William Shakespeare Quotes

“Tis a blushing shame-faced spirit that mutinies in a man's bosom. It fills a man full of obstacles. It made me once restore a purse of gold that (by chance) I found. It beggars any man that keeps it.”

“And where the offense is, let the great axe fall.”

“Let me have war, say I; it exceeds peace as far as day does night; it's spritely, waking, audible, and full of vent.”

“O Mistress mine, where are you roaming? O, stay and hear; your true love's coming, That can sing both high and low: Trip no further, pretty sweeting; Journeys end in lovers meeting, Every wise man's son doth know. What is love? 'Tis not hereafter; Present mirth hath present laughter; What's to come is still unsure: In delay there lies not plenty; Then, come kiss me, sweet and twenty, Youth's a stuff will not endure.”

“Twas a clever quibble. Here, a garment for it.”

“She's good, being gone.”

“Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?”

“Let's go hand in hand, not one before another.”

“For where is any author in the world Teaches such beauty as a woman's eye?”

“Come, Lady, die to live.”

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

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

“What is the city but the people?”

“To be, or not to be, that is the question: Whether 'tis Nobler in the mind to suffer The Slings and Arrows of outrageous Fortune, Or to take Arms against a Sea of troubles, And by opposing end them: to die, to sleep No more; and by a sleep, to say we end The Heart-ache, and the thousand Natural shocks That Flesh is heir to? 'Tis a consummation Devoutly to be wished. To die to sleep, To sleep, perchance to Dream; Aye, there's the rub.”

“Lord Bacon told Sir Edward Coke when he was boasting, The less you speak of your greatness, the more shall I think of it.”

“Into what dangers would you lead me, Cassius, That you would have me seek into myself For that which is not in me?”

“When Caesar says, 'Do this', it is performed.”

“My free drift Halts not particularly, but moves itself In a wide sea of wax; no levelled malice Infects one comma in the course I hold, But flies an eagle flight, bold and forth on, Leaving no tract behind.”

“Let fame, that all hunt after in their lives,Live regist'red upon our brazen tombsAnd then grace us in the disgrace of death;When, spite of cormorant devouring Time,Th' endeavor of this present breath may buyThat honor which shall bate his scythe's keen edgeAnd make us heirs of all eternity.”

“Weed your better judgments of all opinion that grows rank in them.”

“Free from gross passion or of mirth of anger constant spirit, not swerving with the blood, garnish'd and deck'd in modest compliment, not working with the eye without the ear, and but in purged judgement trusting neither? Such and so finely bolted didst thou seem.”

“Foul cankering rust the hidden treasure frets, but gold that's put to use more gold begets.”

“So, good night unto you all. Give me your hands, if we be friends, and Robin shall restore amends.”

“Ring the alarum-bell! Blow, wind! come, wrack! At least we'll die with harness on our back.”

“If it be true that good wine needs no bush, 'tis true that a good play needs no epilogue.”