William Shakespeare was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's greatest dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the (Bard of Avon).
You'll be surprised by some of the phrases in the top 130 William Shakespeare quotes that you didn't even know were written by him, and you'll be reminded of some of his best ones.
William Shakespeare Quotes and Sayings
The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.
These violent delights have violent ends.
It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.
We know what we are, but not what we may be.
Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt.
God hath given you one face, and you make yourself another.
Listen to many, speak to a few.
All that glisters is not gold; Often have you heard that told: Many a man his life hath sold But my outside to behold: Gilded tombs do worms enfold.
Conscience doth make cowards of us all.
My soul is in the sky.
So wise so young, they say, do never live long.
If we are true to ourselves, we can not be false to anyone.
Be great in act, as you have been in thought.
False face must hide what the false heart doth know.
Shakespeare Quotes on Love
Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.
Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.
The course of true love never did run smooth.
Don't waste your love on somebody, who doesn't value it.
If love be rough with you, be rough with love. Prick love for pricking and you beat love down.
Good night, good night! parting is such sweet sorrow, That I shall say good night till it be morrow.
Doubt thou the stars are fire; Doubt that the sun doth move; Doubt truth to be a liar; But never doubt I love.
If music be the food of love, play on, Give me excess of it; that surfeiting, The appetite may sicken, and so die.
thus with a kiss I die.
A young woman in love always looks like patience on a monument smiling at grief.
I would not wish any companion in the world but you.
I love you with so much of my heart that none is left to protest.
In black ink my love may still shine bright.
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Love is too young to know what conscience is.
I am one who loved not wisely but too well.
Kindness in women, not their beauteous looks, shall win my love.
Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight! For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night.
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, but bears it out even to the edge of doom.
Love is heavy and light, bright and dark, hot and cold, sick and healthy, asleep and awake- its everything except what it is! (Act 1, scene 1)
My bounty is as boundless as the sea, My love as deep; the more I give to thee, The more I have, for both are infinite.
Sweets to the sweet.
My only love sprung from my only hate! Too early seen unknown, and known too late! Prodigious birth of love it is to me, That I must love a loathed enemy.
See how she leans her cheek upon her hand. O, that I were a glove upon that hand That I might touch that cheek!
Did my heart love till now? forswear it, sight! For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night.
I'll follow thee and make a heaven of hell, To die upon the hand I love so well.
When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married.
And yet, to say the truth, reason and love keep little company together nowadays.
I do love nothing in the world so well as you- is not that strange?
For which of my bad parts didst thou first fall in love with me?
Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs.
For she had eyes and chose me.
For never was a story of more woe than this of Juliet and her Romeo.
O serpent heart hid with a flowering face! Did ever a dragon keep so fair a cave? Beautiful tyrant, fiend angelical, dove feather raven, wolvish-ravening lamb! Despised substance of divinest show, just opposite to what thou justly seem'st - A damned saint, an honorable villain!
Do not swear by the moon, for she changes constantly. then your love would also change.
They do not love that do not show their love.
But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.
Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove. O no, it is an ever-fixed mark That looks on tempests and is never shaken; It is the star to every wand'ring bark, Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
...Who could refrain, That had a heart to love, and in that heart Courage to make love known?
I loved Ophelia. Forty thousand brothers could not, with all their quantity of love, make up my sum.
Best William Shakespeare Quotes
Be not afraid of greatness. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them.
Though she be but little, she is fierce!
Better a witty fool, than a foolish wit.
Double, double, toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble!
Life... is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.
I am not bound to please thee with my answers.
There's an old saying that applies to me: you can't lose a game if you don't play the game.
There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.
Hell is empty and all the devils are here.
Do you not know I am a woman? when I think, I must speak.
My tongue will tell the anger of my heart, or else my heart concealing it will break.
Stars, hide your fires; Let not light see my black and deep desires.
This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.
To die, to sleep - To sleep, perchance to dream - ay, there's the rub, For in this sleep of death what dreams may come...
Expectation is the root of all heartache.
Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak knits up the o-er wrought heart and bids it break.
Nothing will come of nothing: speak again.
Look like the innocent flower, But be the serpent under it.
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.
Lord, what fools these mortals be!
When he shall die, Take him and cut him out in little stars, And he will make the face of heaven so fine That all the world will be in love with night And pay no worship to the garish sun.
Brevity is the soul of wit.
Now cracks a noble heart. Good-night, sweet prince; And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.
You speak an infinite deal of nothing.
By the pricking of my thumbs, Something wicked this way comes.
O, beware, my lord, of jealousy; It is the green-ey'd monster, which doth mock The meat it feeds on.
We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep.
Words are easy, like the wind; faithful friends are hard to find.
This above all: to thine own self be true.
When sorrows come, they come not single spies. But in battalions!
I like this place and could willingly waste my time in it.
Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more, Men were deceivers ever,- One foot in sea and one on shore, To one thing constant never.
These violent delights have violent ends And in their triump die, like fire and powder Which, as they kiss, consume.
The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.
Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world Like a Colossus; and we petty men Walk under his huge legs, and peep about To find ourselves dishonourable graves.
There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
Dispute not with her: she is lunatic.
The breaking of so great a thing should make A greater crack: the round world Should have shook lions into civil streets, And citizens to their dens.
One may smile, and smile, and be a villain.
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, To the last syllable of recorded time; And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! 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.
Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?
What's in a name? that which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet.
Wisely and slow; they stumble that run fast.
There was a star danced, and under that was I born.
Parting is such sweet sorrow that I shall say goodnight till it be morrow.
With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come.
Though this be madness, yet there is method in't.
My words fly up, my thoughts remain below: Words without thoughts never to heaven go.
Men in rage strike those that wish them best.
I can see he's not in your good books,' said the messenger. 'No, and if he were I would burn my library.
The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.
Men at some time are masters of their fates. The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.
Presume not that I am the thing I was.
I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow, than a man swear he loves me.
How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a weary world.
What 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! The beauty of the world. The paragon of animals. And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?
What's done cannot be undone.
When we are born, we cry that we are come to this great stage of fools.
Words, words, words.
Let me be that I am and seek not to alter me.
In time we hate that which we often fear.
What's past is prologue.
Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
Madness in great ones must not unwatched go.
All's well that ends well.
Women may fall when there's no strength in men.
I must be cruel only to be kind; Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind.
Go wisely and slowly. Those who rush stumble and fall.
He that hath a beard is more than a youth, and he that hath no beard is less than a man. He that is more than a youth is not for me, and he that is less than a man, I am not for him.
Tis not enough to help the feeble up, but to support them after.
A coward dies a thousand times before his death, but the valiant taste of death but once. It seems to me most strange that men should fear, seeing that death, a necessary end, will come when it will come.
William Shakespeare Romeo & Juliet
Romeo: If I profane with my unworthiest hand This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this: My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.
Juliet: Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much, Which mannerly devotion shows in this; For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch, And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss.
Romeo: Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?
Juliet: Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.
Romeo: O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do; They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.
Juliet: Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake.
Romeo: Then move not, while my prayer's effect I take. Thus from my lips, by yours, my sin is purged.
Juliet: Then have my lips the sin that they have took.
Romeo: Sin from thy lips? O trespass sweetly urged! Give me my sin again.
Juliet: You kiss by the book.
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