William Shakespeare Quotes

If her breath were as terrible as her terminations, there were no living near her, she would infect to the north star!

Adversity makes strange bedfellows.

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

Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.

If I shall be condemned Upon surmises, all proofs sleeping else But what your jealousies awake, I tell you 'Tis rigor and not law.

This most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o-erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire.

A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm

Thou mak'st me merry: I am full of pleasure; let us be jocund

I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.

Men have marble, women waxen, minds.

Golden lads and girls all must as chimney sweepers come to dust.

The icy precepts of respect.

Awake, awake, English nobility! Let not sloth dim your horrors new-begot.

The fashion of the world is to avoid cost, and you encounter it.

Diseases desperate grown By desperate appliances are relieved, Or not at all.

Let life be short, else shame will be too long.

I had rather eleven died nobly for their country than one voluptuously surfeit out of action.

Do thou amend thy face, and I'll amend my life.

Lawn as white as driven snow; Cyprus black as e'er was crow; Gloves as sweet as damask roses.

Time travels in divers paces with divers persons.

I drink to the general joy o’ the whole table." Macbeth

ROSS You must have patience, madam. LADY MACDUFF He had none: His flight was madness: when our actions do not, Our fears do make us traitors.

Hear my soul speak. Of the very instant that I saw you, did my heart fly at your service

Polonius: Do you know me, my lord? Hamlet: Excellent well. You are a fishmonger.

I am a feather for each wind that blows

To die, is to be banish'd from myself; And Silvia is myself: banish'd from her, Is self from self: a deadly banishment! What light is light, if Silvia be not seen? What joy is joy, if Silvia be not by? Unless it be to think that she is by, And feed upon the shadow of perfection. Except I be by Silvia in the night, There is no music in the nightingale; Unless I look on Silvia in the day, There is no day for me to look upon; She is my essence, and I leave to be, If I be not by her fair influence Foster'd, illumin'd, cherish'd, kept alive.

There's an old saying that applies to me: you can't lose a game if you don't play the game. (Act 1, scene 4)

I feel within me a peace above all earthly dignities, a still and quiet conscience.

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

Good words are better than bad strokes.

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.

Who riseth from a feast With that keen appetite that he sits down?

The sight of lovers feedeth those in love.

So will I turn her virtue into pitch, And out of her own goodness make the net That shall enmesh them all.

As in a theatre, the eyes of men, after a well-graced actor leaves the stage, are idly bent on him that enters next.

Oh! it offends me to the soul to hear a robust periwig-pated fellow, tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings.

Where hateful Death put on his ugliest mask.

Hate pollutes the mind.

Marry, sir, they praise me and make an ass of me. Now my foes tell me plainly I am an ass; so that by my foes, sir, I profit in the knowledge of myself, any by my friends I am abused; so that, conclusions to be as kisses, if your four negatives make your two affirmatives, why then, the worse for my friends, and the better for my foes.

My purpose is, indeed, a horse of that color.

Verily, I swear, it is better to be lowly born, and range with humble livers in content, than to be perked up in a glistering grief, and wear a golden sorrow.

'Tis best to weigh the enemy more mighty than he seems.

We are such stuff that dreams are made of.

My dear, dear Lord, The purest treasure mortal times afford Is spotless reputation; that away Men are but gilded loan or painted clay... Mine honor is my life; both grow in one; Take honor from me, and my life is done.

The most peerless piece of earth, I think, that e' er the sun shone bright on.

Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible to feelings as to sight?

To be direct and honest is not safe.

It is silliness to live when to live is torment, and then have we a prescription to die when death is our physician.