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William Shakespeare on Society

1564–1616 England

← All quotes by William Shakespeare

15 quotes

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts.

As You Like It (1599)

For some must watch, while some must sleep:
So runs the world away.

I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano:
A stage where every man must play a part.

To be imprisoned in the viewless winds
And blown with restless violence around about
The pendent world.

Measure for Measure (1603)

How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable
Seem to me all the uses of this world!

The world is grown so bad,
That wrens make prey where eagles dare not perch.

Richard III (1591)

This wide and universal theatre
Presents more woful pageants than the scene
Wherein we play in.

The earth hath bubbles, as the water has,
And these are of them.

Macbeth (1605)

Society is no comfort
To one not sociable.

Cymbeline (1611)

Would I were dead! if God's good will were so:
For what is in this world but grief and woe?

To make society
The sweeter welcome, we will keep ourself
Till supper-time alone.

Macbeth (1605)

Why, then, the world's mine oyster,
Which I with sword will open.

Whilst I was big in clamour came there in a man,
Who, having seen me in my worst estate,
Shunn'd my abhorr'd society.

King Lear (1608)

Mad world. Mad kings. Mad composition.

King John (1598)

So we grew together,
Like to a double cherry, seeming parted,
But yet an union in partition —
Two lovely berries moulded on one stem;
So, with two seeming bodies, but one heart;
Two of the first, like coats in heraldry,
Due but to one, and crowned with one crest.

Attribution

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