William Shakespeare (baptized April 26, 1564, Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England—died April 23, 1616, Stratford-upon-Avon) English poet, dramatist, and actor often called the English national poet and considered by many to be the greatest dramatist of all time. Shakespeare occupies a position unique in world literature. Other poets, such as Homer and Dante, and novelists, such as Leo Tolstoy and Charles Dickens, have transcended national barriers.
William Shakespeare Quotes
1. “Listen to many, speak to a few.”
— William Shakespeare
2. “Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.”
— William Shakespeare
3. “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”
— William Shakespeare
4. “It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.”
— William Shakespeare
5. “Expectation is the root of all heartache.”
— William Shakespeare
6. “Some are born great, others achieve greatness.”
— William Shakespeare
7. “Don’t waste your love on somebody, who doesn’t value it.”
— William Shakespeare
8. “The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.”
— William Shakespeare
9. “I would challenge you to a battle of wits, but I see you are unarmed.”
— William Shakespeare
10. “The course of true love never did run smooth.”
— William Shakespeare
11. “All the world’s a stage.”
— William Shakespeare
12. “Go wisely and slowly. Those who rush stumble and fall.”
— William Shakespeare
13. “What’s done cannot be undone.”
— William Shakespeare
14. “Never play with the feelings of others. Because you may win the game but the risk is that you will surely lose the person for a life time.”
— William Shakespeare
15. “Et tu, Brute?”
— William Shakespeare
16. “My tongue will tell the anger of my heart, or else my heart concealing it will break.”
— William Shakespeare
17. “Hell is empty and all the devils are here.”
— William Shakespeare
18. “If music be the food of love, play on.”
— William Shakespeare
19. “These violent delights have violent ends.”
— William Shakespeare
20. “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.”
— William Shakespeare
21. “Be not afraid of greatness. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them.”
— William Shakespeare
22. “We know what we are, but not what we may be.”
— William Shakespeare
23. “I defy you, stars.”
— William Shakespeare
24. “Though she be but little, she is fierce!”
— William Shakespeare
25. “Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt.”
— William Shakespeare
26. “Who is it that can tell me who I am?”
— William Shakespeare
27. “To be or not to be that is the question.”
— William Shakespeare
28. “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.”
— William Shakespeare
29. “All’s well if all ends well.”
— William Shakespeare
30. “The golden age is before us, not behind us.”
— William Shakespeare
31. “This above all: to thine own self be true.”
— William Shakespeare
32. “The rest, is silence.”
— William Shakespeare
33. “Better three hours too soon than a minute too late.”
— William Shakespeare
34. “Better a witty fool, than a foolish wit.”
— William Shakespeare
35. “Words are easy, like the wind; Faithful friends are hard to find.”
— William Shakespeare
36. “When a father gives to his son, both laugh; when a son gives to his father, both cry.”
— William Shakespeare
37. “Good night, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say good night till it be morrow.”
— William Shakespeare
38. “Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind.”
— William Shakespeare
39. “There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
— William Shakespeare
40. “Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs.”
— William Shakespeare
41. “Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t.”
— William Shakespeare
42. “Presume not that I am the thing I was.”
— William Shakespeare
43. “Doubt thou the stars are fire; Doubt that the sun doth move; Doubt truth to be a liar; But never doubt I love.”
— William Shakespeare
44. “What’s in a name? that which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet.”
— William Shakespeare
45. “How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a weary world.”
— William Shakespeare
46. “Let me be that I am and seek not to alter me.”
— William Shakespeare
47. “With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come.”
— William Shakespeare
48. “When we are born, we cry that we are come to this great stage of fools.”
— William Shakespeare
49. “Stars, hide your fires; Let not light see my black and deep desires.”
— William Shakespeare
50. “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.”
— William Shakespeare
51. “And this, our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything.”
— William Shakespeare
52. “There is a tide in the affairs of men which, taken at the floud, leads on to fortune ommitted, all the voyage of their lives are bound in shallows and in miseries.”
— William Shakespeare
53. “The prince of darkness is a gentleman!”
— William Shakespeare
54. “Words, words, words.”
— William Shakespeare
55. “Love is not love that alters when it alteration finds.”
— William Shakespeare
56. “Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.”
— William Shakespeare
57. “Come what come may, time and the hour run through the roughest day.”
— William Shakespeare
58. “Like madness is the glory of life.”
— William Shakespeare
59. “God hath given you one face, and you make yourself another.”
— William Shakespeare
60. “These violent delights have violent ends And in their triump die, like fire and powder Which, as they kiss, consume.”
— William Shakespeare
61. “Things without all remedy should be without regard: what’s done is done.”
— William Shakespeare
62. “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.”
— William Shakespeare
63. “In time we hate that which we often fear.”
— William Shakespeare
64. “I must be cruel only to be kind; Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind.”
— William Shakespeare
65. “As soon go kindle fire with snow, as seek to quench the fire of love with words.”
— William Shakespeare
66. “It is a wise father who knows his own child.”
— William Shakespeare
67. “All days are nights to see till I see thee, And nights bright days when dreams do show thee me.”
— William Shakespeare
68. “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
69. “O, when she’s angry, she is keen and shrewd! She was a vixen when she went to school; And though she be but little, she is fierce.”
— William Shakespeare
70. “The lunatic, the lover, and the poet, are of imagination all compact.”
— William Shakespeare
71. “Me, poor man, my library was dukedom large enough.”
— William Shakespeare
72. “I dare do all that may become a man; Who dares do more, is none.”
— William Shakespeare
73. “I wasted time, and now doth time waste me. Act V, Scene V.”
— William Shakespeare
74. “My words fly up, my thoughts remain below: Words without thoughts never to heaven go.”
— William Shakespeare
75. “O, wonder! How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world, That has such people in’t!”
— William Shakespeare
76. “Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak knits up the o-er wrought heart and bids it break.”
— William Shakespeare
77. “I do love nothing in the world so well as you. Is not that strange?”
— William Shakespeare
78. “If music be the food of love, play on, Give me excess of it; that surfeiting, The appetite may sicken, and so die.”
— William Shakespeare
79. “No legacy is so rich as honesty.”
— William Shakespeare
80. “Love comforteth like sunshine after rain.”
— William Shakespeare
81. “There was a star danced, and under that was I born.”
— William Shakespeare
82. “Do not swear by the moon, for she changes constantly. then your love would also change.”
— William Shakespeare
83. “For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds; Lillies that fester smell far worse than weeds.”
— William Shakespeare
84. “But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.”
— William Shakespeare
85. “Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?”
— William Shakespeare
86. “If we shadows have offended, Think but this, and all is mended, That you have but slumber’d here While these visions did appear.”
— William Shakespeare
87. “I despised my arrival on this earth and I despise my departure; it is a tragedy.”
— William Shakespeare
88. “I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow, than a man swear he loves me.”
— William Shakespeare
89. “What’s past is prologue.”
— William Shakespeare
90. “Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once.”
— William Shakespeare
91. “So full of artless jealousy is guilt, It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.”
— William Shakespeare
92. “Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more, Men were deceivers ever,- One foot in sea and one on shore, To one thing constant never.”
— William Shakespeare
93. “Women may fall when there’s no strength in men. Act II.”
— William Shakespeare
94. “I loved Ophelia. Forty thousand brothers could not, with all their quantity of love, make up my sum.”
— William Shakespeare
95. “I know a bank where the wild thyme blows, Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows, Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine, With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine.”
— William Shakespeare
96. “O, here Will I set up my everlasting rest, And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars From this world-wearied flesh. Eyes, look your last! Arms, take your last embrace! and, lips, O you The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss A dateless bargain to engrossing death!”
— William Shakespeare
97. “Lovers and madmen have such seething brains Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend More than cool reason ever comprehends.”
— William Shakespeare
98. “Absence from those we love is self from self – a deadly banishment.”
— William Shakespeare
99. “Sweets to the sweet.”
— William Shakespeare
100. “A glooming peace this morning with it brings; The sun, for sorrow, will not show his head: Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things; Some shall be pardon’d, and some punished: For never was a story of more woe Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.”
— William Shakespeare
101. “The robb’d that smiles, steals something from the thief; He robs himself that spends a bootless grief.”
— William Shakespeare
102. “Men have died from time to time, and worms have eaten them, but not for love.”
— William Shakespeare
103. “Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war!”
— William Shakespeare
104. “Tis an ill cook that cannot lick his own fingers.”
— William Shakespeare
105. “We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep.”
— William Shakespeare
106. “All things are ready, if our mind be so.”
— William Shakespeare
107. “Brevity is the soul of wit.”
— William Shakespeare
108. “What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form, in 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?”
— William Shakespeare
109. “To die, to sleep – To sleep, perchance to dream – ay, there’s the rub, For in this sleep of death what dreams may come…”
— William Shakespeare
110. “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.”
— William Shakespeare
111. “Be great in act, as you have been in thought.”
— William Shakespeare
112. “Discretion is the better part of valor.”
— William Shakespeare
113. “Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice.”
— William Shakespeare
114. “The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones.”
— William Shakespeare
115. “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.”
— William Shakespeare
116. “Lord, what fools these mortals be!”
— William Shakespeare
117. “I love thee, I love thee with a love that shall not die. Till the sun grows cold and the stars grow old.”
— William Shakespeare
118. “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.”
— William Shakespeare
119. “O God, I could be bound in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space – were it not that I have bad dreams.”
— William Shakespeare
120. “True love cannot be found where it truly does not exist, nor can it be hidden where it truly does.”
— William Shakespeare
121. “If we are true to ourselves, we can not be false to anyone.”
— William Shakespeare
122. “Some rise by sin, and some by virtues fall.”
— William Shakespeare
123. “Peace? I hate the word as I hate hell and all Montagues.”
— William Shakespeare
124. “The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose. An evil soul producing holy witness Is like a villain with a smiling cheek, A goodly apple rotten at the heart. O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!”
— William Shakespeare
125. “Sweet are the uses of adversity which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, wears yet a precious jewel in his head.”
— William Shakespeare
126. “Beware the ides of March.”
— William Shakespeare
127. “God shall be my hope, my stay, my guide and lantern to my feet.”
— William Shakespeare
128. “I am not bound to please thee with my answer.”
— William Shakespeare
129. “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
130. “People’s good deeds we write in water. The evil deeds are etched in brass.”
— William Shakespeare
131. “I say there is no darkness but ignorance.”
— William Shakespeare
132. “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”
— William Shakespeare
133. “They do not love that do not show their love. The course of true love never did run smooth. Love is a familiar. Love is a devil. There is no evil angel but Love.”
— William Shakespeare
134. “Summer’s lease hath all too short a date.”
— William Shakespeare
135. “The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.”
— William Shakespeare
136. “One may smile, and smile, and be a villain.”
— William Shakespeare
137. “Bid me run, and I will strive with things impossible.”
— William Shakespeare
138. “There’s a divinity that shapes our ends, Rough-hew them how we will.”
— William Shakespeare
139. “Madness in great ones must not unwatched go.”
— William Shakespeare
140. “I am in blood Stepp’d in so far, that, should I wade no more, Returning were as tedious as go o’er.”
— William Shakespeare
141. “Self-love, my liege, is not so vile a sin, as self-neglecting.”
— William Shakespeare
142. “Men in rage strike those that wish them best.”
— William Shakespeare
143. “Did my heart love till now? forswear it, sight! For I ne’er saw true beauty till this night.”
— William Shakespeare
144. “Oh, I am fortune’s fool!”
— William Shakespeare
145. “As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods. They kill us for their sport.”
— William Shakespeare
146. “I like this place and could willingly waste my time in it.”
— William Shakespeare
147. “Many a true word hath been spoken in jest.”
— William Shakespeare
148. “Remember me.”
— William Shakespeare
149. “Sit by my side, and let the world slip: we shall ne’er be younger.”
— William Shakespeare
150. “And thus I clothe my naked villainy With odd old ends stol’n out of holy writ; And seem a saint, when most I play the devil.”
— William Shakespeare
151. “The man that hath no music in himself, Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils; The motions of his spirit are dull as night, And his affections dark as Erebus. Let no such man be trusted. Mark the music.”
— William Shakespeare
152. “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.”
— William Shakespeare
153. “Thought is free.”
— William Shakespeare
154. “I count myself in nothing else so happy as in a soul remembering my good Friends.”
— William Shakespeare
155. “Journeys end in lovers meeting, Every wise man’s son doth know.”
— William Shakespeare
156. “So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.”
— William Shakespeare
157. “Tis in ourselves that we are thus or thus. Our bodies are our gardens to the which our wills are gardeners.”
— William Shakespeare
158. “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.”
— William Shakespeare
159. “Confusion now hath made his masterpiece.”
— William Shakespeare
160. “Why then, O brawling love! O loving hate! O any thing, of nothing first create! O heavy lightness, serious vanity, Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms, Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health, Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is! This love feel I, that feel no love in this.”
— William Shakespeare
161. “Now is the winter of our discontent Made glorious summer by this sun of York; And all the clouds that lour’d upon our house In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.”
— William Shakespeare
162. “Full fathom five thy father lies; Of his bones are coral made; Those are pearls that were his eyes: Nothing of him that doth fade, But doth suffer a sea-change Into something rich and strange. Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell: Ding-dong Hark! now I hear them, – Ding-dong, bell.”
— William Shakespeare
163. “Things base and vile, holding no quantity, Love can transpose to form and dignity. Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind. Nor hath Love’s mind of any judgment taste; Wings and no eyes figure unheedy haste.”
— William Shakespeare
164. “Conscience doth make cowards of us all.”
— William Shakespeare
165. “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.”
— William Shakespeare
166. “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.”
— William Shakespeare
167. “Lord Polonius: What do you read, my lord? Hamlet: Words, words, words. Lord Polonius: What is the matter, my lord? Hamlet: Between who? Lord Polonius: I mean, the matter that you read, my lord.”
— William Shakespeare
168. “My soul is in the sky.”
— William Shakespeare
169. “I pray you, do not fall in love with me, for I am falser than vows made in wine.”
— William Shakespeare
170. “For she had eyes and chose me.”
— William Shakespeare
171. “But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve For daws to peck at: I am not what I am.”
— William Shakespeare
172. “Romeo: I dreamt a dream tonight. Mercutio: And so did I. Romeo: Well, what was yours? Mercutio: That dreamers often lie. Romeo: In bed asleep while they do dream things true.”
— William Shakespeare
173. “Love goes toward love as schoolboys from their books, But love from love, toward school with heavy looks.”
— William Shakespeare
174. “When beggars die, there are no comets seen; the heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes.”
— William Shakespeare
175. “No, no, I am but shadow of myself: You are deceived, my substance is not here;.”
— William Shakespeare
176. “They do not love, that do not show their love.”
— William Shakespeare
177. “He jests at scars that never felt a wound.”
— William Shakespeare
178. “False face must hide what the false heart doth know.”
— William Shakespeare
179. “I have set my life upon a cast, And I will stand the hazard of the die.”
— William Shakespeare
180. “I am a man more sinned against than sinning.”
— William Shakespeare
181. “Do you not know I am a woman? when I think, I must speak.”
— William Shakespeare
182. “How poor are they that have not patience! What wound did ever heal but by degrees? Iago.”
— William Shakespeare
183. “Silence is the perfectest herault of joy. I were but little happy if I could say how much.”
— William Shakespeare
184. “Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice; Take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgment.”
— William Shakespeare
185. “Is love a tender thing? It is too rough, too rude, too boisterous, and it pricks like thorn.”
— William Shakespeare
186. “For man is a giddy thing, and this is my conclusion.”
— William Shakespeare
187. “For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright, Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.”
— William Shakespeare
188. “Now I will believe that there are unicorns…”
— William Shakespeare
189. “To be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of ten thousand.”
— William Shakespeare
190. “Death, a necessary end, will come when it will come.”
— William Shakespeare
191. “He that is thy friend indeed, He will help thee in thy need: If thou sorrow, he will weep; If thou wake, he cannot sleep: Thus of every grief in heart He with thee does bear a part. These are certain signs to know Faithful friend from flattering foe.”
— William Shakespeare
192. “My hands are of your color, but I shame to wear a heart so white.”
— William Shakespeare
193. “O, beware, my lord, of jealousy; It is the green-ey’d monster, which doth mock The meat it feeds on.”
— William Shakespeare
194. “Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps.”
— William Shakespeare
195. “My only love sprung from my only hate.”
— William Shakespeare
196. “When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married.”
— William Shakespeare
197. “When I bestride him, I soar, I am a hawk: he trots the air; the earth sings when he touches it; the basest horn of his hoof is more musical than the pipe of Hermes.”
— William Shakespeare
198. “O sleep, O gentle sleep, Nature’s soft nurse, how have I frightened thee, 1710. That thou no more will weigh my eyelids down, And steep my senses in forgetfulness?”
— William Shakespeare
199. “Benvolio: What sadness lengthens Romeo’s hours? Romeo: Not having that, which, having, makes them short.”
— William Shakespeare
200. “Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania.”
— William Shakespeare
