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

Discover the timeless wisdom of William Shakespeare through his most famous quotes. From the complexities of love to the depths of human nature, these insightful words will captivate and inspire. Explore Shakespeare's profound observations on trust, beauty, love, and the inevitability of death.

William Shakespeare is widely considered to be the greatest writer in the English language and one of the most influential playwrights of all time. Born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, he married Anne Hathaway at a young age and went on to have three children. In London, he established a successful career as an actor, writer, and part-owner of a playing company. Shakespeare's works include 39 plays, 154 sonnets, three narrative poems, and various other verses. His plays have been translated into numerous languages and continue to be studied and performed worldwide.

Shakespeare's early works were comedies and histories, showcasing his mastery in these genres. Later in his career, he focused more on tragedies such as Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet, which are regarded as some of the finest works in English literature. In his later years, he wrote tragicomedies and collaborated with other playwrights. While little is known about his personal life, there has been ongoing speculation about his physical appearance, sexuality, religious beliefs, and whether some of his works were actually written by others. His legacy lives on through the enduring popularity of his plays and the continued exploration of his profound impact on literature.

✵ 1564 – 23. April 1616
William Shakespeare photo
William Shakespeare: 699 quotes1104 likes

William Shakespeare Quotes

“Come unto these yellow sands,
And then take hands.
Curtsied when you have and kissed
The wild waves whist,
Foot is featly here and there;
And, sweet sprites, the burden bear.

Ariel's song, scene II, Act I”

William Shakespeare The Tempest

Source: The Tempest

“It is far easier for me to teach twenty what were right to be done, than be one of the twenty to follow mine own teaching.”

William Shakespeare As You Like It

Source: As You Like It

“If your mind dislike anything obey it”

William Shakespeare Hamlet

Source: Hamlet

“Your "if" is the only peacemaker; much virtue in "if.”

William Shakespeare

“Some grief shows much of love,
But much of grief shows still some want of wit.”

William Shakespeare book Romeo and Juliet

Source: Romeo and Juliet

“It puzzles the will.”

William Shakespeare Hamlet

Source: Hamlet

“That man that hath a tongue, I say is no man, if with his tongue he cannot win a woman.”

William Shakespeare The Two Gentlemen of Verona

Source: The Two Gentlemen of Verona

“Let every man be master of his time.”

William Shakespeare Macbeth

Source: Macbeth

“Let the doors be shut upon him, that he may play the
fool no where but in's own house.”

William Shakespeare Hamlet

Source: Hamlet

“Bloody thou art, bloody will be thy end;
Shame serves thy life and doth thy death attend.”

William Shakespeare Richard III

Source: Richard III

“Alack, there lies more peril in thine eye
Than twenty of their swords: look thou but sweet,
And I am proof against their enmity.”

William Shakespeare book Romeo and Juliet

Source: Romeo and Juliet

“It is my soul that calls upon my name;
How silver-sweet sound lovers' tongues by night,
like softest music to attending ears!
-Romeo”

William Shakespeare book Romeo and Juliet

Source: Romeo and Juliet

“As merry as the day is long.”

William Shakespeare Hamlet

Beatrice, Act II, scene i.
Much Ado About Nothing (1598)
Source: Hamlet

“I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano!”

William Shakespeare The Merchant of Venice

Source: The Merchant of Venice

“The rain, it raineth every day.”

William Shakespeare

“I talk of you:
Why did you wish me milder? would you have me
False to my nature? Rather say I play
The man I am.”

William Shakespeare Coriolanus

Source: Coriolanus

“Are you up to your destiny?”

William Shakespeare

“Fortune love you.”

William Shakespeare King Lear

King Lear

“Less art, more matter”

William Shakespeare Hamlet

Hamlet

“Action is eloquence.”

William Shakespeare

“Assume a virtue, if you have it not.”

William Shakespeare

“Come, thou tortoise!”

William Shakespeare

“Make love’s quick pants”

William Shakespeare Othello

Othello

“The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne,
Burnt on the water.”

William Shakespeare Antony and Cleopatra

Enobarbus, Act II, scene ii.
Antony and Cleopatra (1606)

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

William Shakespeare

Derived from A Midsummer Night's Dream on p. 269, Aphorisms from Shakespeare (1812), Capel Lofft, Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown, a book which rewrites in aphoristic form Shakespeare quotations, in this case the exchange between Hermia and Theseus: "I would my father look'd but with my eyes", "Rather your eyes must with his judgment look".
Misattributed

“Of one that lov'd not wisely but too well.”

William Shakespeare Othello

Othello, Act V, scene ii.
Othello (1603–4)

“How use doth breed a habit in a man!”

William Shakespeare The Two Gentlemen of Verona

Valentine, Act V, scene iv.
The Two Gentlemen of Verona (1590–1)

“What a piece of work is a man!
How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty!
In form and moving how express and admirable!
In action how like an angel,
in apprehension how like a god!”

William Shakespeare Hamlet

Hamlet, Act II, scene ii.
Hamlet (1600–1)

“Thou hast most traitorously corrupted the youth of the realm in erecting a grammar-school; and whereas, before, our forefathers had no other books but the score and the tally, thou hast caused printing to be used; and, contrary to the king, his crown, and dignity, thou hast built a paper-mill.”

William Shakespeare Henry VI (play) Part 1-3

Cade, Act IV, scene vii.
Henry VI, Part 2 (1592)

“Beauty itself doth of itself persuade
The eyes of men without an orator.”

William Shakespeare book The Rape of Lucrece

The Rape of Lucrece (1594).

“A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!”

William Shakespeare Richard III

Richard, Act V, scene iv.
Richard III (1592–3)

“O God! methinks, it were a happy life,
To be no better than a homely swain;
To sit upon a hill, as I do now,
To carve out dials quaintly, point by point,
Thereby to see the minutes how they run:
How many make the hour full complete,
How many hours bring about the day,
How many days will finish up the year,
How many years a mortal man may live.”

William Shakespeare Henry VI (play) Part 1-3

King Henry, Act II, scene v.
Henry VI, Part 3 (1592)

“I was in love with my bed.”

William Shakespeare The Two Gentlemen of Verona

Speed, Act II, scene i.
The Two Gentlemen of Verona (1590–1)

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

William Shakespeare The Merchant of Venice

Portia, Act I, scene ii.
The Merchant of Venice (1596–7)

“Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones.”

William Shakespeare Julius Caesar

Antony, Act III, scene ii.
Julius Caesar (1599)

“The time is out of joint: O cursed spite,
That ever I was born to set it right!”

William Shakespeare Hamlet

Hamlet, Act I, scene v.
Hamlet (1600–1)

“Time's glory is to calm contending kings,
To unmask falsehood, and bring truth to light.”

William Shakespeare book The Rape of Lucrece

The Rape of Lucrece.

“Good frend for Jesus sake forbeare
To digg the dust encloased heare
Blese be the man that spares these stones
And curst be he that moves my bones”

William Shakespeare

Shakespeare's epitaph

“However wickedness outstrips men, it has no wings to fly from God.”

William Shakespeare

Derived from a longer quote in Henry V, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 283.
Misattributed

“The smallest worm will turn, being trodden on.”

William Shakespeare Henry VI (play) Part 1-3

Clifford, Act II, scene ii.
Henry VI, Part 3 (1592)

“Defer no time, delays have dangerous ends.”

William Shakespeare Henry VI (play) Part 1-3

Alençon, Act III, scene ii.
Henry VI, Part 1 (1592)

“Nothing is more common than the wish to be remarkable.”

William Shakespeare

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table (1858), ch. XII : Nothing is so common-place as to wish to be remarkable.
Misattributed
Source: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Criminal_Minds_(season_1) Criminal Minds] ("L.D.S.K." - season 1, episode 6).