Quotes by William Shakespeare

Sweet mercy is nobility's true badge.

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

Love looks not with eyes, but with the mind.

Blessed are the peacemakers on earth.

Beauty lives with kindness.

Beauty within itself should not be wasted.

Love denied blights the soul we owe to God.

If love be blind, love cannot hit the mark.

A lover's eyes will gaze an eagle blind.

These flowers are like the pleasures of the world.

Of all the flowers, me thinks a rose is best.

My heart is ever at your service.

Who is it can read a woman?

He is as full of valor as of kindness. Princely in both.

Great floods have flown From simple sources.

Make use of time, let not advantage slip.

Society is no comfort, to one not sociable.

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

The miserable have no other medicine, but only hope.

This above all: to thine own self be true.

There is not one wise man in twenty that will praise himself.

He that wants money, means, and content is without three good friends.

One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.

Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs.

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

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

Better three hours too soon than a minute too late.

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

With base? with baseness? bastardy? base, base?

Why, the wrong is but a wrong i'th'world; and having the world for your labour, 'tis a wrong in your own world, and you might quickly make it a right.

Mother, I will look to like. If looking liking moves.

Oh heaven! Were man but constant, he were perfect.

Ad many strokes, though with little ax, hew down and fell the hardest timbered oak.

Those happiest smiles that played on her ripe lips seemed not to know what guests were in her eyes, which parted thence as pearls from diamonds dropped.

Ingratitude! thou marble-hearted friend, more hideous when thou showest thee in a child, than the sea monster.

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

If I lose mine honor, I lose myself.

Unregarded age in corners thrown.

The bitter clamour of two eager tongues.

Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak whispers the o'er~fraught heart and bids it break.

It is time to fear when tyrants seem to kiss.

Riveted, screwed to my memory.

Our enemies are our outward consciences.

I will chide no brother in the world but myself, against whom I know most faults.

How bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man's eyes.

For nothing can seem foul to those that win.

May flight of Angels sing thee to thy rest.

God hath given you one face, and you make yourself another.

Every third thought shall be my grave.

I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,
Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,
With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine:
There sleeps Titania sometime of the night,
Lull'd in these flowers with dances and delight.

Her passions are made of nothing but the finest part of pure love; we cannot call her winds and waters, sighs and tears; they are greater storms and tempests than almanacs can report.

This is the very ecstasy of love,
Whose violent property fordoes itself
And leads the will to desperate undertakings
As oft as any passion under heaven
That does afflict our natures.

If we are mark'd to die, we are enough To do our country loss; and if to live, The fewer men, the greater share of honour.

O, then, what graces in my love do dwell,. That he hath turn'd a heaven unto a hell!

Hath Romeo slain himself? Say thou but ay,
And that bare vowel ay shall poison more
Than the death-darting eye of cockatrice.
I am not I,if there be such an ay,
Or those eyes shut,that make thee answer ay:
If he be slain say ay,or if not,no:
Brief sounds,determine of my weal or woe.

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

Thou wouldst as soon go kindle fire with snow as seek to quench the fire of love with words.

He kills her in her own humor.

From women's eyes this doctrine I derive:
They sparkle still the right Promethean fire;
They are the books, the arts, the academes,
That show, contain and nourish all the world.

A murderer and a villain; a slave that is not twentieth part the tithe of your precedent lord; a vice of kings; a cutpurse of the empire and the rule.

O good 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...
O, I die, Horatio;.

Exposing what is mortal and unsure
To all that fortune, death, and danger dare,
Even for an eggshell. Rightly to be great
Is not to stir without great argument,
But greatly to find quarrel in a straw
When honor's at the stake.

Well said, old mole!

I will be brief. Your noble son is mad.

Good counsellors lack no clients.

Much ado about nothing.

There's language in her eye, her cheek, her lip; Nay, her foot speaks.

Good things should be praised.

May love sur­round you like sun­shine on a sunny day.

England is safe, if true within itself.

Fight till the last gasp.

Our bodies are our gardens, to which our wills are our gardeners.

Profit is a blessing, if it's not stolen.

Love is familiar. Love is a devil. There is no evil angel but Love.

Praising what is lost makes the remembrance dear.

For new-made honor doth forget men's names.

Mine honor is my life; both grow in one; take honor from me and my life is done.

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

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

There is plenty of time to sleep in the grave.

Oh! How bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man's eyes.

Now join hands, and with your hands your hearts.

I had rather have a fool to make me merry than experience to make me sad.

Enter Rumour, painted full of tongues.

An honest tale speeds best being plainly told.

The present eye praises the present object.

If all the year were playing holidays, to sport would be as tedious as to work.

When the blood burns, how prodigal the soul
Lends the tongue vows.

Tempt not a desperate man.

Trifles light as air are to the jealous confirmations strong as proofs of holy writ.

O Lord, who lends me life, lend me a heart replete with thankfulness.

Be still prepared for death: and death or life shall thereby be the sweeter.

Doomsday is near; die all, die merrily.

Conscience is a thousand swords.

My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent.

Guiltiness will speak, though tongues were out of use.

How use doth breed a habit in a man.

Forbear to judge, for we are sinners all.

In thy foul throat thou liest.

My father's wit, and my mother's tongue, assist me!

Soft pity enters an iron gate.

If thou dost love, proclaim it faithfully.

Though authority be a stubborn bear, yet he is oft let by the nose with gold.

One pain is lessened by another's anguish.

Bondage is hoarse, and may not speak aloud.

Now I am past all comforts here, but prayer.

Let those that play your clowns speak no more than is set down for them.

My chastity's the jewel of our house, bequeathed down from many ancestors.

And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare As any she belied with false compare.

I am not what I am.

We will draw the curtain and show you the picture.

More of your conversation would infect my brain.

Wine loved I deeply, dice dearly.

Let's teach ourselves that honorable stop, Not to outsport discretion.

We do not keep the outward form of order, where there is deep disorder in the mind.

The eagle suffers little birds to sing.

Until I know this sure uncertainty, I'll entertain the offered fallacy.

I fill up a place, which may be better... when I have made it empty.

For here, I hope, begins our lasting joy.

Things may serve long, but not serve ever.

Many can brook the weather that love not the wind.

Thus is his cheek the map of days outworn.

I am not of that feather, to shake off my friend when he must need me.

I am a feather for each wind that blows.

Promising is the very air o' the time; it opens the eyes of expectation.

Policy sits above conscience.

In struggling with misfortunes lies the true proof of virtue.

Your gentleness shall force More than your force move us to gentleness.

Now he'll outstare the lightning. To be furious Is to be frightened out of fear.

Thou shalt not stir one foot to seek a foe.

I hold him but a fool that will endanger His body for a girl that loves him not.

The gallantry of his grief did put me into a towering passion.

For man is a giddy thing, and this is my conclusion.

It is lost at dice, what ancient honor won.

Be as just and gracious unto me,
As I am confident and kind to thee.

Glory grows guilty of detested crimes.

Give thanks for what you are today and go on fighting for what you gone be tomorrow.

I go, I go, look how I go, swifter than an arrow from a bow.

Celebrity is never more admired than by the negligent.

He wears his faith but as the fashion of his hat.

Headstrong liberty is lashed with woe.

Enjoy the honey-heavy dew of slumber.

What a terrible era in which idiots govern the blind.

Honour travels in a strait so narrow Where one but goes abreast.

We see which way the stream of time doth run.

A jest's prosperity lies in the ear.

In jest, there is truth.

To offend and judge are distinct offices, And of opposed natures.

Heaven is above all yet; there sits a judge, That no king can corrupt.

Preferred three hours quicker over one moment late.

T'is true: there's magic in the web of it.

Love will not be spurred to what it loathes.

Where hateful Death put on his ugliest mask.

Each present joy or sorrow seems the chief.

We cannot all be masters, nor all masters Cannot be truly followed.

A young man married is a man that's marred.

Things at the worst will cease, or else climb upward
To what they were before.

Shall we their fond pageant see?
Lord, what fools these mortals be!

Opinion, a sovereign mistress of effects.

Much rain wears the marble.

How my achievements mock me!

There are occasions and causes, why and wherefore in all things.

We were not born to sue, but to command.

Kindness nobler ever than revenge.

What a fool honesty is.

The play's the thing.

Once more into the breach.

She sat like patience on a monument smiling at grief.

Thou frothy tickle-brained hedge-pig!

A plague on both your houses.

Tis no mean happiness to be seated in the mean.

Our reasons are not prophets
When oft our fancies are.

Strong reasons make strong actions.

Rebellion in this land shall lose his sway, meeting the check of such another day.

The sauce to meat is ceremony; Meeting were bare without it.

Keep up your bright swords, for the dew will rust them.

Where the greater malady is fixed,
The lesser is scarce felt.

It's easy for someone to joke about scars if they've never been cut.

But soft, what light yonder window breaks.

Every good servant does not all commands.

You cram these words into mine ears against The stomach of my sense.

Anger's my meat; I sup upon myself,
And so shall starve with feeding.

Love is a wonderful, terrible thing.

I have no words.
My voice is in my sword.

Smooth runs the water where the brook is deep.

My love to thee is sound, sans crack or flaw.

Get thee to a nunnery.

They have been at a great feast of languages, and stolen the scraps.

Speak on, but be not over-tedious.

A merry heart goes all the way,
A sad one tires in an hour.

Come give us a taste of your quality.

We must be brief when traitors brave the field.

When Fortune means to men most good, She looks upon them with a threatening eye.

Equality of two domestic powers Breeds scrupulous faction.

Tis time to fear when tyrants seem to kiss.

Our praises are our wages.

We bring forth weeds when our quick minds lie still.