William Shakespeare
A collection of the best William Shakespeare quotations.
William Shakespeare Quotes
Most popular William Shakespeare Quotes
Thought is free.
Shunless destiny.
They laugh that win.
The ripeness is all.
Action is eloquence.
What's done is done.
Answer me in one word.
Greatness knows itself.
What's past is prologue.
We cannot all be masters.
We have seen better days.
Love is merely a madness.
Grief makes one hour ten.
Truth will come to light.
Men of few words are best.
Talkers are no good doers.
To thine own self be true.
Patch grief with proverbs.
In the end truth will out.
Brevity is the soul of wit.
Are you up to your destiny?
Every why hath a wherefore.
Love reasons without reason.
Speak less than thou knowest.
The ripest fruit first falls.
Speak low, if you speak love.
To Sleep, Perchance to Dream.
I shall laugh myself to death.
These trees shall be my books.
'Tis deeds must win the prize.
What is a city but the people?
Our fears do make us traitors.
My pride fell with my fortunes.
Our content is our best having.
Appetite [is] a universal wolf.
Confess thee freely of thy sin.
Youth's a stuff will not endure.
A wish is father to the thought.
No legacy is so rich as honesty.
My love's richer than my tongue.
Memory, the warder of the brain.
Pray you now, forget and forgive.
Hear the meaning within the word.
Contentment wears the hues of joy.
Men of few words are the best men.
Adversity's sweet milk, philosophy.
When the age is in, the wit is out.
Prosperity — the very bond of love.
Hasty marriage seldom proveth well.
There is no darkness but ignorance.
Such as we are made of, such we be.
He wears the rose of youth upon him.
Virtue is choked with foul ambition.
Friendly counsel cuts off many foes.
How use doth breed a habit in a man!
Jesters do oft prove to be prophets.
Memory [is] the warder of the brain.
Sweet mercy is nobility's true badge.
We have some salt of our youth in us.
O Beauty, Till now I never knew thee.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
One man in his time plays many parts.
If music be the food of love, play on.
Show boldness and aspiring confidence.
We must follow, not force, providence.
There is a history in all men's lives.
We rarely like the virtues we have not.
He is well paid that is well satisfied.
'Tis the mind that makes the body rich.
The better part of valor is discretion.
But for my own part, it was Greek to me.
We are advertis'd by our loving friends.
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.
We are advertised by our loving friends.
For you and I are past our dancing days.
O! that this too solid flesh would melt.
Silence is the perfectest herald of joy.
Nothing can seem foul to those that win.
We must not make a scarecrow of the law.
Give every man thy ear but few thy voice.
I hope I shall have leisure to make good.
It is a wise father that knows his child.
The younger rises when the old doth fall.
The inaudible and noiseless foot of Time.
A flock of blessings light upon thy back.
Simply the thing I am shall make me live.
I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.
Society is no comfort to one not sociable.
Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice.
I will praise any man that will praise me.
The cock, that is the trumpet of the morn.
Nimble thought can jump both sea and land.
Poor and content is rich, and rich enough.
Beauty provoketh thieves sooner than gold.
The valiant never taste of death but once.
These words are razors to my wounded heart.
One may smile, and smile, and be a villain.
Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied.
No profit grows where is no pleasure taken.
Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful.
Success 'tis more by fortune than by merit.
They jest at scars, that never felt a wound.
Woe to that land that's governed by a child!
I wonder men dare trust themselves with men.
My salad days, When I was green in judgment.
Great floods have flown from simple sources.
Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs.
They do not love who do not show their love.
The course of true love never did run smooth.
The path is smooth that leadeth on to danger.
'Tis time to fear, when tyrants seem to kiss.
The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.
If two ride on a horse, one must ride behind.
It is a wise father that knows his own child.
Men in rage strike those that wish them best.
A heaven on earth I have won, by wooing thee.
Knowledge the wing wherewith we fly to heaven.
To be or not to be . . . that is the question.
Striving to do better, oft we mar what's well.
Modest doubt is call'd the beacon of the wise.
One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.
An honest tale speeds best being plainly told.
We are time's subjects, and time bids be gone.
A friend should bear his friend's infirmities.
Perseverance, dear my lord, keeps honor bright.
Love sought is good, but given unsought better.
So wise so young, they say, do never live long.
The course of true love never did run smoothly.
Let none presume To wear an undeserved dignity.
Self-love is not so vile a sin as self-neglect.
Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.
Who wooed in haste and means to wed at leisure?
I never knew so young a body with so old a head.
Honest plain words best pierce the ear of grief.
Kings it makes gods, and meaner creatures kings.
What's mine is yours, and what is yours is mine.
Of all base passions, fear is the most accursed.
So wise, so young, they say, do never live long.
Every one can master a grief but he that has it.
April hath put a spirit of youth in every thing.
No man's pie is freed from his ambitious finger.
We know what we are, but know not what we may be.
To see sad sights moves more than hear them told.
One fire drives out one fire; one nail, one nail.
How like a Winter hath my absence been From thee.
The law hath not been dead, though it hath slept.
When clouds are seen a wise man puts on his coat.
Fortune brings in some boats that are not steered.
There's a language in her eye, her cheek, her lip.
'Tis an ill cook that cannot lick his own fingers.
The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.
Small cheer and great welcome makes a merry feast.
See that you come not to woo honor, but to wed it.
Things won are done; joy's soul lies in the doing.
Our virtues lie in the interpretation of the time.
Love sought is good, but given unsought, is better.
The miserable have no other medicine but only hope.
The miserable have no other medicine But only hope.
Though patience be a tired mare, yet she will plod.
Music [is] that moody food of us that trade in love.
When words are scarce they are seldom spent in vain.
The miserable have no other medicine, but only hope.
Thoughts are but dreams till their effects be tried.
Suit the action to the word, the word to the action.
I would give all my fame for a pot of ale and safety.
Let not women's weapons, waterdrops, stain my cheeks.
Past, and to come, seems best; things present, worst.
All lovers swear more performance than they are able.
What is a stronger breastplate than a heart untainted?
The dullness of the fool is the whetstone of the wits.
You pay a great deal too dear for what's given freely.
There is neither good or bad, but thinking makes it so.
Company, villainous company, hath been the spoil of me.
Good night. Good night. Parting is such sweet sorrow.
Out of my lean and low ability I'll lend you something.
That word—grace, In an ungracious mouth, is but profane.
I wonder of people who dare trust themselves with others.
Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
Is there any cause in nature that makes these hard hearts?
Come, gentlemen, I hope we shall drink down all unkindness.
You take my life When you do take the means whereby I live.
What he hath scanted men in hair, he hath given them in wit.
My salad days,. When I was green in judgment, cold in blood.
How much better is it to weep at joy than to joy at weeping.
What he hath seamed. men in hair, he hath given them in wit.
Self-love, my liege, is not so vile a sin as self-neglecting.
Our bodies are our gardens, to which our wills are gardeners.
There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.
Always the dullness of the fool is the whetstone of the wits.
Lord, Lord, how subject we old men are to this vice of lying!
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars but in ourselves.
Look down, you gods, And on this couple drop a blessed crown.
God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another.
All things that are, are with more spirit chased than enjoyed.
'Tis a common proof that lowliness is young ambition's ladder.
There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.
Who shall be true to us, when we are so unsecret to ourselves?
The undiscovered country from whose bourn No traveller returns.
'Tis ever common that men are merriest when they are from home.
But age, with his stealing steps, hath clawed me in his clutch.
Men must endure their going hence, even as their coming hither.
The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together.
For love of grace, Lay not that flattering unction to your soul.
Kindness in women, not their beauteous looks, shall win my love.
Oft expectation fails and most oft there Where most it promises.
Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie, which we ascribe to heaven.
Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie, Which we ascribe to heaven.
'Tis not enough to help the feeble up, but to support them after.
When sorrows come, they come not single spies, But in battalions.
But screw your courage to the sticking place, and you'll not fail.
But I am pigeon-liver'd, and lack gall. To make oppression bitter.
Men's evil manners live in brass; their virtues We write in water.
To thy own self be true . . . Then to all others, you will be too.
The silence often of pure innocence persuades when speaking fails.
A good name in men and women is the immediate jewel of their souls.
How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is To have a thankless child.
I set it down that That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain.
The play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.
The lunatic, the lover, and the poet are of imagination all compact.
Go to your bosom; Knock there, and ask your heart what it doth know.
As he was valiant, I honor him. But as he was ambitious, I slew him.
There's a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will.
Make the coming hour over flow with joy, and pleasure drown the brim.
The lunatic, the lover, and the poet, are of imagination all compact.
As he was valiant, I honor him. But, as he was ambitious, I slew him.
What you cannot as you would achieve, you must accomplish as you may.
O Lord, who lends me life, lend me a heart replete with thankfulness.
To business that we love, we rise betimes, and go to it with delight.
Lay aside life-harming heaviness and entertain a cheerful disposition.
Confess yourself to heaven; Repent what's past; avoid what is to come.
The best wishes that can be forged in your thoughts be servants to you.
Is it not strange that desire should so many years outlive performance?
A women's age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety.
I have set my life upon a cast, and I will stand the hazard of the die.
By medicine life may be prolonged, yet death will seize the doctor too.
True nobility is exempt from fear. Sweet mercy is nobility's true badge.
'Tis but a base ignoble mind That mounts no higher than a bird can soar.
The time of life is short; to spend that shortness basely were too long.
Beauty itself doth of itself persuade The eyes of men without an orator.
When we are born, we cry that we are come. To this great stage of fools.
Will fortune never come with both hands full?" "A hazard of new fortunes.
As flies to wanton boys are we to the Gods. They kill us for their sport.
To say the truth, reason and love keep little company together now-a-days.
Blow, blow, thou winter wind! Thou art not so unkind As man's ingratitude.
Then come kiss me, sweet and twenty, youth's a stuff that will not endure.
The art of our necessities is strange, that can make vile things precious.
The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices Make instruments to plague us.
How bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man's eyes!
How bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man's eyes.
The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.
She's beautiful and therefore to be wooed. She is woman, therefore to be won.
For there was never yet philosopher that could endure the toothache patiently.
Let me embrace thee, sour Adversity, For wise men say it is the wisest course.
The brain may devise laws for the blood, but a hot temper leaps o'er a decree.
If all the year were playing holidays, To sport would be as tedious as to work.
O God, that men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains!
If all the year were playing holidays, to sport would be as tedious as to work.
Ignorance is the curse of God; knowledge is the wing wherewith we fly to heaven.
As soon go kindle fire with snow, as seek to quench the fire of love with words.
Mine honor is my life; both grow in one; take honor from me and my life is done.
An enterprise, when fairly begun, should not be left till all that ought is won.
Master, go on, and I will follow thee, To the last gasp, with truth and loyalty.
Let Hercules himself do what he may, the cat will mew and dog will have his day.
The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones.
There is no vice so simple, but assumes Some mark of virtue on his outward parts.
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day.
How poor are they who have not patience! What wound did ever heal but by degrees.
Through tatter'd clothes small vices do appear; Robbed and furr'd gowns hide all.
I count myself in nothing else so happy as in a soul remembering my good friends.
Friendship is constant in all other things save in the office and affairs of love.
The summer's flower is to the summer sweet, though to itself it only live and die.
A miser grows rich by seeming poor; an extravagant man grows poor by seeming rich.
But O, how bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man's eyes!
Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind; The thief doth fear each bush an officer.
Friendship is constant in all other things. Save in the office and affairs of love.
But love is blind, and lovers cannot see the pretty follies that themselves commit.
How poor are they that have not patience! What wound did ever heal but by degrees?
'Tis true that we are in great danger; the greater therefore should our courage be.
What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.
Trifles light as air Are to the jealous confirmations strong As proofs of holy writ.
Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied, And vice sometime's by action dignified.
Trifles light as air are to the jealous confirmations strong as proofs of holy writ.
But when I tell him he hates flatterers, He says he does, being then most flattered.
What fates impose, that me must needs abide; it boots not resist both wind and tide.
Cowards die many times before their deaths The valiant never taste of death but once.
Have more than thou showest, speak less than thou knowest, lend less than thou owest.
Give me that man that is not passion's slave, and I will wear him in my heart's core.
How far that little candle throws its beam! So shines a good deed in a naughty world.
Friendship is constant in in all other things Save in the office and affairs of love.
Love's heralds should be thoughts, which ten times faster glide than the sun's beams.
Good reasons must, of force, give place to better. Strong reasons make strong actions.
There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.
Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.
Affection is a coal that must be cool'd Else, suffered, it will set the heart of fire.
And many strokes, though with a little ax, hew down and fell the hardest timbered oak.
Moderate lamentation is the right of the dead; excessive grief the enemy to the living.
Time's glory is to calm contending kings, to unmask falsehood and bring truth to light.
The mind by passion driven from its firm hold, becomes a feather to each wind that blows.
Our doubts are traitors And make us lose the good we oft might win By fearing to attempt.
Our purses shall be proud, our garments poor: for 'tis the mind that makes the body rich.
O, it is excellent to have a giant's strength; but it is tyrannous to use it like a giant.
For 'tis a question left us yet to prove, whether love lead fortune, or else fortune love.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
Graze on my lips; and if those hills be dry Stray lower, where the pleasant fountains lie.
What thou wilt, thou must rather enforce it with thy smile, than hew to it with thy sword.
Crabbed age and youth cannot live together. Youth is full of pleasure, age is full of care.
My comfort is that old age, that ill layer-up of beauty, can do no more spoil upon my face.
Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, and therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.
Give everyone thine ear, but few thy voice: Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment.
He that is robbed, not wanting what is stol'n, Let him not know't, and he's not robbed at all.
Day doth daily draw my sorrow's longer, And night doth nightly make grief's length seem longer.
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more; Or close the wall up with our English dead!
I have lost my reputation! I have lost the immortal part of myself, and what remains is bestial.
Yet do I fear thy nature; It is too full o' the milk of human kindness To catch the nearest way.
Ingratitude, more strong than traitor's arms, Quite vanquished him: then burst his mighty heart.
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;. Or close the wall up with our English dead.
Reputation is an idle and most false imposition; oft got without merit, and lost without deserving.
A jest's prosperity lies in the ear of him that hears it, never in the tongue of him that makes it.
Refrain tonight, And that shall lend a kind of easiness To the next abstinence; the next more easy.
I had rather have a fool to make me merry than experience to make me sad— and to travel for it, too.
O, beware, my lord, of jealousy! It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock the meat it feeds on.
A man may fish with the worm that hath eaten of a king, and eat the fish that hath fed of that worm.
I am giddy; expectation whirls me round. The imaginary relish is so sweet That it enchants my sense.
I do love my country's good with a respect more tender, more holy, more profound, than mine own life.
I marvel how the fishes live in the sea. Why, as men do on land; the great ones eat up the little ones.
A peace is of the nature of a conquest; for then both parties nobly are subdued, and neither party loser.
Fling away ambition. By that sin angels fell. How then can men, the image of their Maker, hope to win by it?
I love thee, I love but thee, With a love that shall not die Till the sun grows cold, And the stars are old.
Sweet are the uses of adversity Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, Wears yet a precious jewel in his head.
Be not afraid of greatness. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon 'em.
To me, fair friend, you never can be old. For as you were when first your eye I eyed, such seems your beauty still.
Be not afraid of greatness. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them.
Promising is the very air o' the time; it opens the eyes of expectation: performance is ever the duller for his act.
Time's the king of men; He's both their parent, and he is their grave, And gives them what he will, not what they crave.
Neither a borrower nor a lender be, For loan oft loses both itself and friend, And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
His life was gentle and the elements so mixed in him that nature might stand up and say to all the world 'this was a man.
He took the bride about the neck And kiss'd her with such a clamorous smack That, at the parting, all the church did echo.
His life was gentle, and the elements so mixed in him that Nature might stand up and say to all the world, this was a man!
You see, my good wenches, how men of merit are sought after. The undeserver may sleep, when the man of action is called on.
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.
This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.
This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.
And thus I clothe my naked villainy With odd old ends stol'n forth of holy writ, And seem a saint when most I play the devil.
When to the sessions of sweet silent thought I summon up remembrance of things past, I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought.
Write till your ink be dry, and with your tears Moist it again; and frame some feeling line; That may discover such integrity.
This above all: to thine own self be true,. And it must follow, as the night the day,. Thou canst not then be false to any man.
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.
His life was gentle and the elements so mixed in him that nature might stand on its feet and say to all the world-this was a man.
I can get no remedy against this consumption of the purse: borrowing only lingers and lingers it out, but the disease is incurable.
Men, at some time, are masters of their fates. The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.
And appetite, a universal wolf, So doubly seconded with will and power, Must make perforce an universal prey And last eat up himself.
Love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs; Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes; Being vexed, a sea nourished with loving tears.
All the world's a stage and all the men are merely players. They have their entrances and their exits, and one man in his time plays many parts.
When we have matched our rackets to these balls,. We will in France, by God's grace, play a set. Shall strike his father's crown into the hazard.
I hate ingratitude more in a man Than lying, vainness, babbling drunkenness, Or any taint of vice whose strong corruption Inhabits our frail blood.
All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts.
All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts.
An evil soul producing holy witness Is like a villain with a smiling cheek, A goodly apple rotten at the heart. O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath.
For what is wedlock forced, but a hell, an age of discord and continual strife? Whereas the contrary bringeth bliss, and is a pattern of celestial peace.
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them?
Not the artful postures of love, but love that overthrows life. Unbiddable, ungovernable, like a riot in the heart, and nothing to be done, come ruin or rapture.
Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleave of care, The death of each day's life, sore labor's bath, Balm of hurt minds, great natures second course, Chief nourisher in life's feast.
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more. It's a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more, it is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
If music be the food of love, play on. Give me excess of it that, surfeiting,. The appetite may sicken, and so die. That strain again, it had a dying fall. Oh, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound.
There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; Omitted, all the voyage of their life Is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat. And we must take the current when it serves, Or lose our ventures.