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

I do beseech you—
Chiefly, that I might set it in my prayers—
What is your name?

Bid me discourse, I will enchant thine ear,
Or, like a fairy, trip upon the green.

Venus and Adonis (1593)

Fathers that wear rags
Do make their children blind;
But fathers that bear bags
Shall see their children kind.

King Lear (1608)

At Christmas I no more desire a rose,
Than wish a snow in May's new-fangled mirth.

Thou hast beat me out
Twelve several times, and I have nightly since
Dreamt of encounters 'twixt thyself and me.

Muse not that I thus suddenly proceed;
For what I will, I will, and there an end.

I know repentant tears ensue the deed,
Reproach, disdain, and deadly enmity;
Yet strike I to embrace mine infamy.

The Rape of Lucrece (1594)

Hereditary
Rather than purchased; what he cannot change,
Than what he chooses.

Now the devil that told me I did well
Says that this deed is chronicled in hell.

This bond is forfeit;
And lawfully by this the Jew may claim
A pound of flesh.

Learning is but an adjunct to ourself
And where we are our learning likewise is.

Madam, you have bereft me of all words,
Only my blood speaks to you in my veins.

He that parts us shall bring a brand from heaven,
And fire us hence like foxes.

King Lear (1608)

Diseases desperate grown,
By desperate appliance are reliev'd,
Or not at all.

There she shook
The holy water from her heavenly eyes,
And clamour moisten'd.

King Lear (1608)

His flight was madness: when our actions do not,
Our fears do make us traitors.

Macbeth (1605)

Why, Hal, 'tis my vocation. Hal: 'tis no sin for a man to labour in his vocation.

LET the bird of loudest lay
On the sole Arabian tree,
Herald sad and trumpet be,
To whose sound chaste wings obey.

The Phœnix and the Turtle (1601)

For though I am not splenitive and rash,
Yet have I something in me dangerous.

Show me a villain that hath done a rape,
And I am sent to be revenged on him.

Attribution

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