William Shakespeare Quotes

1564–1616 England

William Shakespeare (26 April 1564 (baptised) – 23 April 1616) was an English poet, playwright, and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist.

England
Actors
Playwrights
Poets

Also known as: Shakespeare, Shakespeare, William, Shakespearean, Shakspeare

Random William Shakespeare quote

2,353 quotes

She shall watch all night:
And if she chance to nod I'll rail and brawl
And with the clamour keep her still awake.
This is the way to kill a wife with kindness.

Treason and murder ever kept together,
As two yoke-devils sworn to either's purpose,
Working so grossly in a natural cause,
That admiration did not hoop at them.

Henry V (1599)

I told you, sir, they were red-hot with drinking;
So full of valour that they smote the air
For breathing in their faces; beat the ground
For kissing of their feet.

The painful warrior famoused for fight,
After a thousand victories once foiled,
Is from the book of honour razed quite,
And all the rest forgot for which he toiled.

If it were now to die,
'Twere now to be most happy; for I fear
My soul hath her content so absolute
That not another comfort like to this
Succeeds in unknown fate.

Othello (1603)

One woman is fair, yet I am well; another is wise, yet I am well: another virtuous, yet I am well; but till all graces be in one woman, one woman shall not come in my grace.

Without the bed her other fair hand was,
On the green coverlet; whose perfect white
Show'd like an April daisy on the grass,
With pearly sweat, resembling dew of night.

The Rape of Lucrece (1594)

Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,
Who is already sick and pale with grief,
That thou her maid art far more fair than she:
Be not her maid, since she is envious.

Romeo and Juliet (1597)

Therefore I say again,
I utterly abhor, yea from my soul
Refuse you for my judge; whom, yet once more,
I hold my most malicious foe, and think not
At all a mend to truth.

Henry VIII (1613)

O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!
It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night,
Like a rich jewel in an Ethiope's ear:
Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear!

Romeo and Juliet (1597)

Schoolmasters will I keep within my house,
Fit to instruct her youth. * * *
* * * To cunning men
I will be very kind, and liberal
To mine own children in good bringing up.

Urge them while their souls
Are capable of this ambition,
Lest zeal, now melted by the windy breath
Of soft petitions, pity and remorse,
Cool and congeal again to what it was.

King John (1598)

Mark but my fall, and that that ruin'd me.
Cromwell, I charge thee, fling away ambition.
By that sin fell the angels; how can man then,
The image of his Maker, hope to win by it?

Henry VIII (1613)

If a man do not erect in this age his own tomb ere he dies, he shall live no longer in monument than the bell rings, and the widow weeps... ...An hour in clamour and a quarter in rheum.

I have, as when the sun doth light a storm,
Buried this sigh in wrinkle of a smile:
But sorrow, that is couch'd in seeming gladness,
Is like that mirth fate turns to sudden sadness.

Troilus and Cressida (1602)

Custom calls me to 't:
What custom wills, in all things should we do't,
The dust on antique time would lie unswept,
And mountainous error be too highly heap't
For truth to o'erpeer.

And where two raging fires meet together,
They do consume the thing that feeds their fury:
Though little fire grows great with little wind,
Yet extreme gusts will blow out fire and all.

Ill-weav'd ambition, how much art thou shrunk!
When that this body did contain a spirit,
A kingdom for it was too small a bound;
But now, two paces of the vilest earth
Is room enough.

Come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here...
Come to my woman’s breasts,
And take my milk for gall.

Macbeth (1606)

Thou dotard! Thou art woman-tir’d, unroosted
By thy Dame Partlet here.

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: William Shakespeare (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.