William Shakespeare Quotes

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

“I am one, sir, that comes to tell you your daughter
and the Moor are now making the beast with two backs.(IAGO, ActI, SceneI)”

“Be not afraid of greatness.”

“Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia,
And therefore I forbid my tears.”

“Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety."
Antony and Cleopatra (II. ii) ~William Shakespeare”

“This rudeness is a sauce to his good wit,
Which gives men stomach to digest his words
With better appetite.”

“Your gentleness shall force
More than your force move us to gentleness.”

“One sees more devils than vast hell can hold”

“Beatrice: He that hath a beard is more than a youth, and he that hath no beard is less than a man; and he that is more than a youth is not for me; and he that is less than a man, I am not for him.”

“I am the Prince of Wales; and think not, Percy,
To share with me in glory any more:
Two stars keep not their motion in one sphere;”

“Sin from thy lips? O trespass sweetly urged!
Give me my sin again.”

“death,
The undiscovere'd country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns”

“This is the very ecstasy of love, whose violent property ordoes itself and leads the will to desperate undertakings.”

“What's his offense?
Groping for trout in a peculiar river.”

“But Kate, dost thou understand thus much English? Canst thou love me?"
Catherine: "I cannot tell."
Henry: "Can any of your neighbours tell, Kate? I'll ask them.”

“Alas, the frailty is to blame, not we
For such as we are made of, such we be”

“Thou shalt not stir one foot to seek a foe.”

“All of Creation’s a farce.
Man was born as a joke.
In his head his reason is buffeted
Like wind-blown smoke.
Life is a game.
Everyone ridicules everyone else.
But he who has the last laugh
Laughs longest.”

“Nor shall this peace sleep with her; but as when
The bird of wonder dies, the maiden phoenix,
Her ashes new-create another heir
As great in admiration as herself.”

“Enter RUMOUR, painted full of tongues."

[Stage direction, ]”

“Virtue and genuine graces in themselves speak what no words can utter.”

“I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other men.”

“I have no way and therefore want no eyes
I stumbled when I saw. Full oft 'tis seen
our means secure us, and our mere defects
prove our commodities.”

“I understand a fury in your words
But not your words.”

“His jest shall savour but a shallow wit, when thousands more weep than did laugh it.”

“Hang there like a fruit, my soul, Till the tree die!

-Posthumus Leonatus
Act V, Scene V”

“And oftentimes, to win us to our harm,
The instruments of darkness tell us truths,
Win us with honest trifles, to betray's
In deepest consequence”

“In such business
Action is eloquence, and the eyes of th’ ignorant
More learned than the ears.”

“But she makes hungry
Where she most satisfies…”

“More fools know Jack Fool than Jack Fool knows.”

“Thou shalt be free
As mountain winds: but then exactly do
All points of my command.”

“I have drunk and seen the spider.”

“What is honour? a word. What is in that word honour? what is that honour? air. A trim reckoning! Who hath it? he that died o' Wednesday. Doth he feel it? no. Doth he hear it? no.”

“Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him? - Lady Macbeth”

“Let life be short, else shame will be too long.”

“Love is not love
Which alters when alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
Oh, no, it is an ever-fixèd mark,
that looks on tempests and is never shaken.”

“Thou art a boil, a plague sore, an embossed carbuncle in my corrupted blood.”

“You are not worth the dust which the rude wind blows in your face”

“In peace there's nothing so becomes a man as modest stillness and humility; but when the blast of war blows in our ears, then imitate the action of the tiger; stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood, disguise fair nature with hard-favor'd rage.”

“The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together: our virtues would be proud, if our faults whipped them not; and our crimes would despair, if they were not cherished by our virtues.”

“So quick bright things come to confusion.”

“How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world, that has such people in it!”

“For who so firm that cannot be seduced?”

“For what says Quinapalus? Better a witty fool than a foolish wit.”

“LEONATO
Neighbours, you are tedious.

DOGBERRY
It pleases your worship to say so, but we are the poor duke's officers; but truly, for mine own part, if I were as tedious as a king, I could find it in
my heart to bestow it all of your worship.”

“for Mercutio's soul
Is but a little way above our heads,
Staying for thine to keep him company:
Either thou, or I, or both, must go with him.”

“How is it that the clouds still hang on you?”

“Oft expectation fails, and most oft there where most it promises; and oft it hits where hope is coldest, and despair most fits.”

“Alas, poor country, almost afraid to know itself! It cannot be called our mother, but our grave.”

“If one good deed in all my life I did,
I do repent it from my very soul.”