William Shakespeare's Quotes

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

With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come.

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.

The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.

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

Boldness be my friend.

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

Speak low, if you speak love.

Alas, I am a woman friendless, hopeless!

Give thy thoughts no tongue.

Ambition should be made of sterner stuff.

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

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

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

One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.

I am not bound to please thee with my answer.

I say there is no darkness but ignorance.

Pleasure and action make the hours seem short.

Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice.

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

In time we hate that which we often fear.

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

Love is too young to know what conscience is.

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

What's done can't be undone.

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

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 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.

Having nothing, nothing can he lose.

The love of heaven makes one heavenly.

The robbed that smiles, steals something from the thief.

Love is not love that alters when it alteration finds.

The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

The golden age is before us, not behind us.

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.

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

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

But men are men; the best sometimes forget.

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

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.

They do not love that do not show their love.

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

I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.

Let every eye negotiate for itself and trust no agent.

Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall.

There is no darkness but ignorance.

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

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

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

Poor and content is rich, and rich enough.

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

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

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

The undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns.

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

To do a great right do a little wrong.

Brevity is the soul of wit.

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

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

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

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

What is past is prologue.

By that sin fell the angels.

Desire of having is the sin of covetousness.

Modest doubt is called the beacon of the wise.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

When words are scarce they are seldom spent in vain.