William Shakespeare Quotes

» Better a witty fool than a foolish wit.

» O! for a muse of fire, that would ascend the brightest heaven of invention.

» No legacy is so rich as honesty.

» The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

» Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt.

» It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.

» Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.

» As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods; they kill us for their sport.

» This above all; to thine own self be true.

» Fortune brings in some boats that are not steered.

» Love is not love that alters when it alteration finds.

» The robbed that smiles, steals something from the thief.

» Let me embrace thee, sour adversity, for wise men say it is the wisest course.

» God has given you one face, and you make yourself another.

» Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once.

» I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.

» My crown is called content, a crown that seldom kings enjoy.

» Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.

» To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.

» As soon go kindle fire with snow, as seek to quench the fire of love with words.

» Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs.

» One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.

» And this, our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything.

» The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.

» A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool.

» Brevity is the soul of wit.

» If music be the food of love, play on.

» O' What may man within him hide, though angel on the outward side!

» The course of true love never did run smooth.

» There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.

» What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god.

» What is past is prologue.

» When we are born we cry that we are come to this great stage of fools.

» I dote on his very absence.

» Absence from those we love is self from self - a deadly banishment.

» Everyone ought to bear patiently the results of his own conduct.

» The stroke of death is as a lover's pinch, which hurts and is desired.

» Things done well and with a care, exempt themselves from fear.

» It is a wise father that knows his own child.

» When a father gives to his son, both laugh; when a son gives to his father, both cry.

» The love of heaven makes one heavenly.

» Ignorance is the curse of God; knowledge is the wing wherewith we fly to heaven.

» The man that hath no music in himself, Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils.

» Where every something, being blent together turns to a wild of nothing.

» We cannot conceive of matter being formed of nothing, since things require a seed to start from... Therefore there is not anything which returns to nothing, but all things return dissolved into their elements.

» Fishes live in the sea, as men do a-land; the great ones eat up the little ones.

» When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions.

» Most dangerous is that temptation that doth goad us on to sin in loving virtue.

» Temptation is the fire that brings up the scum of the heart.

» Desire of having is the sin of covetousness.

» Lawless are they that make their wills their law.

» Being born is like being kidnapped. And then sold into slavery.

» The golden age is before us, not behind us.

» Things won are done, joy's soul lies in the doing.

» 'Tis not enough to help the feeble up, but to support them after.

» Use every man after his desert, and who should scape whipping?

» Sweet mercy is nobility's true badge.

» The most peaceable way for you, if you do take a thief, is, to let him show himself what he is and steal out of your company.

» False face must hide what the false heart doth know.

» I was adored once too.

» Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice.

» Neither a borrower nor a lender be.

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

» Is it not strange that desire should so many years outlive performance?

» It will have blood, they say; blood will have blood.

» What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

» I am not bound to please thee with my answer.

» He that loves to be flattered is worthy o' the flatterer.

» My pride fell with my fortunes.

» Words, words, mere words, no matter from the heart.

» Ambition should be made of sterner stuff.

» Farewell, fair cruelty.

» Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.

» So foul and fair a day I have not seen.

» I will praise any man that will praise me.

» Give me my robe, put on my crown; I have Immortal longings in me.

» I bear a charmed life.

» They say miracles are past.

» The attempt and not the deed confounds us.

» The wheel is come full circle.

» If you have tears, prepare to shed them now.

» If you can look into the seeds of time, and say which grain will grow and which will not, speak then unto me.

» The lunatic, the lover, and the poet, are of imagination all compact.

» A peace is of the nature of a conquest; for then both parties nobly are subdued, and neither party loser.

» Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot that it do singe yourself.

» Talking isn't doing. It is a kind of good deed to say well; and yet words are not deeds.

» Men shut their doors against a setting sun.

» In time we hate that which we often fear.

» How poor are they that have not patience! What wound did ever heal but by degrees?

» Go to you bosom: Knock there, and ask your heart what it doth know.

» Modest doubt is called the beacon of the wise.

» To be, or not to be: that is the question.

» 'Tis one thing to be tempted, another thing to fall.

» He is winding the watch of his wit; by and by it will strike.

» He that is giddy thinks the world turns round.

» Hell is empty and all the devils are here.

» There is no darkness but ignorance.

» As he was valiant, I honour him. But as he was ambitious, I slew him.

» By that sin fell the angels.

» Love sought is good, but given unsought, is better.

» They do not love that do not show their love.

» Let no such man be trusted.

» Better three hours too soon than a minute too late.

» If you prick us do we not bleed? If you tickle us do we not laugh? If you poison us do we not die? And if you wrong us shall we not revenge?

» Time and the hour run through the roughest day.

» Exceeds man's might: that dwells with the gods above.

» Mind your speech a little lest you should mar your fortunes.

» Expectation is the root of all heartache.

» Parting is such sweet sorrow.

» Nothing can come of nothing.

» If we are marked to die, we are enough to do our country loss; and if to live, the fewer men, the greater share of honor.

» The undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns.

» Sweet are the uses of adversity which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, wears yet a precious jewel in his head.

» O thou invisible spirit of wine, if thou hast no name to be known by, let us call thee devil.

» Life every man holds dear; but the dear man holds honor far more precious dear than life.

» The empty vessel makes the loudest sound.

» Lord, Lord, how subject we old men are to this vice of lying!

» With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come.

» Let every eye negotiate for itself and trust no agent.

» The very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream.

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

» In a false quarrel there is no true valor.

» O, had I but followed the arts!

» The object of art is to give life a shape.

» O God, O God, how weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of this world!

» 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.

» The valiant never taste of death but once.

» If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men's cottage princes' palaces.

» Suit the action to the word, the word to the action.

» He does it with better grace, but I do it more natural.

» There's no art to find the mind's construction in the face.

» If it be a sin to covet honor, I am the most offending soul.

» Poor and content is rich, and rich enough.

» Like as the waves make towards the pebbl'd shore, so do our minutes, hasten to their end.

» Maids want nothing but husbands, and when they have them, they want everything.

» Many a good hanging prevents a bad marriage.

» Boldness be my friend.

» For my part, it was Greek to me.

» Having nothing, nothing can he lose.

» We know what we are, but know not what we may be.

» Men are April when they woo, December when they wed. Maids are May when they are maids, but the sky changes when they are wives.

» Words without thoughts never to heaven go.

» I shall the effect of this good lesson keeps as watchman to my heart.

» Children wish fathers looked but with their eyes; fathers that children with their judgment looked; and either may be wrong.

» Now, God be praised, that to believing souls gives light in darkness, comfort in despair.

» O! Let me not be mad, not mad, sweet heaven; keep me in temper; I would not be mad!

» How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child!

» How oft the sight of means to do ill deeds makes ill deeds done!

» Life is as tedious as twice-told tale, vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man.

» 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, his acts being seven ages.

» Now is the winter of our discontent.

» Wisely, and slow. They stumble that run fast.

» When words are scarce they are seldom spent in vain.

» There's place and means for every man alive.

» Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall.

» Pleasure and action make the hours seem short.

» Love is too young to know what conscience is.

» It is neither good nor bad, but thinking makes it so.

» What's done can't be undone.

» To do a great right do a little wrong.

» Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind.

» Such as we are made of, such we be.

» Speak low, if you speak love.

» Men's vows are women's traitors!

» Listen to many, speak to a few.

» Give thy thoughts no tongue.

» An overflow of good converts to bad.

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

» It is the stars, The stars above us, govern our conditions.

» No, I will be the pattern of all patience; I will say nothing.

» 'Tis better to bear the ills we have than fly to others that we know not of.

» And oftentimes excusing of a fault doth make the fault the worse by the excuse.

» Teach not thy lip such scorn, for it was made For kissing, lady, not for such contempt.

» Who could refrain that had a heart to love and in that heart courage to make love known?

» Reputation is an idle and most false imposition; oft got without merit, and lost without deserving.

» I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano; A stage where every man must play a part, And mine is a sad one.

» Love to faults is always blind, always is to joy inclined. Lawless, winged, and unconfined, and breaks all chains from every mind.

» If music be the food of love, play on; give me excess of it, that, surfeiting, the appetite may sicken and so die.

» Death is a fearful thing.

» Alas, I am a woman friendless, hopeless!

» What, man, defy the devil. Consider, he's an enemy to mankind.

» For I can raise no money by vile means.

» There have been many great men that have flattered the people who ne'er loved them.

» Women may fall when there's no strength in men.

» Come, gentlemen, I hope we shall drink down all unkindness.

» I may neither choose who I would, nor refuse who I dislike; so is the will of a living daughter curbed by the will of a dead father.

» Well, if Fortune be a woman, she's a good wench for this gear.

» A man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age.

» 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.

» I never see thy face but I think upon hell-fire.

» O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!

» But men are men; the best sometimes forget.

» There's many a man has more hair than wit.

» There's not a note of mine that's worth the noting.

» I had rather have a fool to make me merry than experience to make me sad and to travel for it too!

» There was never yet fair woman but she made mouths in a glass.

» I were better to be eaten to death with a rust than to be scoured to nothing with perpetual motion.

» Our peace shall stand as firm as rocky mountains.

» A friend i'the court is better than a penny in purse.

» Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.

» God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another.

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

» I say there is no darkness but ignorance.

» But O, how bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man's eyes.

» I see that the fashion wears out more apparel than the man.

» Nature hath framed strange fellows in her time.

» Virtue itself scapes not calumnious strokes.

» Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful.

» Truly, I would not hang a dog by my will, much more a man who hath any honesty in him.

» How well he's read, to reason against reading!

» I like not fair terms and a villain's mind.

» Faith, there hath been many great men that have flattered the people who ne'er loved them.

» We are time's subjects, and time bids be gone.

» Praise us as we are tasted, allow us as we prove.

Who Said It?

Who Said: "Under-representation of women and other inequality among researchers is a problem that will not solve itself as women acquire competence." Click To See

Daily Famous Quote

"The accent of one's birthplace remains in the mind and in the heart as in one's speech." - Francois de La Rochefoucauld

William Shakespeare Quotes

Who Said It?

Daily Famous Quote

Quotes by Author

Quotes by Topic