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

As are those dulcet sounds in break of day
That creep into the dreaming bridegroom's ear
And summon him to marriage.

Is there no pity sitting in the clouds,
That sees into the bottom of my grief?

Romeo and Juliet (1597)

One whom the music of his own vain tongue
Doth ravish like enchanting harmony.

To reap the harvest of perpetual peace,
By this one bloody trial of sharp war.

Richard III (1591)

Find out the cause of this effect,
Or rather say, the cause of this defect,
For this effect defective comes by cause.

Merrily, merrily, shall I live now
Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.

It is a great sin to swear unto a sin,
But greater sin to keep a sinful oath.

What means this passionate discourse,
This peroration with such circumstance?

A drop of patience: but, alas, to make me
A fixed figure, for the time of scorn
To point his slow unmoving finger at!

Othello (1603)

O, what a deal of scorn looks beautiful
In the contempt and anger of his lip!

And then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school.

She is a woman, therefore may be woo'd;
She is a woman, therefore may be won.

Action is eloquence, and the eyes of the ignorant
More learned than the ears.

Coriolanus (1608)

Between the acting of a dreadful thing
And the first motion, all the interim is
Like a phantasma, or a hideous dream.

Julius Cæsar (1599)

Things at the worst will cease or else climb upward
To what they were before.

Macbeth (1605)

Too like the lightning, which doth cease to be
Ere one can say "It lightens."

Romeo and Juliet (1597)

Say she be mute and will not speak a word;
Then I'll commend her volubility,
And say she uttereth piercing eloquence.

Her eyes in heaven
Would through the airy region stream so bright,
That birds would sing and think it were not night.

Romeo and Juliet (1597)

But jealous souls will not be answer'd so;
They are not ever jealous for the cause,
But jealous for they are jealous.

Othello (1603)

Silence is only commendable
In a neat's tongue dried and a maid not vendible.

Attribution

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