William Shakespeare Quotes

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

Expectation is the root of all heartache.

For I can raise no money by vile means.

Many a good hanging prevents a bad marriage.

Love is not love that alters when it alteration finds.

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

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

Death is a fearful thing.

Desire of having is the sin of covetousness.

False face must hide what the false heart doth know.

Farewell, fair cruelty.

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

Better a witty fool than a foolish wit.

For my part, it was Greek to me.

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

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

Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs.

Modest doubt is called the beacon of the wise.

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

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.

Men’s vows are women’s traitors!

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

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

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

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

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

There’s place and means for every man alive.

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

Love is too young to know what conscience is.

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

Men shut their doors against a setting sun.

To do a great right do a little wrong.

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.

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

Time and the hour run through the roughest day.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.

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

Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful.

Virtue itself scapes not calumnious strokes.

We are time’s subjects, and time bids be gone.

‘Tis one thing to be tempted, another thing to fall.

Brevity is the soul of wit.

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.

There is no darkness but ignorance.

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

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

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

By that sin fell the angels.

They do not love that do not show their love.

But men are men; the best sometimes forget.

This above all; to thine own self be true.

Boldness be my friend.

Better three hours too soon than a minute too late.

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

They say miracles are past.

Fortune brings in some boats that are not steered.

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

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

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

Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice.

Lawless are they that make their wills their law.

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

My pride fell with my fortunes.

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

Listen to many, speak to a few.

Ambition should be made of sterner stuff.

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

Alas, I am a woman friendless, hopeless!

Let every eye negotiate for itself and trust no agent.

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

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

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

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

Absence from those we love is self from self – a deadly banishment.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

What’s done can’t be undone.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

Let no such man be trusted.

An overflow of good converts to bad.

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

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

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

So foul and fair a day I have not seen.

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

Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall.

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

Speak low, if you speak love.

Such as we are made of, such we be.

Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind.

Sweet mercy is nobility’s true badge.

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

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

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

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

Poor and content is rich, and rich enough.

Pleasure and action make the hours seem short.

Parting is such sweet sorrow.

Our peace shall stand as firm as rocky mountains.

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

One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.

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

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

The attempt and not the deed confounds us.

O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!

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

O, had I but followed the arts!

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

The undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns.

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

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

Words without thoughts never to heaven go.

Women may fall when there’s no strength in men.

With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come.

Wisely, and slow. They stumble that run fast.

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

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

When words are scarce they are seldom spent in vain.

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

The wheel is come full circle.

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.

The valiant never taste of death but once.

The course of true love never did run smooth.

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

The robbed that smiles, steals something from the thief.

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

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

The love of heaven makes one heavenly.

The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

The golden age is before us, not behind us.

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

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

The empty vessel makes the loudest sound.

The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.

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

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

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.

I like not fair terms and a villain’s mind.

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

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

I dote on his very absence.

I bear a charmed life.

I am not bound to please thee with my answer.

How well he’s read, to reason against reading!

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

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

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

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

Hell is empty and all the devils are here.

Give thy thoughts no tongue.

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

He that is giddy thinks the world turns round.

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

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

Having nothing, nothing can he lose.

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

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

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

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

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

I was adored once too.

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

In time we hate that which we often fear.

I say there is no darkness but ignorance.

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

Now is the winter of our discontent.

Nothing can come of nothing.

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

No legacy is so rich as honesty.

Neither a borrower nor a lender be.

Nature hath framed strange fellows in her time.

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

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

In a false quarrel there is no true valor.

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

I will praise any man that will praise me.

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

It is a wise father that knows his own child.

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

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?

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

If music be the food of love, play on.

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.

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.

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

If you have tears, prepare to shed them now.

I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.