William Shakespeare Quotes

William Shakespeare delivers grand, poetic musings on truth, power and fate that draw readers seeking timeless insight.

72 quotes

1. All's Well That Ends Well

2. Antony and Cleopatra

3. As You Like It

4. The Comedy of Errors

5. Coriolanus

6. Cymbeline

7. Henry IV, Part I

8. Henry IV, Part II

9. Henry VI, Part II

10. Henry VI, Part III

11. Henry VIII

12. Julius Caesar

13. King John

14. King Lear

15. Love's Labour's Lost

16. Measure for Measure

17. The Merchant of Venice

18. The Merry Wives of Windsor

19. A Midsummer Night's Dream

20. Much Ado About Nothing

21. Pericles, Prince of Tyre

22. Richard II

23. Richard III

24. Romeo and Juliet

25. The Sonnets

26. The Taming of the Shrew

27. The Tempest

28. Titus Andronicus

29. Troilus and Cressida

30. Twelfth Night

31. Two Gentlemen of Verona

32. The Winter's Tale

33. Time's glory is to command contending kings, To unmask falsehood, and bring truth to light.

34. On a day-alack the day!- Love, whose month is ever May, Spied a blossom passing fair Playing in the wanton air

35. Crabbed age and youth cannot live together: Youth is full of pleasure, age is full of care

36. I gyve unto my wief my second best bed with the furniture (Modern spelling: I give unto my wife my second best bed with the furniture.)

37. Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbear, to dig the dust enclosed here. Blest be the man that spares these stones, And curst be he that moves my bones.

38. Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind. And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader and gladly so. How do I know? For this is what I have done. And I am Caesar.

39. But Shakespear's Magick could not copy'd be, Within that Circle none durst walk but he.

40. Nor sequent centuries could hit Orbit and sum of SHAKSPEARE's wit.

41. The remarkable thing about Shakespeare is that he is really very good - in spite of all the people who say he is very good.

42. He was not of an age, but for all time!

43. I never quite despair and I read Shakspeare - indeed I shall I think never read any other Book much [...] I am very near Agreeing with Hazlit that Shakspeare is enough for us.

44. He has left nothing to say about nothing or any thing.

45. At once it struck me, what quality went to form a Man of Achievement especially in Literature & which Shakespeare posessed so enormously - I mean Negative Capability, that is when man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact & reason.

46. Shakespeare led a life of Allegory; his works are the comments on it.

47. Shakespeare is not our poet, but the world's; Therefore on him no speech!

48. When I read Shakespeare I am struck with wonder That such trivial people should muse and thunder In such lovely language.

49. The verbal poetic texture of Shakespeare is the greatest the world has known, and is immensely superior to the structure of his plays as plays.

50. Shakespeare - The nearest thing in incarnation to the eye of God.

51. Last Words in Shakespeare

52. That in the captains but a choleric word Which in the soldier is flat blasphemy.

53. A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse!

54. O tiger's heart wrapped in a woman's hide!

55. Time hath not yet so dried this blood of mine, Nor age so eat up my invention, Nor fortune made such havoc of my means, Nor my bad life reft me so much of friends, But they shall find awaked in such a kind Both strength of limb and policy of mind, Ability in means, and choice of friends, To quit me of them throughly.

56. Divers philosophers hold that the lips is parcel of the mouth.

57. Short time seems long in sorrow's sharp sustaining.

58. I, measuring his affections by my own, Which then most sought where most might not be found, Being one too many by my weary self, Pursued my humor not pursuing his, And gladly shunned who gladly fled from me.

59. Ask God for temp'rance. That's th' appliance only Which your disease requires.

60. Truth needs no color; beauty, no pencil.

61. Have you not heard it said full oft, A woman's nay doth stand for naught?

62. Omittance is no quittance.

63. I take thee at thy word: Call me but love, and I'll be new baptized; Henceforth I never will be Romeo.

64. Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! Rage! Blow! You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout Till you have drenched our teeples, drowned the cocks! You sulphurour and thought-executing fires, Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts, Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder, Strike flat the thick rotundity o' the world! Crack nature's molds, all germens spill at once That make ingrateful man!

65. Use every man according to his desert and who should 'scape whipping? Use them after your own honor and dignity, the less they deserve ... the more merit in your bounty.

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

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

68. Is man no more than this? Consider him well. Thou ow'st the worm no silk, the beast no hide, the sheep no wool, the cat no perfume. Here's three on's are sophisticated. Thou art the thing itself; unaccommodated man is no more than such a poor, bare, forked animal as thou art.

69. Rosalind. Well, this is the forest of Arden. Touchstone. Ay, now am I in Arden, the more fool I. When I was at home, I was in a better place, but travellers must be content.

70. Beauty's a doubtful good, a glass, a flower, Lost, faded, broken, dead within an hour; And beauty, blemish'd once, for ever's lost, In spite of physic, painting, pain, and cost.

71. I had rather be a Kitten, and cry mew, Than one of these same Meeter Ballad-mongers: I had rather heare a Brazen Candlestick turn'd, Or a dry Wheele grate on the Axle-tree, And that would set my teeth nothing an edge, Nothing so much, as mincing Poetrie...

72. Here will be an old abusing of God's patience and the king's English.