William Shakespeare on Birthday
1564–1616 England
← All quotes by William Shakespeare
72 quotes
As dear to me as are the ruddy drops
That visit my sad heart.
Julius Cæsar (1599)
Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy.
Minutes, hours, days, months, and years,
Pass'd over to the end they were created,
Would bring white hairs unto a quiet grave.
Ah, what a life were this!
Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth
And delves the parallels in beauty's brow.
For by these
Shall I try friends: you shall perceive how you
Mistake my fortunes; I am wealthy in my friends.
I am not of that feather to shake off
My friend when he must need me.
Yet, do thy worst, old Time; despite thy wrong,
My love shall in my verse ever live young.
Time's the king of men,
He's both their parent, and he is their grave,
And gives them what he will, not what they crave.
And, looking on it with lack-lustre eye,
Says very wisely, "It is ten o'clock:
Thus we may see," quoth he, "how the world wags."
Time is like a fashionable host
That slightly shakes his parting guest by the hand,
And with his arms outstretch'd, as he would fly
Grasps in the comer: welcome ever smiles.
Troilus and Cressida (1602)
Make use of time, let not advantage slip;
Beauty within itself should not be wasted:
Fair flowers that are not gather'd in their prime
Rot and consume themselves in little time.
Venus and Adonis (1593)
Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatch'd, unfledg'd comrade.
Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted color off,
And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark.
Do not be forever with thy vailed lids
Seek for thy noble father in the dust:
Thou know'st tis common; all that lives must die,
Passing through nature to eternity.
Call you that backing of your friends? A plague upon such backing! give me them that will face me.
When did friendship take
A breed for barren metal of his friend?
Out upon this half-fac'd fellowship!
For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy.
Nor age so eat up my invention.
What should we speak of
When we are old as you? When we shall hear
The rain and wind beat dark December.
Cymbeline (1611)
Let's take the instant by the forward top;
For we are old, and on our quick'st decrees
The inaudible and noiseless foot of Time
Steals ere we can effect them.