William Shakespeare Quotes

The very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream.

Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.

Like as the waves make towards the pebbl'd shore, so do our minutes, hasten to their end.

There is no darkness but ignorance.

Now, God be praised, that to believing souls gives light in darkness, comfort in despair.

Give thy thoughts no tongue.

Love sought is good, but given unsought, is better.

Let every eye negotiate for itself and trust no agent.

Farewell, fair cruelty.

Life is as tedious as twice-told tale, vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man.

Come, gentlemen, I hope we shall drink down all unkindness.

My crown is called content, a crown that seldom kings enjoy.

When we are born we cry that we are come to this great stage of fools.

My pride fell with my fortunes.

Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind.

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. On such a full sea are we now afloat. And we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures.

As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods; they kill us for their sport.

There are many events in the womb of time, which will be delivered.

Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall.

Wisely, and slow. They stumble that run fast.

The stroke of death is as a lover's pinch, which hurts and is desired.

Who could refrain that had a heart to love and in that heart courage to make love known?

But men are men; the best sometimes forget.

It is a wise father that knows his own child.

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

I will praise any man that will praise me.

He that is giddy thinks the world turns round.

Maids want nothing but husbands, and when they have them, they want everything.

Neither a borrower nor a lender be.

Give me my robe, put on my crown; I have Immortal longings in me.

What's done can't be undone.

And this, our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything.

Reputation is an idle and most false imposition; oft got without merit, and lost without deserving.

It is the stars, The stars above us, govern our conditions.

We cannot conceive of matter being formed of nothing, since things require a seed to start from... Therefore there is not anything which returns to nothing, but all things return dissolved into their elements.

The wheel is come full circle.

When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions.

And why not death rather than living torment? To die is to be banish'd from myself; And Silvia is myself: banish'd from her Is self from self: a deadly banishment!

To do a great right do a little wrong.

We know what we are, but know not what we may be.

When a father gives to his son, both laugh; when a son gives to his father, both cry.

O thou invisible spirit of wine, if thou hast no name to be known by, let us call thee devil.

In a false quarrel there is no true valor.

If you can look into the seeds of time, and say which grain will grow and which will not, speak then unto me.

Boldness be my friend.

No, I will be the pattern of all patience; I will say nothing.

Alas, I am a woman friendless, hopeless!

How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child!

Many a good hanging prevents a bad marriage.

Modest doubt is called the beacon of the wise.

The man that hath no music in himself, Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils.9

Teach not thy lip such scorn, for it was made For kissing, lady, not for such contempt.

The valiant never taste of death but once.

As soon go kindle fire with snow, as seek to quench the fire of love with words.

Pleasure and action make the hours seem short.

If we are marked to die, we are enough to do our country loss; and if to live, the fewer men, the greater share of honor.

Truly, I would not hang a dog by my will, much more a man who hath any honesty in him.

The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.

The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

Words, words, mere words, no matter from the heart.

Talking isn't doing. It is a kind of good deed to say well; and yet words are not deeds.

Lawless are they that make their wills their law.

We are time's subjects, and time bids be gone.

The fashion of the world is to avoid cost, and you encounter it.

It will have blood, they say; blood will have blood.

There's many a man has more hair than wit.

But if it be a sin to covet honour, I am the most offending soul alive.

He is winding the watch of his wit; by and by it will strike.

Now is the winter of our discontent.

Love is too young to know what conscience is.

I must be cruel, only to be kind.

They do not love that do not show their love.

With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come.

Speak low, if you speak love.

Sweet mercy is nobility's true badge.

Ambition should be made of sterner stuff.

What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god.

The empty vessel makes the loudest sound.

Life every man holds dear; but the dear man holds honor far more precious dear than life.

The lunatic, the lover, and the poet, are of imagination all compact.

This above all; to thine own self be true.

Men are April when they woo, December when they wed. Maids are May when they are maids, but the sky changes when they are wives.

I see that the fashion wears out more apparel than the man.

Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt.

How far that little candle throws its beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world.

The most peaceable way for you, if you do take a thief, is, to let him show himself what he is and steal out of your company.

Listen to many, speak to a few.

What is past is prologue.

Go to you bosom: Knock there, and ask your heart what it doth know.

A peace is of the nature of a conquest; for then both parties nobly are subdued, and neither party loser.

I am not bound to please thee with my answer.

O! for a muse of fire, that would ascend the brightest heaven of invention.

I shall the effect of this good lesson keeps as watchman to my heart.

I say there is no darkness but ignorance.

The undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns.

O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!

Death is a fearful thing.

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.

One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.

We are such stuff as dreams are made on; and our little life is rounded with a sleep.

Fishes live in the sea, as men do a-land; the great ones eat up the little ones.

There's no art to find the mind's construction in the face.

The love of heaven makes one heavenly.

Fortune brings in some boats that are not steered.

There's place and means for every man alive.

An overflow of good converts to bad.

I may neither choose who I would, nor refuse who I dislike; so is the will of a living daughter curbed by the will of a dead father.9

God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another.

I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.

I like not fair terms and a villain's mind.

Most dangerous is that temptation that doth goad us on to sin in loving virtue.

This life, which had been the tomb of his virtue and of his honour, is but a walking shadow; a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Better three hours too soon than a minute too late.

Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.

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

Good night, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say good night till it be morrow.

A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool.

God has given you one face, and you make yourself another.

No legacy is so rich as honesty.

If music be the food of love, play on.

Ignorance is the curse of God; knowledge is the wing wherewith we fly to heaven.

Doubt thou the stars are fire, Doubt that the sun doth move. Doubt truth to be a liar, But never doubt I love.

Brevity is the soul of wit.

Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.

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

The course of true love never did run smooth.

All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages.

Hell is empty and all the devils are here.

Faith, there hath been many great men that have flattered the people who ne'er loved them.

The robbed that smiles, steals something from the thief.

If you prick us do we not bleed? If you tickle us do we not laugh? If you poison us do we not die? And if you wrong us shall we not revenge?

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

To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.

What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

False face must hide what the false heart doth know.

Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs.

Better a witty fool than a foolish wit.

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

Let me embrace thee, sour adversity, for wise men say it is the wisest course.

Such as we are made of, such we be.

Suit the action to the word, the word to the action.

How poor are they that have not patience! What wound did ever heal but by degrees?

Sweet are the uses of adversity which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, wears yet a precious jewel in his head.

Let no such man be trusted.

Love is not love that alters when it alteration finds.

Men's vows are women's traitors!

And oftentimes excusing of a fault doth make the fault the worse by the excuse.

If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men's cottage princes' palaces.

O, had I but followed the arts!

Is it not strange that desire should so many years outlive performance?

Is it not strange that desire should so many years outlive performance?

Where every something, being blent together turns to a wild of nothing.

Exceeds man's might: that dwells with the gods above.

He does it with better grace, but I do it more natural.

Nature hath framed strange fellows in her time.

I dote on his very absence.

Having nothing, nothing can he lose.

Things won are done, joy's soul lies in the doing.

In time we hate that which we often fear.

There's not a note of mine that's worth the noting.

There's not a note of mine that's worth the noting.

I bear a charmed life.

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

How well he's read, to reason against reading!

Tis best to weigh the enemy more mighty than he seems.

They say miracles are past.

Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful.

Thou know'st the first time that we smell the air we wawl and cry. When we are born we cry, that we are come to this great state of fools.

Use every man after his desert, and who should scape whipping?

Our peace shall stand as firm as rocky mountains.