William Shakespeare Quotes

Rumour doth double, like the voice and echo, The numbers of the feared.

Pardon, gentles all, the flat unraised spirits that have dared on this unworthy scaffold to bring forth so great an object.

Now, my co-mates and brothers in exile, Hath not old custom made this life more sweet Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods More free from peril than the envious court?

For in the fatness of these pursy times Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg.

Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice And could of men distinguish her election, Sh'ath sealed thee for herself.

If thou wilt lend this money, lend it not As to thy friends; for when did friendship take A breed for barren metal of his friend?

There lives within the very flame of love A kind of wick or snuff that will abate it.

O polished perturbation! golden care! That keep'st the ports of slumber open wide To many a watchful night.

It is the mind that makes the body rich; and as the sun breaks through the darkest clouds, so honor peereth in the meanest habit.

I humbly do beseech of your pardon, For too much loving you

Within the book and volume of thy brain.

And teach me how To name the bigger light, and how the less, That burn by day and night.

Thy tongue Makes Welsh as sweet as ditties highly penn'd, Sung by a fair queen in a summer's bower, With ravishing division, to her lute.

Tis the mind that makes the body rich.

You see me here, you gods, a poor old man, As full of grief as age; wretched in both.

O world, world! thus is the poor agent despised. O traitors and bawds, how earnestly are you set a-work, and how ill requited! Why should our endeavor be so loved, and the performance so loathed?

Tis our fast intent To shake all cares and business from our age, Conferring them on younger strengths, while we Unburdened crawl toward death.

Gold were as good as twenty orators.

If I were a woman I would kiss as many of you as had beards that pleased me, complexions that liked me and breaths that I defied not

Chewing the food of sweet and bitter fancy.

Thou art a soul in bliss; but I am bound Upon a wheel of fire; that mine own tears Do scald like molten lead.

Never, never, never, never, never! Pray you, undo this button.

They have been grand-jurymen since before Noah was a sailor

Every fair from fair sometime declines

For now they kill me with a living death.

'Tis not to make me jealous To say my wife is fair, feeds well, loves company, Is free of speech, sings, plays, and dances well; Where virtue is, these are more virtuous.

Fair Katherine, and most fair, Will you vouchsafe to teach a soldier terms Such as will enter at a lady's ear, And plead his love-suit to her gentle heart?

The big round tears Cours'd one another down his innocent nose, In piteous chase.

There's her cousin, an she were not possessed with a fury, exceeds her as much in beauty as the first of May doth the last of December.

There is an old poor man,. . . . Oppress'd with two weak evils, age and hunger.

Even as one heat another heat expels, or as one nail by strength drives out another, so the remembrance of my former love is by a newer object quite forgotten.

Throw physic to the dogs; I'll none of it.

Such tricks hath strong imagination, That, if it would but apprehend some joy, It comprehends some bringer of that joy; Or in the night, imagining some fear, How easy is a bush supposed a bear!

Liberty plucks justice by the nose; The baby beats the nurse, and quite athwart Goes all decorum.

The gods are deaf to hot and peevish vows. They are polluted off'rings, more abhorred! Than spotted livers in the sacrifice.

Few things loves better Than to abhor himself.

If she be not honest, chaste, and true, there's no man happy.

Let me have war, say I; it exceeds peace as far as day does night; it's spritely, waking, audible, and full of vent.

The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, Doth glance from heaven to earth, From earth to heaven.

Be merry; you have cause, so have we all, of joy; for our escape is much beyond our loss . . . . then wisely weigh our sorrow with our comfort.

Love is blind, it stops lovers seeing the silly things they do.

My business was great, and in such a case as mine a man may strain courtesy.

So will I turn her virtue into pitch, And out of her own goodness make the net That shall enmesh them all.

The weight of this sad time we must obey, Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say. The oldest hath borne most: we that are young Shall never see so much, nor live so long.

If her breath were as terrible as her terminations, there were no living near her, she would infect to the north star!

Seek happy nights to happy days.W

I dreamt my lady came and found me dead . . . . . . . . . . . . And breathed such life with kisses in my lips That I revived and was an emperor.

We will have rings and things and fine array

I have no way and therefore want no eyes I stumbled when I saw. Full oft 'tis seen our means secure us, and our mere defects prove our commodities.

Ay, when fowls have no feathers and fish have no fin.