William Shakespeare Quotes

3,205 Sourced Quotes

Shall pack-horses,
And hollow pampered jades of Asia,
Which cannot go but thirty miles a day,
Compare with Caesars, and with Cannibals,
And Trojan Greeks?

William Shakespeare
Jaques: I do not like her name.
Orlando: There was no thought of pleasing you when she was christened.

William Shakespeare
The caterpillars of the commonwealth,
Which I have sworn to weed and pluck away.

William Shakespeare
Look to her, Moor, if thou has eyes to see. She has deceived her father, and may thee.

William Shakespeare
The worst is not,
So long as we can say, 'This is the worst.'

William Shakespeare
I have set my life upon a cast,
And I will stand the hazard of the die.
I think there be six Richmonds in the field.

William Shakespeare
Striving to better, oft we mar what's well.

William Shakespeare
For stony limits cannot hold love out,
And what love can do that dares love attempt.

William Shakespeare
They are in the very wrath of love, and they will go together. Clubs cannot part them

William Shakespeare
I [Ariel] will be correspondent to command,
And do my spiriting gently.

William Shakespeare
The natural bravery of your isle, which stands
As Neptune's park, ribbed and paled in
With rocks unscalable, and roaring waters.

William Shakespeare
Why, thou knowest I am as valiant as Hercules, but beware instinct. The lion will not touch the true prince. Instinct is a great matter. I was a coward on instinct.

William Shakespeare
I have liv'd long enough: my way of life Is fall'n into the sere, the yellow leaf; And that which should accompany old age, As honor, love, obedience, troops of friends, I must not look to have; but, in their stead, Curses, not loud but deep, mouth-honor, breath, Which the poor heart would fain deny, and dare not.

William Shakespeare
My noble father, I do perceive here a divided duty. To you I am bound for life and education. My life and education both do learn me How to respect you. You are the lord of my duty, I am hitherto your daughter. But here's my husband, And so much duty as my mother showed To you, preferring you before her father, So much I challenge that I may profess Due to the Moor my lord.

William Shakespeare
A man that fortune's buffets and rewards
Hast ta'en with equal thanks.

William Shakespeare
Truly thou art damned, like an ill-roasted egg, all on one side.

William Shakespeare
Thou wouldst be great;
Art not without ambition, but without
The illness should attend it. What thou wouldst highly,
That wouldst thou holily; wouldst not play false,
And yet wouldst wrongly win.

William Shakespeare
He himself stuck not to call us the many-headed multitude.

William Shakespeare
Our wills and fates do so contrary run, That our devices still are overthrown; Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own.

William Shakespeare
Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!
You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout
Till you have drenched our steeples, drowned the cocks!
You sulphurous and thought-executing fires,
Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts,
Singe my white head!

William Shakespeare
HAMLET [...] we fat all creatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves for maggots. Your fat king and your lean beggar is but variable service, two dishes, but to one table; that's the end. CLAUDIUS Alas, alas. HAMLET A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm. CLAUDIUS What dost thou mean by this? HAMLET Nothing but to show you how a king may go a progress through the guts of a beggar.

William Shakespeare
For my grief's so great That no supporter but the huge firm earth Can hold it up: here I and sorrows sit; Here is my throne, bid kings come bow to it.

William Shakespeare
Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,
So do our minutes hasten to their end.

William Shakespeare
Bid them wash their faces,
And keep their teeth clean.

William Shakespeare
Run, run, Orlando: carve on every tree
The fair, the chaste, and unexpressive she.

William Shakespeare
Yes, to smell pork; to eat of the habitation which your prophet the Nazarite conjured the devil into. I will buy with you, sell with you, talk with you, walk with you, and so following; but I will not eat with you, drink with you, nor pray with you. What news on the Rialto?

William Shakespeare
Ships are but boards, sailors but men: there be land-rats and water-rats, land-thieves and water-thieves.

William Shakespeare
A proper man, as one shall see in a summer's day; a most lovely, gentleman-like man.

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

William Shakespeare
I never heard
So musical a discord, such sweet thunder.

William Shakespeare