William Shakespeare Quotes

When remedies are past, the griefs are ended By seeing the worst, which late on hopes depended.

Oft have I heard that grief softens the mind And makes it fearful and degenerate.

What's the newest grief? Each minute tunes a new one.

Sorrow, like a heavy ringing bell, once set on ringing, with its own weight goes; then little strength rings out the doleful knell.

None can cure their harms by wailing them.

Grief hath two tongues; and never woman yet Could rule them both without ten women's wit.

Great griefs medicine the less.

A heavier task could not have been impos'd, Than I to speak my griefs unspeakable.

Hang those that talk of fear.

Our fancies are more giddy and unfirm, more longing, wavering, sooner lost and won, than women's are.

And mind, with my heart in't; and now farewell Till half an hour hence.

Why, universal plodding poisons up The nimble spirits in the arteries, As motion and long-during action tires The sinewy vigor of the traveller.

Let husbands know Their wives have sense like them. They see, and smell, And have their palates both for sweet and sour, As husbands have.

Mercy is not itself, that oft looks so; Pardon is still the nurse of second woe.

Whereto serves mercy But to confront the visage of offense?

Can it be That modesty may more betray our sense Than woman's lightness? Having waste ground enough, Shall we desire to raze the sanctuary And pitch our evils there?

I will not be sworn but love may transform me to an oyster; but I'll take my oath on it, till he have made an oyster of me he shall never make me such a fool.

Tut, man, one fire burns out another's burning; One pain is less'ned by another's anguish; Turn giddy, and be holp by backward turning; One desperate grief cures with another's languish.

I do love My country's good with a respect more tender, More holy and profound, then mine own life, My dear wife's estimate, her womb increase, And treasure of my loins.

The best quarrels, in the heat, are cursed by those that feel their sharpness.

I could be well content To entertain the lag-end of my life With quiet hours.

Abandon all remorse; On horror's head horrors accumulate.

The mightier man, the mightier is the thing That makes him honored or begets him hate; For greatest scandal waits on greatest state.

No particular scandal one can touch but it confounds the breather.

Two may keep counsel putting one away!

They are sick that surfeit with too much, as they that starve with nothing.

O shame, where is thy blush?

Robust grass endures mighty winds; loyal ministers emerge through ordeal.

Study is like the heaven's glorious sun, That will not be deep-searched with saucy looks: Small have continual plodders ever won, Save base authority from others' books.

Against self-slaughter There is a prohibition so divine That cravens my weak hand.

Make less thy body hence, and more thy grace. Leave gormandizing.

Great men should drink with harness on their throats.

Do not give dalliance too much rein; the strongest oaths are straw to the fire in the blood.

I cannot, nor I will not hold me still; My tongue, though not my heart, shall have his will.

It is a basilisk unto mine eye, Kills me to look on't.

For what I will, I will, and there an end.

If little faults proceeding on distemper Shall not be winked at, how shall we stretch our eye When capital crimes, chewed, swallowed, and digested, Appear before us?

Between the acting of a dreadful thing And the first motion, all the interim is Like a phantasma or a hideous dream.

Foul deeds will rise, Though all the earth o'erwhelm them, to men's eyes.

Women are angels, wooing: Things won are done; joy's soul lies in the doing: That she beloved knows naught, that knows not this-- Men prize the thing ungained more than it is.

Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, you cannot play upon me.

Thou dost conspire against thy friend, Iago, If thou but think'st him wronged, and mak'st his ear A stranger to thy thoughts.

Nature, as it grows again toward earth, is fashioned for the journey, dull and heavy.

Direct not him whose way himself will choose; 'Tis breath not lack'st, and that breath wilt thou lose.

Nor aught so good but strained from that fair use, Revolts from true birth stumbling on abuse.

As you are old and reverend, you should be wise.

Twere to consider too curiously, to consider so.

Promising is the very air o' the time; it opens the eyes of expectation.

But clay and clay differs in dignity, Whose dust is both alike.

To stand against the deep dread-bolted thunder, In the most terrible and nimble stroke Of quick, cross lightning.