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

Great men may jest with saints; 'tis wit in them;
But, in the less, foul profanation.

Measure for Measure (1603)

Wise men ne'er sit and wail their loss,
But cheerly seek how to redress their harms.

Let never day nor night unhallow'd pass,
But still remember what the Lord hath done.

Here comes a man of comfort, whose advice
Hath often still'd my brawling discontent.

Measure for Measure (1603)

In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt
But, being season'd with a gracious voice,
Obscures the show of evil?

Never durst poet touch a pen to write
Until his ink were temper'd with Love's sighs.

Know'st thou not any whom corrupting gold
Would tempt unto a close exploit of death?

Richard III (1591)

That which in mean men we entitle patience
Is pale cold cowardice in noble breasts.

Richard II (1595)

The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn,
Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat
Awake the god of day.

Hamlet (1600)

Two lovely berries moulded on one stem:
So, with two seeming bodies, but one heart.

O, then, what graces in my love do dwell,
That he hath turn'd a heaven unto a hell!

Run, run, Orlando: carve on every tree
The fair, the chaste, and unexpressive she.

But in these nice sharp quillets of the law,
Good faith, I am no wiser than a daw.

Their copious stories, oftentimes begun,
End without audience, and are never done.

Venus and Adonis (1593)

Becomes it thee to taunt his valiant age
And twit with cowardice a man half dead?

Oft have I heard that grief softens the mind
And makes it fearful and degenerate.

The jury, passing on the prisoner's life,
May in the sworn twelve have a thief or two
Guiltier than him they try.

Measure for Measure (1603)

O sleep, thou ape of death, lie dull upon her
And be her sense but as a monument.

Cymbeline (1611)

She bears a duke's revenues on her back,
And in her heart she scorns our poverty.

I 'gin to be aweary of the sun,
And wish the estate o' the world were now undone.

Macbeth (1605)

Attribution

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