William Shakespeare Quotes

Th abuse of greatness is when it disjoins remorse from power.

No man means evil but the devil, and we shall know him by his horns.

O braggart vile and damned furious wight!

The eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen, man's hand is not able to taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report, what my dream was.

Let me tell you, Cassius, you yourself are much condemned to have an itching palm.

Every offense is not a hate at first.

Give thy thoughts no tongue, nor any unproportioned thought his act. Be thou familiar but by no means vulgar.

Our fancies are more giddy and unfirm, more longing, wavering, sooner lost and won, than women's are.

If you prick us do we not bleed? If you tickle us do we not laugh? If you poison us do we not die? And if you wrong us shall we not revenge?

Why, all delights are vain; but that most vain, Which, with pain purchas'd, doth inherit pain.

When most I wink, then do my eyes best see

And he goes through life, his mouth open, and his mind closed.

I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other men.

Look how the world's poor people are amazed at apparitions, signs and prodigies!

I have full cause of weeping, but this heart shall break into a hundred thousand flaws or ere I'll weep.

This man, lady, hath robb'd many beasts of their particular additions: he is as valiant as a lion, churlish as the bear, slow as the elephant-a man into whom nature hath so crowded humours that his valour is crush'd into folly, his folly sauced with discretion.

The fortune of us that are the moon's men doth ebb and flow like the sea, being governed, as the sea is, by the moon.

Such antics do not amount to a man.

In nature there's no blemish but the mind. None can be called deformed but the unkind.

Ambition, the soldier's virtue.

Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day And make me travel forth without my cloak, To let base clouds o'ertake me in my way, Hiding they brav'ry in their rotten smoke?

Faith, there hath been many great men that have flattered the people who ne'er loved them.

GLOUCESTER: Yet so much is my poverty of spirit, So mighty and so many my defects, As I had rather hide me from my greatness, Being a bark to brook no mighty sea, Than in my greatness covet to be hid, And in the vapour of my glory smother'd. But God be thanked. . . .

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

Now let it work. Mischief, thou art afoot. Take thou what course thou wilt.

Petruchio: Come, come, you wasp; i' faith, you are too angry. Katherine: If I be waspish, best beware my sting. Petruchio: My remedy is then, to pluck it out. Katherine: Ay, if the fool could find where it lies. Petruchio: Who knows not where a wasp does wear his sting? In his tail. Katherine: In his tongue. Petruchio: Whose tongue? Katherine: Yours, if you talk of tails: and so farewell. Petruchio: What, with my tongue in your tail? Nay, come again, Good Kate; I am a gentleman.

One good deed dying tongueless Slaughters a thousand waiting upon that. Our praises are our wages.

The wounds invisible that Love's keen arrows make.

Glendower: I can call the spirits from the vasty deep. Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man; But will they come, when you do call for them?

I dote on his very absence.

Time goes on crutches till love have all his rites.

For he was likely, had he been put on, to have proved most royally.

Words, words, mere words, no matter from the heart.

Four days will quickly steep themselves in nights; Four nights will quickly dream away the time; And then the moon, like to a silver bow new bent in heaven, shall behold the night of our solemnities.

But to my mind, though I am native here, And to the manner born, it is a custom, More honored in the breach than the observance.

On the bat’s back I do fly After summer merrily.

Can one desire too much of a good thing?

Of all knowledge the wise and good seek most to know themselves.

Beauty is but a vain and doubtful good; a shining gloss that fadeth suddenly; a flower that dies when it begins to bud; a doubtful good, a gloss, a glass, a flower, lost, faded, broken, dead within an hour.

A smile cures the wounding of a frown.

O God, that men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains!" - Cassio (Act II, Scene iii)

No doubt they rose up early to observe the rite of May; and, hearing our intent, Came here in grace of our solemnity.

The leopard does not change his spots.

There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.

Things bad begun make strong themselves by ill.

And when love speaks, the voice of all the gods makes Heaven drowsy with the harmony.

'Tis the soldier's life to have their balmy slumbers waked with strife.

How use doth breed a habit in a man.