William Shakespeare Quotes

698 Quotes Revealing Timeless Wisdom on Love, Trust, and Human Nature

“Hell is empty and all the devils are here.”

“Love is heavy and light, bright and dark, hot and cold, sick and healthy, asleep and awake- its everything except what it is! (Act 1, scene 1)”

“Speak low, if you speak love.”

“Beauty is bought by judgement of the eye.”

“Do not swear by the moon, for she changes constantly. then your love would also change.”

“Don't waste your love on somebody, who doesn't value it.”

“The course of true love never did run smooth.”

“Did my heart love till now? forswear it, sight! For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night.”

“And yet, to say the truth, reason and love keep little company together nowadays.”

“Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs.”

“All the world is a stage, And all the men and women merely players.They have their exits and entrances; Each man in his time plays many parts.”

“A coward dies a thousand times before his death, but the valiant taste of death but once. It seems to me most strange that men should fear, seeing that death, a necessary end, will come when it will come.”

“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.”

“Men of few words are the best men."

(3.2.41)”

“Women may fall when there's no strength in men.”

“Better three hours too soon than a minute too late.”

“The rest, is silence.”

“My soul is in the sky.”

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

“Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind,
And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind.”

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

“One may smile, and smile, and be a villain.”

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

“What a terrible era in which idiots govern the blind.”

“Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon 'em.”

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

“Words are easy, like the wind; Faithful friends are hard to find.”

“In time we hate that which we often fear.”

“Let me be that I am and seek not to alter me.”

“What's done cannot be undone.”

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

“Peace? I hate the word as I hate hell and all Montagues.”

“The love that follows us sometime is our trouble, which still we thank as love.”

“Love me or hate me, both are in my favour. If you love me, I'll always be in your heart… If you hate me, I'll always be in your mind.”

“Have more than you show,
Speak less than you know.”

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

“Well, heaven forgive him! and forgive us all!
Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall:
Some run from brakes of ice, and answer none:
And some condemned for a fault alone.”

“I would challenge you to a battle of wits, but I see you are unarmed!”

“My only love sprung from my only hate!
Too early seen unknown, and known too late!
Prodigious birth of love it is to me,
That I must love a loathed enemy.”

“Stars, hide your fires; Let not light see my black and deep desires.”

“I like this place and could willingly waste my time in it.”

“There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

“With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come.”

“Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more,
Men were deceivers ever;
One foot in sea, and one on shore,
To one thing constant never.”

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

“Listen to many, speak to a few.”

“Presume not that I am the thing I was.”

“Conscience doth make cowards of us all.”

“Look like the innocent flower,
But be the serpent under it.”

“We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.”

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

“What's past is prologue.”

“Wisely and slow; they stumble that run fast.”

“This above all: to thine own self be true.”

“Now cracks a noble heart. Good-night, sweet prince;
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.”

“Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world
Like a Colossus; and we petty men
Walk under his huge legs, and peep about
To find ourselves dishonourable graves.”

“O teach me how I should forget to think (1.1.224)”

“Come, gentle night; come, loving, black-browed night;
Give me my Romeo; and, when I shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night…”

“I defy you, stars.”

“in black ink my love may still shine bright.”

“Under loves heavy burden do I sink.
--Romeo”

“O sleep, O gentle sleep, Nature's soft nurse, how have I frightened thee. That thou no more will weigh my eyelids down, And steep my senses in forgetfulness?”

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

“Who is it that can tell me who I am?”

“Confusion now hath made his masterpiece.”

“it provokes the desire, but it takes away the performance”