William Shakespeare Quotes

She speaks poniards, and every word stabs: if her breath were as terrible as her terminations, there were no living near her; she would infect to the north star. I would not marry her, though she were endowed with all that Adam bad left him before he transgressed.

He's of the colour of the nutmeg. And of the heat of the ginger.... he is pure air and fire; and the dull elements of earth and water never appear in him, but only in patient stillness while his rider mounts him; he is indeed a horse, and all other jades you may call beasts.

He does it with better grace, but I do it more natural.

If I could write the beauty of your eyes And in fresh numbers number all your graces, The age to come would say, 'This poet lies; Such heavenly touches ne'er touch'd earthly faces.'

Look, what a horse should have he did not lack, Save a proud rider on his back.

A man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age.

King Henry: But what a point, my lord, your falcon made, And what a pitch she flew above the rest! To see how God in all his creatures works! Yea, man and birds are fain of climbing high. Suffolk: No marvel, an it like your majesty, My lord protectors hawks do tower so well; They know their masters loves to be aloft, And bears his thoughts above his falcon's pitch. Gloucester: My lord, 'tis but a base ignoble mind That mounts no higher than a bird can soar.

Dumb jewels often, in their silent kind, more than quick words, do move a woman's mind.

How many a holy and obsequious tear hath dear religious love stolen from mine eye, as interest of the dead!

Time is the king of men.

We cannot fight for love, as men may do; we shou'd be woo'd, and were not made to woo

Ay me! sad hours seem long.

Not a whit, we defy augury: there's a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, 'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come: the readiness is all.

Give it an understanding, but no tongue.

Such thanks as fits a king's remembrance.

I charge thee, hence, and do not haunt me thus.

Fair youth, I would I could make thee believe I love.

Sweets to the sweet.

Report me and my cause aright.

Having my freedom, boast of nothing else.

Stars hide your fires; let not light see my black and deep desires: The eyes wink at the hand; yet let that be which the eye fears, when it is done, to see

He's all my exercise, my mirth, my matter.

It comes to pass oft that a terrible oath, with a swaggering accent sharply twanged off, gives manhood more approbation than ever proof itself would have earned him.

ROSENCRANTZ My lord, you must tell us where the body is, and go with us to the king. HAMLET The body is with the king, but the king is not with the body. The king is a thing - GUILDENSTERN A thing my lord? HAMLET Of nothing. Bring me to him. Hide fox, and all after!

I bear a charmed life.

Death is my son-in-law. Death is my heir. My daughter he hath wedded. I will die, And leave him all. Life, living, all is Death’s.

My crown is called content, a crown that seldom kings enjoy.

I feel it gone, yet know not when it left.

As I love the name of honour more than I fear death.

Romeo: I dreamt a dream tonight. Mercutio: And so did I. Romeo: Well, what was yours? Mercutio: That dreamers often lie. Romeo: In bed asleep while they do dream things true.

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

Scarce can I speak, my choler is so great. Oh! I could hew up rocks, and fight with flint.

And by that destiny to perform an act Whereof what's past is prologue, what to come In yours and my discharge.

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

One sees more devils than vast hell can hold

This thought is as a death.

Tis now the very witching time of night, when churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out Contagion to this world.

If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men’s cottages princes’ palaces. It is a good divine that follows his own instructions: I can easier teach twenty what were good to be done, than be one of the twenty to follow mine own teaching.

In right and service to their noble country.

My master hath been an honorable gentleman; tricks he hath had in him which gentlemen have.

You lie, in faith; for you are call'd plain Kate, And bonny Kate and sometimes Kate the curst; But Kate, the prettiest Kate in Christendom Kate of Kate Hall, my super-dainty Kate, For dainties are all Kates, and therefore, Kate, Take this of me, Kate of my consolation; Hearing thy mildness praised in every town, Thy virtues spoke of, and thy beauty sounded, Yet not so deeply as to thee belongs, Myself am moved to woo thee for my wife.

Tis but a base, ignoble mind That mounts no higher than a bird can soar.

What though care killed a cat, thou hast mettle enough in thee to kill care.

Unnatural deeds do breed unnatural troubles.

Woe to that land that's governed by a child.

Speak, my fair, and fairly, I pray thee.

Suit the action to the word : the word to the action : with this special observance that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature.

In religion, What damned error but some sober brow Will bless it, and approve it with a text, Hiding the grossness with fair ornament?