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William Shakespeare on Men

1564–1616 England

← All quotes by William Shakespeare

16 quotes

Men have died from time to time and worms have eaten them, but not for love.

What is a man,
If his chief good and market of his time
Be but to sleep and feed?

A proper man as one shall see in a summer's day.

I wonder men dare trust themselves with men.

Men at some time are masters of their fates:
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.

Julius Caesar (1599)

For men, like butterflies,
Show not their mealy wings but to the summer.

Troilus and Cressida (1602)

God made him, and therefore let him pass for a man.

I have thought some of Nature's journeymen had made men and not made them well, they imitated humanity so abominably.

Men that make
Envy and crooked malice nourishment,
Dare bite the best.

Henry VIII (1613)

The foremost man of all this world.

Julius Cæsar (1599)

He was a man, take him for all in all,
I shall not look upon his like again.

What a piece of work is a man!
How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty!
In form and moving how express and admirable!
In action how like an angel,
in apprehension how like a god!

Hamlet (1600)

Give me that man
That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him
In my heart's core, ay, in my heart of heart
As I do thee.

But man, proud man,
Dress'd in a little brief authority,
Most ignorant of what he's most assur'd—
His glassy essence—like an angry ape
Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven
As makes the angels weep; who, with our spleens,
Would all themselves laugh mortal.

And gentlemen in England, now a-bed,
Shall think themselves accurs'd, they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap, whiles any speaks,
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

This is the state of man: to-day he puts forth
The tender leaves of hope; to-morrow blossoms,
And bears his blushing honours thick upon him:
The third day comes a frost, a killing frost,
And, when he thinks, good easy man, full surely
His greatness is a-ripening, nips his root,
And then he falls, as I do.

Henry VIII (1613)

Attribution

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