William Shakespeare Quotes

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

“We will all laugh at gilded butterflies.”

“Women speak two languages - one of which is verbal.”

“Though those that are betray'd Do feel the treason sharply, yet the traitor stands in worse case of woe”

“Conceal me what I am, and be my aid for such disguise as haply shall become the form of my intent.”

“Sin, death, and hell have set their marks on him,
And all their ministers attend on him.”

“He is as full of valor as of kindness. Princely in both.”

“I see a woman may be made a fool,
If she had not a spirit to resist.”

“My affection hath an unknown bottom, like the Bay of Portugal.”

“And make death proud to take us.”

“One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.”

“Blind is his love and best befits the dark- Benvolio (in Romeo and Juliet)”

“Foul words is but foul wind, and foul wind is but foul breath, and foul breath is noisome; therefore I will depart unkissed.”

“I will make thee think thy swan a crow.”

“Hamlet: Lady, shall I lie in your lap?
Ophelia: No, my lord.
Hamlet: DId you think I meant country matters?
Ophelia: I think nothing, my lord.
Hamlet: That's a fair thought to lie between maids' legs.
Ophelia: What is, my lord?
Hamlet: Nothing.”

“Young men's love then lies not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes.”

“Screw your courage to the sticking-place”

“Thou seest we are not all alone unhappy:
This wide and universal theatre
Presents more woeful pageants than the scene
Wherein we play in.”

“These sudden joys have sudden endings. They burn up in victory like fire and gunpowder.”

“When shall we three meet again
In thunder, lightning, or in rain?”

“They say best men are molded out of faults,
And, for the most, become much more the better
For being a little bad”

“Truly thou art damned, like an ill-roasted egg, all on one side.”

“Keep time! How sour sweet music is when time is broke and no proportion kept! So is it in the music of men's lives. I wasted time and now doth time waste me.”

“She gave me for my pains a world of sighs.”

“How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank
Here we will sit, and let the sounds of music
Creep in our ears; soft stillness, and the night
Become the touches of sweet harmony”

“He shall spurn fate, scorn death, and bear
His hopes 'bove wisdom, grace and fear:
And you all know, security
Is mortals' chiefest enemy.”

“For Brutus, as you know, was Caesar's angel:
Judge, O you gods, how dearly Caesar loved him!
This was the most unkindest cut of all”

“Still it cried ‘Sleep no more!’ to all the house: ‘Glamis hath murder’d sleep, and therefore Cawdor shall sleep no more,—Macbeth shall sleep no more!”

“He is the half part of a blessed man,
Left to be finished by such as she;
And she a fair divided excellence,
Whose fullness of perfection lies in him.”

“Nothing can come of nothing.”

“I do profess to be no less than I seem; to serve him truly that will put me in trust: to love him that is honest; to converse with him that is wise, and says little; to fear judgment; to fight when I cannot choose; and to eat no fish.”

“What win I if I gain the thing I seek?
A dream, a breath, a froth of fleeting joy.
Who buys a minute's mirth to wail a week?
Or sells eternity to get a toy?”

“You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things!”

“He kills her in her own humor.”

“How low am I, thou painted maypole?
(Hermia to Helena)”

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

“Captain of our fairy band,
Helena is here at hand,
And the youth, mistook by me,
Pleading for a lover's fee.
Shall we their fond pageant see?
Lord, what fools these mortals be!”

“We came into the world like brother and brother,
And now let's go hand in hand, not one before another.”

“The chains of habit are generally too small to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.”

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

“We will meet; and there we may rehearse most
obscenely and courageously.

Shakespeare, Midsummer Night's Dream. Spoken by Bottom, Act I Sc. 2”

“Can I go forward when my heart is here?”

“O, then, what graces in my love do dwell, That he hath turn'd a heaven unto a hell!”

“I have a soul of lead
So stakes me to the ground I cannot move.”

“I drink to the general joy o’ the whole table." Macbeth”

“Glendower: I can call the spirits from the vasty deep.
Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
But will they come, when you do call for them?”

“Yes, faith; it is my cousin's duty to make curtsy and say 'Father, as it please you.' But yet for all that, cousin, let him be a handsome fellow, or else make another curtsy and say 'Father, as it please me.”

“Parting is such sweet sorrow”

“A happy ending cannot come in the middle of the story”

“But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restored and sorrows end.”