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.

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

Random William Shakespeare quote

2,353 quotes

Soft, I did but dream.
O coward conscience, how dost thou afflict me!

Richard III (1591)

Look cheerfully upon me.
Here, love; thou seest how dilgent I am.

I said an elder soldier, not a better.
Did I say, better?

Julius Cæsar (1599)

BANQUO [perhaps describing hemlock or henbane]:
Were such things here as we do speak about?
Or have we eaten on the insane root
That takes the reason prisoner?

No, no, he cannot long hold out these pangs;
The incessant care and labour of his mind
Hath wrought the mure, that should confine it in,
So thin that life looks through and will break out.

Widow, I have been a meer Stranger for these Parts that you live in, nor did I ever know the Husband of you, and Father of them, but I truly know by certain spiritual Intelligence, that he is in Purgatory.

Nicholas Rowe (1709)

He is pure air and fire; and the dull elements of earth and water never appear in him, but only in patient stillness while his rider mounts him. He is indeed a horse, and all other jades you may call beasts.

He hath never fed of the dainties that are bred in a book; he hath not eat paper, as it were; he hath not drunk ink: his intellect is not replenished; he is only an animal, only sensible in the duller parts.

Thou! why, thou wilt quarrel with a man that hath a hair more, or a hair less, in his beard than thou hast: thou wilt quarrel with a man for cracking nuts, having no other reason but because thou hast hazel eyes.

Romeo and Juliet (1597)

Why, give him gold enough and marry him to a puppet or an aglet-baby or an old trot with ne'er a tooth in her head, though she have as many diseases as two-and-fifty horses; why, nothing comes amiss, so money comes withal.

Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove;
O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Sonnet CXVI (1609)

Unless hours were cups of sack, and minutes capons, and clocks the tongues of bawds, and dials the signs of leaping-houses, and the blessed sun himself a fair hot wench in flame-coloured taffeta, I see no reason why thou shouldst be so superfluous to demand the time of the day.

O, how wretched
Is that poor man that hangs on princes' favors!
There is, betwixt that smile we would aspire to,
That sweet aspect of princes, and their ruin,
More pangs and fears than wars and women have;
And when he falls, he falls like Lucifer,
Never to hope again.

Henry VIII (1613)

'Tis better to be vile than vile esteem'd,
When not to be receives reproach of being

I’ll play the orator as well as Nestor,
Deceive more slyly than Ulysses could,
And, like a Sinon, take another Troy.

I did not think to shed a tear
In all my miseries; but thou hast forc'd me,
Out of thy honest truth, to play the woman.

Henry VIII (1613)

I had rather than forty shillings, I had my Book of Songs and Sonnets here.

If I chance to talk a little wild, forgive me;
I had it from my father.

Henry VIII (1613)

So tedious is this day,
As is the night before some festival
To an impatient child, that hath new robes,
And may not wear them.

Romeo and Juliet (1597)

And all my mother came into mine eyes
And gave me up to tears.

Henry V (1599)

Attribution

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