William Shakespeare Quotes

If music be the food of love, play on, Give me excess of it; that surfeiting, The appetite may sicken, and so die.

We know what we are, but not what we may be.

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, his acts being seven ages.

Words are easy, like the wind; Faithful friends are hard to find.

Double, double, toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble!

Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once. Of all the wonders that I yet have heard, It seems to me most strange that men should fear; Seeing that death, a necessary end, Will come when it will come.

Though she be but little, she is fierce!

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, To the last syllable of recorded time; And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more. It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.

Don't waste your love on somebody, who doesn't value it.

Lord, what fools these mortals be!

The course of true love never did run smooth.

I like this place and could willingly waste my time in it.

Good night, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say good night till it be morrow.

All that glisters is not gold; Often have you heard that told: Many a man his life hath sold But my outside to behold: Gilded tombs do worms enfold.

There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more, Men were deceivers ever,- One foot in sea and one on shore, To one thing constant never.

Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt.

Did my heart love till now? forswear it, sight! For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night.

Though this be madness, yet there is method in't.

Brevity is the soul of wit.

Listen to many, speak to a few.

Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak knits up the o-er wrought heart and bids it break.

They do not love that do not show their love.

It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury; signifying nothing.

One may smile, and smile, and be a villain.

The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.

Conscience doth make cowards of us all.

How far that little candle throws its beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world.

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.

Look like the innocent flower, But be the serpent under it.

If we are true to ourselves, we can not be false to anyone.

We are such stuff as dreams are made on; and our little life is rounded with a sleep.

In time we hate that which we often fear.

I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow, than a man swear he loves me.

My words fly up, my thoughts remain below Words without thoughts never to heaven go.

What's done cannot be undone.

What is past is prologue.

Wisely and slow; they stumble that run fast.

Who could refrain that had a heart to love and in that heart courage to make love known?

This above all; to thine own self be true.

Now cracks a noble heart. Good-night sweet prince, And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.

Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs.

But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.

I am not bound to please thee with my answer.

What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

Sweets to the sweet.

When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions.

If love be rough with you, be rough with love. Prick love for pricking and you beat love down.

Go wisely and slowly. Those who rush stumble and fall.

God has given you one face, and you make yourself another.

When we are born we cry that we are come to this great stage of fools.

The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

O, beware, my lord, of jealousy; It is the green-ey'd monster, which doth mock The meat it feeds on.

The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.

The lunatic, the lover, and the poet, are of imagination all compact.

So wise so young, they say, do never live long.

Better a witty fool than a foolish wit.

All's well if all ends well.

Nothing can come of nothing.

I must be cruel only to be kind; Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind.

Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war!

Love comforteth like sunshine after rain.

There was a star danced, and under that was I born.

Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind.

He that is thy friend indeed, He will help thee in thy need: If thou sorrow, he will weep; If thou wake, he cannot sleep: Thus of every grief in heart He with thee does bear a part. These are certain signs to know Faithful friend from flattering foe.

False face must hide what the false heart doth know.

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

So full of artless jealousy is guilt, It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.

Beware the ides of March.

Fair is foul, and foul is fair, hover through fog and filthy air.

I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.

And thus I clothe my naked villainy With odd old ends stol'n out of holy writ; And seem a saint, when most I play the devil.

To be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of ten thousand.

Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once.

As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods; they kill us for their sport.

No legacy is so rich as honesty.

Journeys end in lovers meeting.

The prince of darkness is a gentleman!

Better three hours too soon than a minute too late.

love is blind and lovers cannot see the pretty follies that themselves commit

The best is yet to come.

Come what come may, time and the hour run through the roughest day.

The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose. An evil soul producing holy witness Is like a villain with a smiling cheek, A goodly apple rotten at the heart. O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!

There's small choice in rotten apples.

The Devil hath powerTo assume a pleasing shape.

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

The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.

Jesters do oft prove prophets.

Have more than you show, Speak less than you know.

Thou shouldst not have been old till thou hadst been wise.

Thought is free.

Out, damned spot! out, I say!

His life was gentle; and the elements So mixed in him, that Nature might stand up And say to all the world, THIS WAS A MAN!

Love sought is good, but given unsought, is better.

Absence from those we love is self from self - a deadly banishment.

Sweet are the uses of adversity which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, wears yet a precious jewel in his head.

But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve For daws to peck at: I am not what I am.

Silence is the perfectest herault of joy. I were but little happy if I could say how much.

They do not love that do not show their love. The course of true love never did run smooth. Love is a familiar. Love is a devil. There is no evil angel but Love.

The very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream.

The man that hath no music in himself, Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils.

And oftentimes excusing of a fault doth make the fault the worse by the excuse.

Absence doth sharpen love, presence strengthens it; the one brings fuel, the other blows it till it burns clear.

Defer no time, delays have dangerous ends.

How poor are they that have not patience! What wound did ever heal but by degrees?

Nothing emboldens sin so much as mercy.

I must be cruel, only to be kind.

I hate ingratitude more in a man than lying, vainness, babbling, drunkenness, or any taint of vice whose strong corruption inhabits our frail blood".

A friend should bear his friend's infirmities.

The attempt and not the deed confounds us.

Now, good digestion wait on appetite, and health on both!

Reputation is an idle and most false imposition; oft got without merit, and lost without deserving.

My grief lies all within, And these external manners of lament Are merely shadows to the unseen grief That swells with silence in the tortured soul.

When words are scarce they are seldom spent in vain.

For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak With most miraculous organ.

A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse!

When lenity and cruelty play for a kingdom, the gentler gamester is the soonest winner.

For who so firm that cannot be seduced?

Were kisses all the joys in bed,/One woman would another wed.

Conversation should be pleasant without scurrility, witty without affectation, free without indecency, learned without conceitedness, novel without falsehood.

Nothing in his life became him like leaving it.

Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind; The thief doth fear each bush an officer.

Out of this nettle - danger - we pluck this flower - safety.

Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.

By medicine life may be prolonged, yet death will seize the doctor too.

An honest tale speeds best being plainly told.

O, while you live, tell truth, and shame the Devil!

Neither a borrower nor a lender be, for loan oft loses both itself and friend, and borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.

The worst is not So long as we can say, This is the worst.

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

For Brutus is an honourable man; So are they all, all honourable men.

He wears his faith but as the fashion of his hat.

Life is as tedious as twice-told tale, vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man.

She's beautiful, and therefore to be wooed; She is a woman, therefore to be won.

Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.

Self-love, my liege, is not so vile a sin, as self-neglecting.

How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child!

I am wealthy in my friends.

To hold, as 't were, the mirror up to nature.

True hope is swift, and flies with swallow's wings.

Like as the waves make towards the pebbl'd shore, so do our minutes, hasten to their end.

Let me embrace thee, sour adversity, for wise men say it is the wisest course.

Ay me! for aught that ever I could read, could ever hear by tale or history, the course of true love never did run smooth.

Strong reasons make strong actions.

Such as we are made of, such we be.

All the world's a stage, and all the men and women mearly players.

Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale Her infinite variety.

Many strokes, though with a little axe, hew down and fell the hardest-timber'd oak.

The stroke of death is as a lover's pinch, which hurts and is desired.

Love is a smoke rais'd with the fume of sighs; being purg'd, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes; being vex'd, a sea nourish'd with lovers' tears; what is it else? A madness most discreet, a choking gall, and a preserving sweet.

I had rather be a kitten and cry mew Than one of these same metre ballet-mongers.

Praising what is lost makes the remembrance dear

The soul of this man is his clothes.

To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.

Rumour doth double, like the voice and echo, The numbers of the feared.

What's gone, and what's past help, Should be past grief.

When my love swears that she is made of truth, I do believe her, though I know she lies.

Though I am not naturally honest, I am sometimes so by chance.

Love is not love that alters when it alteration finds.

Who can be wise, amazed, temperate and furious, Loyal and neutral, in a moment? No man.

Assume a virtue, if you have it not.

Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind.

Women speak two languages - one of which is verbal.

To climb steep hills requires a slow pace at first.

To be a well-favoured man is the gift of fortune; but to write and read comes by nature.

Fortune brings in some boats that are not steered.

I wish you all the joy that you can wish.

Frailty, thy name is woman!

A plague on both your houses.

Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice; Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment.

If all the year were playing holidays; To sport would be as tedious as to work.

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more; it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Every man has business and desire, Such as it is.

A little more than kin, a little less than kind.

It is a wise father that knows his own child.

Teach not thy lip such scorn, for it was made For kissing, lady, not for such contempt.

Forbear to judge, for we are sinners all.

Foul whisperings are abroad

Tis not enough to help the feeble up, but to support them after.

He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his argument.

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.

Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall.

Yet do I fear thy nature; It is too full o' the milk of human kindness.