William Shakespeare Quotes

A jest's prosperity lies in the ear Of him that hears it, never in the tongue Of him that makes it.

Were beauty under twenty locks kept fast, yet love breaks through and picks them all at last.

The time is out of joint : O cursed spite, that ever I was born to set it right!

Strong reasons make strong actions let us go If you say ay, the king will not say no.

This royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle, This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, This other Eden, demi-Paradise.

What power is it which mounts my love so high, that makes me see, and cannot feed mine eye

Being your slave what should I do but tend, Upon the hours, and times of your desire? I have no precious time at all to spend; Nor services to do till you require.

I am never merry when I hear sweet music.

You are thought here to the most senseless and fit man for the job.

O war! thou son of Hell!

This is no time to lend money, especially upon bare friendship without security.

Praising what is lost makes the remembrance dear

We must not make a scarecrow of the law, Setting it up to fear the birds of prey, And let it keep one shape till custom make it Their perch, and not their terror.

Yet but three come one more. Two of both kinds make up four. Ere she comes curst and sad. Cupid is a knavish lad. Thus to make poor females mad.

There's no trust, No faith, no honesty in men; all perjured, All forsworn, all naught, all dissemblers.

The lowest ebb is the turn of the tide. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow We are such stuff as dreams are made of.

Every good servant does not all commands.

How far that little candle throws its beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world.

I count myself in nothing else so happy as in a soul remembering my good Friends

O polished perturbation! golden care! That keep'st the ports of slumber open wide To many a watchful night.

Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia, And therefore I forbid my tears: But yet It is our trick; nature her custom holds, Let shame say what it will: when these are gone, The woman will be out. — Adieu, my lord! I have a speech of fire, that fain would blaze, But that this folly drowns it.

Beggar that I am, I am even poor in thanks, but I thank you; and sure, dear friends, my thanks are too dear a halfpenny.

But most it is presumption in us when the help of heaven we count the act of men.

Evermore thanks, the exchequer of the poor

I had as lief have been myself alone.

Good night, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say good night till it be morrow.

Civil dissension is a viperous worm That gnaws the bowels of the commonwealth.

It's easy for someone to joke about scars if they've never been cut.

All surfeit is the father of much fast.

Thus weary of the world, away she hies, And yokes her silver doves; by whose swift aid Their mistress mounted through the empty skies In her light chariot quickly is convey'd; Holding their course to Paphos, where their queen Means to immure herself and not be seen.

Bid me run, and I will strive with things impossible.

It is great To do that thing that ends all other deeds, Which shackles accidents and bolts up change.

The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.

Kindness nobler ever than revenge.

So we'll live, And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh at gilded butterflies.

Thou hast no figures nor no fantasies Which busy care draws in the brains of men; Therefore thou sleep'st so sound.

A fusty nut with no kernel.

Take pains. Be perfect.

Wisdom cries out in the streets, and no man regards it.

By the apostle Paul, shadows tonight Have struck more terror to the soul of Richard Than can the substance of ten thousand soldiers.

Sorrow, like a heavy ringing bell, once set on ringing, with its own weight goes; then little strength rings out the doleful knell.

And teach me how To name the bigger light, and how the less, That burn by day and night.

To pore upon a book, to seek the light of truth.

After your death you were better have a bad epitaph than their ill report while you live.

Love is like a child, That longs for everything it can come by

To be in love, where scorn is bought with groans; coy looks, with heart-sore sighs; one fading moment's mirth

Keep thy foot out of brothels, thy hand out of plackets, thy pen from lender's books, and defy the foul fiend.

Tired with all these for restful death I cry, As to behold desert a beggar born, And needy nothing trimmed in jollity, And purest faith unhappily forsworn.