William Shakespeare Quotes

“Fair ladies, masked, are roses in their bud;Dismasked, the damask sweet commixture shown,Are angels vailing clouds, or roses blown.”

“'Tis better to be vile than vile esteemed, When not to be, receives reproach of being, And the just pleasure lost, which is so deemed, Not by our feeling, but by others' seeing.”

“Come away, come away, Death, And in sad cypress let me be laid; Fly away, fly away, breath, I am slain by a fair cruel maid. My shroud of white stuck all with yew, O prepare it! My part of death no one so true did share it. Not a flower, not a flower sweet, On my black coffin let there be strewn: Not a friend, not a friend greet My poor corpse, where my bones shall be thrown. A thousand thousand sighs to save, lay me O where Sad true lover never find my grave, to weep there!”

“How many fond fools serve mad jealousy!”

“I have been long a sleeper; but I trustMy absence doth neglect no great designWhich by my presence might have been concluded.”

“Some there be that shadows kiss; Such have but a shadow's bliss.”

“I am wealthy in my friends.”

“Let still woman take An elder than herself: so wears she to him, So sways she level in her husband's heart, For, boy, however we do praise ourselves, Our fancies are more giddy and unfirm, More longing, wavering, sooner to be lost and warn, Than women's are.”

“Youth to itself rebels, though none else near.”

“Give thy thoughts no tongue.”

“Who has a book of all that monarchs do, He's more secure to keep it shut than shown; For vice repeated is like the wand'ring wind, Blows dust in others' eye, to spread itself; And yet the end of all is bought thus dear, The breath is gone, and the sore eyes see clear To stop the air would hurt them.”

“Nature her custom holds, Let shame say what it will.”

“You must not thinkThat we are made of stuff so fat and dullThat we can let our beard be shook with dangerAnd think it pastime.”

“My rage is gone,And I am struck with sorrow. Take him up.Help, three o' th' chiefest soldiers; I'll be one.Beat thou the drum, that it speaks mournfully,Trail your steel spikes. Though in this city heHath widowed and unchilded many a one,Which to this hour bewail the injury,Yet he shall have a noble memory.Assist.”

“Therefore I tell my sorrows to the stones; Who, though they cannot answer my distress, Yet in some sort they are better than the tribunes, For that they will not intercept my tale: When I do weep, they humbly at my feet Receive my tears and seem to weep with me; And, were they but attired in grave weeds, Rome could afford no tribune like to these.”

“My grief lies onward, and my joy behind.”

“Ask God for temp'rance. That's th' appliance only Which your disease requires.”

“Lords, knights and gentlemen, what I should sayMy tears gainsay; for every word I speak,Ye see I drink the water of my eye.”

“Even through the hollow eyes of deathI spy life peering.”

“All dark and comfortless.”

“Thou whoreson zed! Thou unnecessary letter! My lord, if you will give me leave, I will tread this unbolted villain into mortar, and daub the wall of a jakes with him. *all cheer for Shakespearean insults*”

“A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse!”

“Two lovely berries moulded on one stem;So, with two seeming bodies, but one heart.”

“Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.”

“All lovers swear more performance than they are able, and yet reserve an ability that they never perform; vowing more than the perfection of ten, and discharging less than the tenth part of one.”