William Shakespeare Quotes

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned.

There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st But in his motion like an angel sings.

Fortune reigns in gifts of the world.

Indeed, sir, he that sleeps feels not the toothache; but a man that were to sleep your sleep, and a hangman to help him to bed, I think he would change places with his officer; for look you, sir, you know not which way you shall go.

If I were a woman I would kiss as many of you as had beards that pleased me, complexions that liked me and breaths that I defied not

What to ourselves in passion we propose, The passion ending, doth the purpose lose.

He hath not eat paper, as it were; he hath not drunk ink; his intellect is not replenished; he is only an animal, only sensible in the duller parts. (Shakespeare, Love's Labor's Lost, IV)

Who is Silvia What is she, That all our swains commend her Holy, fair, and wise is she.

Cannot you tell that? Every fool can tell that. It was the very day that young Hamlet was born, he that is mad and sent into England." "Ay, marry, why was he sent into England?" "Why, because he was mad. He shall recover his wits there, or, if he do not, it's no great matter there." "Why?" "'Twill not be seen in him there. There the men are as mad as he.

I have set my life upon a cast, And I will stand the hazard of the die.

There's her cousin, an she were not possessed with a fury, exceeds her as much in beauty as the first of May doth the last of December.

For naught so vile that on the earth doth live But to the earth some special good doth give.

Unhappy that I am, I cannot heave My heart into my mouth.

The proverb is something musty.

O good old man, how well in thee appears The constant service of the antique world, When service sweat for duty, not for meed! Thou art not for the fashion of these times, Where none will sweat but for promotion, And having that do choke their service up Even with the having. . . .

At this hour Lie at my mercy all mine enemies.

They are fairies; he that speaks to them shall die. I'll wink and couch; no man their works must eye.

Care keeps his watch in every old man’s eye, And where care lodges, sleep will never lie.

The chameleon Love can feed on the air

Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall.

For what I will, I will, and there an end.

The Hebrew will turn Christian; he grows kind.

A contract of eternal bond of love, Confirm'd by mutual joinder of your hands, Arrested by the holy close of lips, Strength'ned by the interchangement of your rings, And all the ceremony of this compact Seal'd in my function, by my testimony.

I have neither the scholar's melancholy, which is emulation; nor the musician's, which is fantastical; nor the courtier's, which is proud; not the soldier's which is ambitious; nor the lawyer's, which is politic; nor the lady's, which is nice; nor the lover's, which is all these: but it is a melancholy of mine own, compounded of many simples, extracted from many objects, and indeed the sundry contemplation of my travels, which, by often rumination, wraps me in a most humorous sadness.

Faith, stay here this night; they will surely do us no harm; you saw they speak us fair, give us gold; methinks they are such a gentle nation that, but for the mountain of mad flesh that claims marriage of me, could find in my heart to stay here still and turn witch.

A blind man can't forget the eyesight he lost, show me any beautiful girl. How can her beauty not remind me of the one whose beauty surpasses hers?

Every inordinate cup is unbless'd, and the ingredient is a devil.

Fie, fie, how frantically I square my talk!

Make the upcoming hour overflow with joy, and let pleasure drown the brim.

But shall we wear these glories for a day? Or shall they last, and we rejoice in them?

When Death doth close his tender dying eyes.

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.

I have unclasp'd to thee the book even of my secret soul.

It is held that valor is the chiefest virtue, and most dignifies the haver.

That you were once unkind befriends me now, And for that sorrow, which I then did feel, Needs must I under my transgression bow, Unless my nerves were brass or hammered steel.

Let us not burden our remembrances with a heaviness that's gone.

Thy friendship makes us fresh.

Better three hours too soon than a minute too late.

Thanks, sir; all the rest is mute.

There is a history in all men's lives.

We make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars; as if we were villians by compulsion.

I am the Prince of Wales; and think not, Percy, To share with me in glory any more: Two stars keep not their motion in one sphere.

We do not keep the outward form of order, where there is deep disorder in the mind.

O, Thou hast damnable iteration; and art, indeed, able to corrupt a saint.

One pain is lessened by another's anguish.

Why are our bodies soft, and weak, and smooth But that our soft conditions and our hearts Should well agree with our external parts?

I find my zenith doth depend upon A most auspicious star, whose influence If now I court not, but omit, my fortunes Will ever after droop.

Sweet are the uses of adversity