a crown that seldom kings enjoy.

The very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream.

Now is the winter of our discontent.

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

When words are scarce they are seldom spent in vain.

Children wish fathers looked but with their eyes; fathers that children with their judgment looked; and either may be wrong.

There’s many a man has more hair than wit.

Modest doubt is called the beacon of the wise.

Maids want nothing but husbands, and when they have them, they want everything.

There is no darkness but ignorance.

Let every eye negotiate for itself and trust no agent.

Give me my robe, put on my crown; I have Immortal longings in me.

Faith, there hath been many great men that have flattered the people who ne’er loved them.

O thou invisible spirit of wine, if thou hast no name to be known by, let us call thee devil.

Words, words, mere words, no matter from the heart.

Lawless are they that make their wills their law.

What is past is prologue.

Brevity is the soul of wit.

I had rather have a fool to make me merry than experience to make me sad and to travel for it too!

Poor and content is rich, and rich enough.

Things done well and with a care, exempt themselves from fear.

To be, or not to be, that is the question.

The undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns.

Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful.

By that sin fell the angels.

As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods; they kill us for their sport.

For I can raise no money by vile means.

Time and the hour run through the roughest day.

I will praise any man that will praise me.

If it be a sin to covet honor, I am the most offending soul.

There have been many great men that have flattered the people who ne’er loved them.

Things won are done, joy’s soul lies in the doing.

It is the stars, The stars above us, govern our conditions.

Wisely, and slow. They stumble that run fast.

Teach not thy lip such scorn, for it was made For kissing, lady, not for such contempt.

The fashion of the world is to avoid cost, and you encounter it.

Is it not strange that desire should so many years outlive performance?

The stroke of death is as a lover’s pinch, which hurts and is desired.

Such as we are made of, such we be.

We are time’s subjects, and time bids be gone.

Neither a borrower nor a lender be.

If you have tears, prepare to shed them now.

He that is giddy thinks the world turns round.

Men’s vows are women’s traitors!

We are such stuff as dreams are made on; and our little life is rounded with a sleep.

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

I never see thy face but I think upon hell-fire.

Nothing can come of nothing.

O’ What may man within him hide, though angel on the outward side!

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.

In a false quarrel there is no true valor.

Many a good hanging prevents a bad marriage.

Men shut their doors against a setting sun.

Sweet mercy is nobility’s true badge.

Most dangerous is that temptation that doth goad us on to sin in loving virtue.

Desire of having is the sin of covetousness.

There’s place and means for every man alive.

O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!

The valiant never taste of death but once.

O God, O God, how weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of this world!

There’s not a note of mine that’s worth the noting.

What, man, defy the devil. Consider, he’s an enemy to mankind.

Fortune brings in some boats that are not steered.

Farewell, fair cruelty.

O! for a muse of fire, that would ascend the brightest heaven of invention.

‘Tis best to weigh the enemy more mighty than he seems.

I dote on his very absence.

Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot that it do singe yourself.

If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men’s cottage princes’ palaces.

Suit the action to the word, the word to the action.

So foul and fair a day I have not seen.

There was never yet fair woman but she made mouths in a glass.

I like not fair terms and a villain’s mind.

Our peace shall stand as firm as rocky mountains.

Truly, I would not hang a dog by my will, much more a man who hath any honesty in him.

How well he’s read, to reason against reading!

Like as the waves make towards the pebbl’d shore, so do our minutes, hasten to their end.

Mind your speech a little lest you should mar your fortunes.

I shall the effect of this good lesson keeps as watchman to my heart.

I was adored once too.

I see that the fashion wears out more apparel than the man.

‘Tis better to bear the ills we have than fly to others that we know not of.

I bear a charmed life.

I were better to be eaten to death with a rust than to be scoured to nothing with perpetual motion.

Lord, Lord, how subject we old men are to this vice of lying!

My pride fell with my fortunes.

Virtue itself scapes not calumnious strokes.

What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god.

We cannot conceive of matter being formed of nothing, since things require a seed to start from… Therefore there is not anything which returns to nothing, but all things return dissolved into their elements.

But if it be a sin to covet honour, I am the most offending soul alive.

For my part, it was Greek to me.

Praise us as we are tasted, allow us as we prove.

The attempt and not the deed confounds us.

Let no such man be trusted.

He that loves to be flattered is worthy o’ the flatterer.

How oft the sight of means to do ill deeds makes ill deeds done!

Well, if Fortune be a woman, she’s a good wench for this gear.

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

They say miracles are past.

O, had I but followed the arts!

Use every man after his desert, and who should scape whipping?

Where every something, being blent together turns to a wild of nothing.

Exceeds man’s might: that dwells with the gods above.

It will have blood, they say; blood will have blood.

Nature hath framed strange fellows in her time.