William Shakespeare Quotes

When the sun shines let foolish gnats make sport,
But creep in crannies when he hides his beams.

Humanity must perforce prey upon itself, like monsters of the deep.

Bad is the world, and all will come to naught
when such ill-dealing must be seen in thought.

They told me I was everything. 'Tis a lie, I am not ague-proof.

Words without thoughts never to heaven go.

The grief that does not speak whispers the o'erfraught heart and bids it break.

The Eyes are the window to your soul

An old man is twice a child.

Age, thou hast lost thy labor.

Now the fair goddess, Fortune,
Fall deep in love with thee, and her great charms
Misguide thy opposers' swords!

One of the popular songs in Tyler's rebellion was the familiar couplet: "When Adam delved and Eve span, Who was then the gentleman?" Shakespeare refers to it in "Hamlet," where the grave-diggers speak as follows: "First Clown. Come, my spade. There is no ancient gentleman but gardners, ditchers and grave-makers; they hold up Adam's profession. Second Clown. Was he a gentleman? First Clown. He was the first that ever bore arms. Second Clown. Why, he had none. First Clown. What, art a heathen? How dost thou understand the Scripture? The Scripture says, Adam digged; could he dig without arms?" (Act 5,

The Prince's fool! Ha, it may be I go under that title because I am merry. Yea, but so I am apt to do myself wrong.

Let us our lives, our souls,
Our debts, our careful wives,
Our children, and our sins, lay on the King!

Lay these Bones in an unworthy Urn,
Tombless, with no Remembrance over them.

Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall.

A stirring dwarf we do allowance give Before a sleeping giant.

For what is in this world but grief and woe?
O God! methinks it were a happy life
To be no better than a homely swain;
To sit upon a hill, as I do now,
To carve out dials quaintly, point by point,
Thereby to see the minutes how they run-
How many makes the hour full complete,
How many hours brings about the day,
How many days will finish up the year,
How many years a mortal man may live.
When this is known, then to divide the times-
So many hours must I tend my flock;
So many hours must I take my rest;
So many hours must I contemplate;
So many hours must I sport myself;
So many days my ewes have been with young;
So many weeks ere the poor fools will can;
So many years ere I shall shear the fleece:
So 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! how sweet! how lovely!
Gives not the hawthorn bush a sweeter shade
To shepherds looking on their silly sheep,
Than doth a rich embroider'd canopy
To kings that fear their subjects' treachery?
O yes, it doth; a thousand-fold it doth.
And to conclude: the shepherd's homely curds,
His cold thin drink out of his leather bottle,
His wonted sleep under a fresh tree's shade,
All which secure and sweetly he enjoys,
Is far beyond a prince's delicates-

Henry Vi King Weary

It hurts not the tongue to give fair words.

Time and the hour run through the roughest day.

His steeds to water at those springs On chaliced flowers that lies; And winking Mary-buds begin To ope their golden eyes: With every thing that pretty is, My lady sweet, arise.

Come the three corners of the world in arms, and we shall shock them.

If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me.

Oh God! that one might read the book of fate, And see the revolution of the times Make mountains level, and the continent, Weary of solid firmness, melt itself Into the sea.

Since mine own doors refuse to entertain me,
I'll knock elsewhere, to see if they'll disdain me

Thou hast her, France; let her be thine, for we
Have no such daughter, nor shall ever see
That face of hers again. Therefore be gone
Without our grace, our love, our benison.

There is a river in Macedon, and there is moreover a river in Monmouth. It is called Wye at Monmouth, but it is out of my prains what is the name of the other river; but 'tis all one, 'tis alike as my fingers is to my fingers, and there is salmons in both.

All that glitters is not gold; Often have you heard that told: Many a man his life has sold But my outside to behold: Gilded tombs do worms enfold Had you been as wise as bold, Your in limbs, in judgment old, Your answer had not been in'scroll'd Fare you well: your suit is cold.' Cold, indeed, and labour lost: Then, farewell, heat and welcome, frost!

Thou dost conspire against thy friend, Iago,
If thou but think'st him wronged, and mak'st his ear
A stranger to thy thoughts.

He that is proud eats up himself: pride is his own glass, his own trumpet, his own chronicle.

I can give the loser leave to chide.

The rarer action is 35 In virtue than in vengeance. They

If thou wilt lend this money, lend it not
As to thy friends; for when did friendship take
A breed for barren metal of his friend?

None can cure their harms by wailing them.

therein lies the rub

This hand shall never more come near thee with such friendship

Well said, old mole!

Be like you thought our love would last too long, if it were chain'd together

Let us kill all lawyers

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead!
In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility:
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger.

GLOUCESTER
Now, good sir, what are you?
EDGAR
A most poor man made tame to fortune's blows,
Who by the art of known and feeling sorrows
Am pregnant to good pity.

As merry as the day is long.

Retire me to my Milan, where
Every third thought shall be my grave.

The earth has music for those who listen.

We two alone will sing like birds i' th' cage.
When thou dost ask me blessing, I'll kneel down
And ask of thee forgiveness. So we'll live,
And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh
At gilded butterflies, and hear poor rogues
Talk of court news, and we'll talk with them too
Who loses and who wins, who's in, who's out
And take upon 's the mystery of things
As if we were God's spies.

The pleasing punishment that women bare....

This world is not for aye, nor 'tis not strange
That even our loves should with our fortunes change,
For 'tis a question left us yet to prove,
Whether love lead fortune, or else fortune love.

O constancy, be strong upon my side,
Set a huge mountain 'tween my heart and tongue!
I have a man's mind, but a woman's might.

The shadow of my sorrow. Let's see, 'tis very true. My griefs lie all within and these external manners of laments are mere shadows to the unseen grief which swells with silence in the tortured soul.
There lies the substance.

His worst fault is, he's given to prayer; he is something peevish that way.

O hell! to choose love by another's eye.

Lady, you know no rules of charity, Which renders good for bad, blessings for curses.

Steed threatens steed, in high and boastful neighs Piercing the night's dull ear; and from the tents The armorers accomplishing the knights, With busy hammers closing rivets up, Give dreadful note of preparation.

Oh, that deceit should steal such gentle shapes,
And with a virtuous vizard hide foul guile!
He is my son; yea, and therein my shame;
Yet from my dugs he drew not this deceit.

HERMIA:
If then true lovers have been ever cross'd,
It stands as an edict in destiny:
Then let us teach our trial patience,
Because it is a customary cross,
As due to love as thoughts and dreams and sighs,
Wishes and tears, poor fancy's followers.
(Act I, Scene I)

Let us to it pellmell. If not to Heaven, then hand in hand to Hell.

He's mad that trusts in the tameness of a wolf.

Haste is needful in a desperate case.

Hamlet: Lady, shall I lie in your lap? Ophelia: No, my lord. Hamlet: DId you think I meant country matters? Ophelia: I think nothing, my lord. Hamlet: That's a fair thought to lie between maids' legs. Ophelia: What is, my lord? Hamlet: Nothing.

Love laughs at locksmiths.

Abate the edge of traitors, gracious Lord,
That would reduce these bloody days again
And make poor England weep in streams of blood!
Let them not live to taste this land's increase
That would with treason wound this fair land's peace!
Now civil wounds are stopped, peace lives again:
That she may long live here, God say amen!

O most delicate fiend!
Who is't can read a woman? Is there more?

Doubtful it stood, as two spent swimmers that do cling together and choke their art.

Last scene of all that ends this strange, eventful history,
is second childishness and mere oblivion.
I am sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

Because of this it has been possible for the play to be read, as it so often has been since the Romantic period, as a credo, an apologia pro vita sua (a justification of his own life), on the part of Shakespeare the dramatist.

Soft you; a word or two before you go. I have done the state some service, and they know't. - No more of that. - I pray you, in your letters, When you shall these unlucky deeds relate, Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate, Nor set down aught in malice: then must you speak Of one that loved not wisely, but too well; Of one not easily jealous, but,

Why, who cries out on pride that can therein tax any private party? Doth it not flow as hugely as the sea till the weary very means do ebb?

Master, go on, and I will follow thee
To the last gasp with truth and loyalty.

What e'er you are
That in this desert inaccessible,
Under the shade of melancholy boughs,
Lose and neglect the creeping hours of time.

She never told her love, but let concealment, like a worm 'i th' bud, feed on her damask cheek. She pinned in thought; and, with a green and yellow melancholy, she sat like Patience on a monument, smiling at grief. Was not this love indeed? We men may say more, swear more; but indeed our shows are more than will; for we still prove much in our vows but little in our love.

Brutus, I do observe you now of late: I have not from your eyes that gentleness And show of love as I was wont to have: You bear too stubborn and too strange a hand Over your friend that loves you. Poor Brutus, with himself at war, Forgets the shows of love to other men.

Courage mounteth with occasion.

She loves him with an enraged affection, it is past the infinite of thought.

Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow
of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath
borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how
abhorred in my imagination it is! my gorge rims at
it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know
not how oft. Where be your gibes now? your
gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment,
that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one
now, to mock your own grinning? quite chap-fallen?

I can bear a charmed life

Conceit in weakest bodies works the strongest.

The poor soul sat singing by a sycamore tree. Sing all a green willow:
Her hand on her bosom, her head on her knee, Sing willow, willow, willow:
The fresh streams ran by her, and murmur'd her moans; Sing willow, willow, willow; Her salt tears fell from her, and soften'd the stones; Lay by these: Sing willow, willow, willow;
Prithee, hie thee; he'll come anon.

Never durst poet touch a pen to write
Until his ink were temper'd with Love's sighs;

More fools know Jack Fool than Jack Fool knows.

My father's spirit in arms! all is not well;
I doubt some foul play: would the night were come!
Till then sit still, my soul: foul deeds will rise,
Though all the earth o'erwhelm them, to men's eyes.

Must embrace the fate of that dark hour

I will be master of what is mine own:
She is my goods, my chattels; she is my house,
My household stuff, my field, my barn,
My horse, my ox, my ass, my any thing.

Though age from folly could not give me freedom, It does from childishness.

In me thou see'st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
-Sonnet 73

You speak like a green girl / unsifted in such perilous circumstances.

Love is blind
and lovers cannot see
the pretty follies
that themselves commit

My crown is in my heart, not on my head.

So. Lie there, my art.

I thank God I am as honest as any man living that is an old man and no honester than I.

The Play's the Thing, wherein I'll catch the conscience of the King.

Do as the heavens have done, forget your evil;
With them forgive yourself.

In my stars I
am above thee, but be not afraid of greatness; some
are born great, some achieve greatness, and some
have greatness thrust upon 'em

Thus give I mine, and thus take I thy heart.

And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars
From this world-wearied flesh. Eyes, look your last!

What must be shall be.

Thanks to men
Of noble minds, is honorable meed.

When down her weedy trophies and herself
Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide;
And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up:
Which time she chanted snatches of old tunes;
As one incapable of her own distress,
Or like a creature native and indued
Unto that element: but long it could not be
Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,
Pull'd the poor wretch from her melodious lay
To muddy death.
(Ophelia)

And pity, like a new-born babe,
Striding the blast, or heaven's cherubim, horsed
Upon the sightless couriers of the air,
Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,
That tears shall drown the wind.

If wishes would prevail with me, my purpose should not fail with me.

One woe doth tread upon another's heel. So fast they follow.

Boy, this shall not excuse the injuries that
Thou hast done to me.
Therefore turn and draw.