William Shakespeare Quotes

To some kind of men their graces serve them but as enemies.

How quickly nature falls into revolt When gold becomes her object! For this the foolish over-careful fathers Have broke their sleep with thoughts, their brains with care, Their bones with industry.

Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.

I cannot but remember such things were that were most precious to me.

And oftentimes, to win us to our harm, The instruments of darkness tell us truths, Win us with honest trifles, to betray's In deepest consequence

Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly.

O me, you juggler, you canker-blossom, you thief of love!

This is the excellent foppery of the world, that, when we are sick in fortune,--often the surfeit of our own behavior,--we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars: as if we were villains by necessity; fools by heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and treachers, by spherical predominance; drunkards, liars, and adulterers, by an enforced obedience of planetary influence; and all that we are evil in, by a divine thrusting on: an admirable evasion of whoremaster man, to lay his goatish disposition to the charge of a star.

Pray you now, forget and forgive.

The daintiest last, to make the end most sweet.

I know a bank where the wild thyme blows, Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows, Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine, With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine.

What light through yonder window breaks?

Say, thou art mine; and ever, My love, as it begins, shall so persevere

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

There's nothing in this world can make me joy.

Honour travels in a strait so narrow Where one but goes abreast.

Romeo: Courage, man; the hurt cannot be much. Mercutio: No, 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church-door; but 'tis enough, 'twill serve. Ask for me tomorrow, and you shall find me a grave man.

Hold, or cut bowstrings.

God defend the right.

Young men's love then lies not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes.

Oft expectation fails, and most oft there where most it promises; and oft it hits where hope is coldest, and despair most fits.

If this were played upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction.

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.

Time is the nurse and breeder of all good.

Is it possible he should know what he is, and be that he is?

Fruits that blossom first will first be ripe.

But what's so blessed-fair that fears no blot? Thou mayst be false, and yet I know it not.

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

One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.

A politician... one that would circumvent God.

When faced with a sea of troubles, take action, and in so doing end it.

When great leaves fall, the winter is at hand.

Thus can the demigod Authority Make us pay down for our offense by weight The words of heaven; on whom it will, it will, On whom it will not, so: yet still 'tis just.

Oh, that way madness lies; let me shun that.

But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes, Feed'st thy light's flame with self-substantial fuel, Making a famine where abundance lies, Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel.

The expedition of my violent love outrun the pauser, reason.

Till all grace be in one woman, one woman shall not come in my grace.

Therefore was I created with a stubborn outside, with an aspect of iron, that when I come to woo ladies, I fright them. But, in faith, Kate, the elder I wax, the better I shall appear. My comfort is that old age, that ill layer-up of beauty, can do no more spoil upon my face. Thou hast me, if thou hast me, at the worst, and thou shalt wear me, if thou wear me, better and better.

I am indeed, sir, a surgeon to old shoes; when they are in great danger I recover them.

We were not born to sue, but to command.

Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot that it do singe yourself.

He was met even now As mad as the vex'd sea; singing aloud; Crown'd with rank fumiter and furrow-weeds, With bur-docks, hemlock, nettles, cuckoo-flowers, Darnel, and all the idle weeds that grow In our sustaining corn.

I'll take thy word for faith, not ask thine oath; Who shuns not to break one will sure crack both.

Though she be but little, she is fierce!

But no perfection is so absolute, That some impurity doth not pollute.

Desperate times breed desperate measures

A true repentance shuns the evil itself, more than the external suffering or the shame.

'Tis brief, my lord...as woman's love.