William Shakespeare Quotes

3,205 Sourced Quotes

Methinks you are my glass, and not my brother: I see by you I am a sweet-faced youth.

William Shakespeare
When you do dance, I wish you A wave o' the sea, that you might ever do Nothing but that.

William Shakespeare
Farewell! a long farewell, to all my greatness!
This is the state of man: to-day he puts forth
The tender leaves of hope; to-morrow blossoms,
And bears his blushing honours thick upon him;
The third day comes a frost, a killing frost.

William Shakespeare
No exorciser harm thee!
Nor no witchcraft charm thee!
Ghost unlaid forbear thee!
Nothing ill come near thee!
Quiet consummation have:
And renowned be thy grave!

William Shakespeare
'Tis better to be vile than vile esteem'd,
When not to be receives reproach of being.

William Shakespeare
Minutes, hours, days, months, and years,
Pass'd over to the end they were created,
Would bring white hairs unto a quiet grave.
Ah, what a life were this!

William Shakespeare
If I chance to talk a little wild, forgive me; I had it from my father.

William Shakespeare
Now see that noble and most sovereign reason,
Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh.

William Shakespeare
Bearing their birthrights proudly on their backs, To make a hazard of new fortunes here.

William Shakespeare
O thou weed!
Who art so lovely fair and smell'st so sweet That the sense aches at thee, would thou hadst
ne'er been born.

William Shakespeare
Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny.

William Shakespeare
This is a slight unmeritable man,
Meet to be sent on errands.

William Shakespeare
Cudgel thy brains no more about it, for your dull ass will not mend his pace with beating.

William Shakespeare
What should such fellows as I do crawling between heaven and earth? We are arrant knaves, all.

William Shakespeare
But if it be a sin to covet honor,
I am the most offending soul alive.

William Shakespeare
To business that we love we rise betime,
And go to 't with delight.

William Shakespeare
Porter: Drink, sir, is a great provoker of three things.
Macduff: What three things does drink especially provoke?
Porter: Marry, sir, nose-painting, sleep, and urine. Lechery, sir, it provokes, and unprovokes; it provokes the desire, but it takes away the performance.

William Shakespeare
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.

William Shakespeare
Fit for the mountains and the barbarous caves, where manners ne'er were preached.

William Shakespeare
His promises were, as he then was, mighty;
But his performance, as he is now, nothing.

William Shakespeare
Danger knows full well that Caesar is more dangerous than he. We are two lions litter'd in one day, and I the elder and more terrible.

William Shakespeare
Sweet are the uses of adversity,
Which like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head;
And this our life, exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in everything.

William Shakespeare
To the dread rattling thunder
Have I given fire, and rifted Jove's stout oak
With his own bolt.

William Shakespeare
I prithee gentle friend,
Let thy fair wisdom, not thy passions, sway
In this uncivil and unjust extent
Against thy peace.

William Shakespeare
Therefore was I created with a stubborn outside, with an aspect of iron, that when I come to woo ladies, I fright them. But, in faith, Kate, the elder I wax, the better I shall appear. My comfort is that old age, that ill layer-up of beauty, can do no more spoil upon my face. Thou hast me, if thou hast me, at the worst, and thou shalt wear me, if thou wear me, better and better.

William Shakespeare
Music oft hath such a charm
To make bad good, and good provoke to harm.

William Shakespeare
I take thee at thy word: Call me but love, and I'll be new baptized; Henceforth I never will be Romeo.

William Shakespeare
Let Hercules himself do what he may,
The cat will mew and dog will have his day.

William Shakespeare
O God! Horatio, what a wounded name,
Things standing thus unknown, shall live behind me. If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart,
Absent thee from felicity awhile,
And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain,
To tell my story.

William Shakespeare
When in the chronicle of wasted time I see descriptions of the fairest wights, And beauty making beautiful old rime, In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights, Then, in the blazon of sweet beauty's best, Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow, I see their antique pen would have express'd Even such a beauty as you master now.

William Shakespeare