William Shakespeare Quotes

What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba, That he should weep for her?

Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind.

When we our betters see bearing our woes, We scarcely think our miseries our foes.

it provokes the desire, but it takes away the performance

O wonderful, wonderful, and most wonderful wonderful! And yet again wonderful, and after that, out of all hooping.

thus with a kiss I die

Yon grey lines That fret the clouds are messengers of day.

Every man has business and desire, Such as it is.

You cannot call it love, for at your age the heyday in the blood is tame

For to define true madness, What is't but to be nothing else but mad?

Macduff: What three things does drink especially provoke? Porter: Marry, sir, nose-painting, sleep, and urine.

What made me love thee? let that persuade thee, there's something extraordinary in thee

O, what a world of vile ill-favored faults, looks handsome in three hundred pounds a year!

It is the purpose that makes strong the vow; But vows to every purpose must not hold.

Tis but a base, ignoble mind That mounts no higher than a bird can soar.

Rumour is a pipe Blown by surmises, jealousies, conjectures And of so easy and so plain a stop That the blunt monster with uncounted heads, The still-discordant wavering multitude, Can play upon it.

Tis a happy thing To be the father unto many sons.

Gnarling sorrow hath less power to bite The man that mocks at it and sets it light.

A woman moved is like a fountain troubled, Muddy, ill-seeming, thick, bereft of beauty.

How sometimes nature will betray its folly, Its tenderness, and make itself a pastime To harder bosoms!

Crabbed age and youth cannot live together: Youth is full of pleasance, age is full of care.

Time shall unfold what plaited cunning hides: Who cover faults, at last shame them derides.

Tis in my memory lock'd, And you yourself shall keep the key of it.

I have been studying how I may compare This prison where I live unto the world; And, for because the world is populous, And here is not a creature but myself, I cannot do it. Yet I'll hammer it out.

Full many a glorious morn I have seen Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye, Kissing with golden face the meadows green, Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy.

Waste not thy time in windy argument but let the matter drop.

Love that well which thou must leave ere long.

I may neither choose who I would, nor refuse who I dislike; so is the will of a living daughter curbed by the will of a dead father.

The violence of either grief or joy, their own enactures with themselves destroy.

My brain more busy than the labouring spider Weaves tedious snares to trap mine enemies.

Taffeta phrases, silken terms precise, Three-piled hyperboles, spruce affection, Figures pedantical--these summer flies Have blown me full of maggot ostentation.

I would fain die a dry death.

But men are men; the best sometimes forget.

Nimble thought can jump both sea and land.

Civil dissension is a viperous worm That gnaws the bowels of the commonwealth.

And in some perfumes there is more delight than in the breath that from my mistress reeks. I love to hear her speak, yet well I know that music hath a far more pleasing sound.

Maids want nothing but husbands, and when they have them, they want everything.

Delivers in such apt and gracious words that aged ears play truant at his tales; And younger hearings are quite ravished; So sweet and voluble is his discourse.

Love's best habit is a soothing tongue

It is the stars, The stars above us, govern our conditions.

So well thy words become thee as thy wounds.

An honest tale speeds best being plainly told.

I cannot tell what you and other men Think of this life; but, for my single self, I had as lief not be as live to be In awe of such a thing as I myself.

There's hope a great man's memory may outlive his life half a year.

Love is like a child, That longs for everything it can come by

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.

As merry as the day is long.

Hide not thy poison with such sugar'd words

When griping grief the heart doth wound, and doleful dumps the mind opresses, then music, with her silver sound, with speedy help doth lend redress.

Thou weigh'st thy words before thou givest them breath.