Quotations by Shakespeare, William
Fellowship in woe doth woe assuage.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
“The Rape of Lucrece,” l. 790 (1594)
Lovers and madmen have seething brains,
Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend
More than cool reason ever comprehends.William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 5, sc. 1, l. 4 (1605)
LAFEU: Moderate lamentation is the right of the dead, excessive grief the enemy to the living.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
All’s Well that Ends Well, Act 1, sc. 1, l. 63 (1602)
COUNTESS: Love all, trust a few,
Do wrong to none.William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
All’s Well that Ends Well, Act 1, sc. 1, l. 73 (1602)
(Source)
HELENA: Oft expectation fails and most oft there
Where most it promises, and oft it hits
Where hope is coldest and despair most fits.William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
All’s Well that Ends Well, Act 2, sc. 1, l. 145 (1602)
No legacy is so rich as honesty.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
All’s Well that Ends Well, Act 3, sc. 5 (1602)
PAROLLES: Who knows himself a braggart,
Let him fear this; for it will come to pass
That every braggart shall be found an ass.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
All’s Well That Ends Well, Act 4, sc. 3 (1602-04)
(Source)
The web of our life is a mingled yarn, good and ill together.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
All’s Well that Ends Well, Act 4, sc. 3, l. 74 (1602)
We, ignorant of ourselves,
Beg often our own harms, which the wise powers
Deny us for our good; so we find profit by losing of our prayers.William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Antony and Cleopatra, Act 2, sc. 1, l. 5
Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale
Her infinite variety; other women cloy
The appetites they feed, but she makes hungry
Where most she satisfies.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Antony and Cleopatra, Act 2, sc. 2, l. 271 [Enobarbus] (1607)
(Source)
To business that we love we rise betime
And go to it with delight.William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Antony and Cleopatra, Act 4, sc. 4, l. 20 (1606)
O, how full of briers is this working-day world!
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
As You Like It, Act 1, sc. 3, l. 11 (1599)
Sweet are the uses of adversity,
Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head.William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
As You Like It, Act 2, sc. 1 (1599)
We are true lovers run into strange capers.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
As You Like It, Act 2, sc. 4, l. 54 (1599)
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 ….William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
As You Like It, Act 2, sc. 6, l. 139 [Jaques] (1599)
Thou seest we are not all alone unhappy:
The wide and universal theater
Presents more woeful pageants than the scene
Wherein we play in.William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
As You Like It, Act 2, sc. 7, l. 136 (1599)
Kindness, nobler ever than revenge.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
As You Like It, Act 4, sc. 3, l. 129 (1599)
I do now remember a saying,
‘The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man
knows himself to be a fool.’William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
As You Like It, Act 5, sc. 1, l. 31 [Touchstone] (1599)
ORLANDO: O, how bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man’s eyes!
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
As You Like It, Act 5, sc. 2 (1599)
Ingratitude is monstrous.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Coriolanus, Act 2, sc. 3, l. 9 (1609)
You might have been enough the man you are
With striving less to be so.William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Coriolanus, Act 3, sc. 2, l. 19 (1609)
You might have been enough the man you are
With striving less to be so.William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Coriolanus, Act 3, sc. 2, l. 19 (1609)
Action is eloquence.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Coriolanus, Act 3, sc. 2, l. 76 (1609)
Fear no more the heat o’ the sun,
Nor the furious winter’s rages;
Thou thy worldly task hast done,
Home art gone, and ta’en thy wages:
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Cymbeline, Act 3, sc. 2 [Guiderius] (1623)
Society is not comfort
To one not sociable.William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Cymbeline, Act 4, sc. 2, l. 12 (1623)
Fortune brings in some boats that are not steered.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Cymbeline, Act 4, sc. 3, l. 46 (1623)
Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Hamlet Act 3, sc. 1, l. 139 [Hamlet] (1600)
POLONIUS: 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.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Hamlet, Act 1, sc. 3, ll. 78-80 [Polonius] (1600)
HAMLET: Meet it as I should set it down
That one may smile and smile and still be a villain.William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Hamlet, Act 1, sc. 5, l. 107 (1600)
HAMLET: There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Hamlet, Act 1, sc. 5, l. 166 (1600)
Many wearing rapiers are afraid of goosequills.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Hamlet, Act 2, sc. 2 (1600)
Doubt thou the stars are fire;
Doubt that the sun doth move;
Doubt truth to be a liar;
But never doubt I love.
Brevity is the soul of wit.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Hamlet, Act 2, sc. 2 [Polonius] (1600)
(Source)
In full:
"Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit,
And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes,
I will be brief ...."
HAMLET: Use every man after his desert, and who should ‘scape whipping?
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Hamlet, Act 2, sc. 2, l. 554 (1600)
HAMLET: There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Hamlet, Act 2, scene 2, l. 254 (1600)
The dread of something after death,
The undiscovr’d country from whose bourn
No traveler returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than to fly to others that we know not of?William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Hamlet, Act 3, sc. 1, l. 78 [Hamlet] (1600)
When sorrows come, they come not single spies,
But in battalions.William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Hamlet, Act 4, sc. 5, l. 83 [Claudius] (1600)
(Source)
HAMLET: If it be now, ’tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come: the readiness is all.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Hamlet, Act 5, sc. 2, l. 230 (1600)
Season your admiration for a while.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Hamlet, I.I.192
Do not, as some ungracious pastors do,
Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven
While he the primrose path of dalliance treads
And recks not his own rede.William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Hamlet, I.iii.48-52 (1602)
Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel.William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Hamlet, I.iii.62-63
Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Hamlet, II.ii.207
HAMLET: Conscience does make cowards of us all.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Hamlet, III.i.83 (1600)
We know what we are, but we know not what we may be.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Hamlet, IV.v.43
There is a divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough-hew them how we will.William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Hamlet, V.ii.10-11
The better part of valour is discretion.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Henry IV, Part 1, Act 4, sc. 4 (1598)
God befriend us as our cause is just.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Henry IV, Part 1, Act 5, sc. 1, l. 121 [Henry] (1597)
(Source)
If all the year were playing holidays,
To sport would be as tedious as to work.William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Henry IV, Part 1, I.ii.208
Wisdom cries out in the streets, and no man regards it.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Henry IV, Part 1, I.ii.88-89
Lord, Lord, how this world is given to lying!
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Henry IV, Part 1, V.iv.145-6
O thoughts of men accursed!
Past and to come seems best; things present worst.William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Henry IV, Part 2, I.iii.108 [Abp. of York] (c. 1597)
Are these things then necessities Then let us meet them like necessities.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Henry IV, Part 2, III.i.92-93
Ignorance is the curse of God.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Henry IV, Part 2, IV.vii.75
GLENDOWER: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
HOTSPUR: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
But will they come when you do call for them?William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Henry IV, Part I, III.i.53-55
KING HENRY: Presume not that I am the thing I was;
For God doth know, so shall the world perceive,
That I have turn’d away my former self.William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Henry IV, Part II, Act 5, sc. 5, l. 60 (1597)
KING HENRY: Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Henry IV, Part 2, 3.1.31 (1597)
Self-love, my liege, is not so vile a sin
As self-neglecting.William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Henry V, Act 2, sc. 4, l. 75 [Dauphin] (1598)
(Source)
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead!
In peace, there’s nothing so becomes a man,
As modest stillness and humility:
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood.William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Henry V, Act 3, sc. 1 [Henry] (1599)
(Source)
I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
Straining upon the start. The game’s afoot;
Follow your spirit: and upon this charge,
Cry — God for Harry! England and Saint George!
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Henry V, Act 3, sc. 1 [Henry] (1599)
(Source)
I would give all my fame for a pot of ale, and safety.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Henry V, Act 3, sc. 2 [Boy] (1599)
(Source)
FLUELLEN: If the enemy is an ass and a fool and a prating coxcomb, is it meet, think you, that we should also, look you, be an ass and a fool and a prating coxcomb, in your own conscience now?
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Henry V, Act 4, sc. 1 (1598-99)
Every subject’s duty is the king’s; but every subject’s soul is his own.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Henry V, Act 4, sc. 1 [King Henry] (1599)
(Source)
There is some soul of goodness in things evil,
Would men observingly distil it out.
O, do not wish one more!
Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made,
And crowns for convoy put into his purse:
We would not die in that man’s company,
That fears his fellowship to die with us.William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Henry V, Act 4, sc. 3 [Henry] (1599)
(Source)
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember’d, —
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me,
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England, now a-bed,
Shall think themselves accurs’d, they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap, whiles any speaks,
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Henry V, Act 4, sc. 3 [Henry] (1599)
(Source)
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Henry V, Act 4, sc.3 (1598-99)
A good leg will fall; a straight back will stoop; a black beard will turn white; a curled pate will grow bald; a fair face will wither; a full eye will wax hollow: but a good heart, Kate, is the sun and the moon; or, rather, the sun, and not the moon; for it shines bright and never changes, but keeps his course truly.
The strawberry grows underneath the nettle.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Henry V, I.I.60
There is occasions and causes why and wherefore in all things.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Henry V, V.i.3
Now ’tis the spring, and weeds are shallow-rooted;
Suffer them now, and they’ll o’ergrow the garden.William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Henry VI, Part 2, III.i.31
KING HENRY: Thrice is he arm’d that hath his quarrel just.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Henry VI, Part 2, III.ii.233 (1590)
Ill blows the wind that profits nobody.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Henry VI, Part 3, II.v.55
Now join your hands, and with your hands your hearts.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Henry VI, Part 3, IV.vi.39
GLOUCESTER: Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind;
The thief doth fear each bush an officer.William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Henry VI, Part III, Act 5, sc. 6, l. 11 (1590)
KING HENRY: Forbear to judge, for we are sinners all.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Henry VI, Part 2, 3.3.31 (1590)
Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot
That it do singe yourself.William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Henry VIII, I.I.140
Out with it boldly; truth loves open dealing.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Henry VIII, III.i.39 [Queen Katharine]
‘Tis a kind of good deed to say well,
Yet words are not deeds.William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Henry VIII, III.ii.153-154
BRUTUS: When love begins to sicken and decay,
It useth an enforced ceremony.William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Julius Caesar, 4.2.20 (1599)
BRUTUS: 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.William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Julius Caesar, 4.3.218 (1599)
CAESAR: Let me have men about me that are fat;
Sleek-headed men and such as sleep o’ nights:
Yon Cassius has a lean and hungry look;
He thinks too much; such men are dangerous.William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Julius Caesar, Act 1, sc. 2, l. 192 (1599)
See Plutarch.
BRUTUS: The abuse of greatness is, when it disjoins
Remorse from power.William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Julius Caesar, Act 2, Sc. 1, l. 18 (1599)
Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.
Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,
It seems to me most strange that men should fear,
Seeing that death, a necessary end,
Will come when it will come.William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Julius Caesar, Act 2, sc. 2, l. 34ff [Caesar] (1599)
(Source)
The initial phrase has seemingly morphed in the retelling, though still being cited to Shakespeare: "A coward dies a thousand times before his death, but the valiant taste of death but once." This is the form most often seen, but is not Shakespeare.
In A Farewell to Arms (1929), Hemingway gives another paraphrase: "The coward dies a thousand deaths, the brave but one."
This was the most unkindest cut of all.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Julius Caesar, Act 3, sc. 2 (1599)
ANTONY: The evil men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones.William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Julius Caesar, Act 3, scene 2, l. 80 (1599)
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.
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.William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Julius Caesar, I.ii [Cassius] (1599)
CASSIUS: Men at some times are masters of their fates:
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Julius Caesar, I.ii.139 (1599)
O, that a man might know
The end of this day’s business ere it come!William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Julius Caesar, V.I.122
CLARENCE: A little fire is quickly trodden out,
Which, being suffered, rivers cannot quench.William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
King Henry VI, Part III, Act 4, sc. 8, l. 7 (1590)
Well, whiles I am a beggar, I will rail
And say there is no sin but to be rich;
And being rich, my virtue then shall be
To say there is no vice, but beggary.William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
King John, Act 2, sc. 1, l. 593 [Philip the Bastard] (1596)
Courage mounteth with occasion.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
King John, II.i.82
And oftentimes excusing of a fault,
Doth make the fault worse by the excuse.William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
King John, IV.ii.28-31
EDMUND: This is the excellent foppery of the world, that, when we are sick in fortune, — often the surfeit of our own behavior, — we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars: as if we were villains by necessity; fools by heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and treachers, by spherical predominance; drunkards, liars, and adulterers, by an enforced obedience of planetary influence; and all that we are evil in, by a divine thrusting on: an admirable evasion of whoremaster man, to lay his goatish disposition to the charge of a star!
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
King Lear, Act 1, sc. 2 (c. 1605)
FOOL: Have more than thou showest,
Speak less than thou knowest,
Lend less than thou owest.William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
King Lear, Act 1, sc. 4, l. 131 (1605)
ALBANY: Striving to better, oft we mar what’s well.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
King Lear, Act 1, sc. 4, l. 353 (c. 1605)
Childe Rowland to the dark tower came,
His word was still “Fie, foh, and fum,
I smell the blood of a British man.”William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
King Lear, Act 3, sc. 4, l. 178 (1605-1606)
ALBANY: Striving to better, oft we mar what’s well.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
King Lear, I.iv.369 (1605)
A knave; a rascal; an eater of broken meats; a base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three-suited, hundred-pound, filthy, worsted-stocking knave; a lily-livered, action-taking knave, a whoreson, glass-gazing, super-serviceable finical rogue; one-trunk-inheriting slave; one that wouldst be a bawd, in way of good service, and art nothing but the composition of a knave, beggar, coward, pander, and the son and heir of a mongrel bitch: one whom I will beat into clamorous whining, if thou deniest the least syllable of thy addition.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
King Lear, II.ii.13-21 [Earl of Kent] (1608)
The worst is not
So long as we can say, “This is the worst.”
Wisdom and goodness to the vile seem vile.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
King Lear, IV.ii.38
Through tattered clothes small vices do appear;
Robes and furred gowns hide all.William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
King Lear, IV.vi.166
Ripeness is all.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
King Lear, V.ii.11
Jesters do oft prove prophets.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
King Lear, V.iii.
Frequently misattributed (with "often" for "oft") to Joseph Addison.
Men are as the time is.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
King Lear, V.iii.31
A light heart lives long.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Love’s Labour’s Lost, Act 5, sc. 2 (1598)
PORTER: It provokes and unprovokes; it provokes the desire, but it takes away the performance: therefore much drink may be said to be an equivocator with lechery: it makes him, and it mars him: it sets him on, and it takes him off.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Macbeth Act 2, sc. 3, l. 32 (1605)
MACBETH: 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.William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Macbeth, 5.5.24 (1605)
Drink, Sir, is a great provoker. […] Lechery, Sir, it provokes, and unprovokes: it provokes the desire, but it takes away the performance.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Macbeth, Act 2, sc. 3 (1606)
LADY MACBETH: Whither should I fly?
I have done no harm. But I remember now
I am in this earthly world; where to do harm
Is often laudable, to do good sometime
Accounted dangerous folly.William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Macbeth, Act 4, scene 2, l. 74 (1605)
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.
Things without all remedy
Should be without regard: what’s done is done.William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Macbeth, III.ii.11 (1606)