William Shakespeare Quotes

The due of honor in no point omit.

If I lose my honor, I lose myself: better I were not yours Than yours so branchless.

I'll never Be such a gosling to obey instinct, but stand As is a man were author of himself And knew no other kin.

Too much to know is to know nought but fame; And every godfather can give a name.

Faith, I have been a truant in the law And never yet could frame my will to it, And therefore frame the law unto my will.

When law can do no right, Let it be lawful that law bar no wrong.

I am a subject, And I challenge law. Attorneys are denied me, And therefore personally I lay my claim To my inheritance of free descent.

Why, headstrong liberty is lashed with woe. There's nothing situate under heaven's eye But hath his bound, in earth, in sea, in sky.

Love thyself last, cherish those hearts that hate thee; Corruption wins not more than honesty.

In the modesty of fearful duty, I read as much as from the rattling tongue of saucy and audacious eloquence.

Ideas are the very coinage of your brain.

Love all. Trust a few. Do wrong to none. This above all: to thine own self be true. No legacy is so rich as honesty. Brevity is the soul of wit

It is the cowish terror of his spirit that dares not undertake; he'll not feel wrongs which tie him to an answer.

A man should be what he seems.

To have seen much and to have nothing is to have rich eyes and poor hands.

Let not the world see fear and sad distrust govern the motion of a kingly eye.

Yea from the table of my memory I'll wipe away all trivial fond records.

When faced with a sea of troubles, take action, and in so doing end it.

For in my youth I never did apply Hot and rebellious liquors in my blood.

The heavens forbid But that our loves and comforts should increase Even as our days do grow!

Remember thee! Ay, thou poor ghost, while memory holds a seat In this distracted globe.

I see a man's life is a tedious one.

The happiest youth, viewing his progress through, What perils past, what crosses to ensue, Would shut the book, and sit him down and die.

Even through the hollow eyes of death I spy life peering.

I swear again, I would not be a queen For all the world.

I'll read enough When I do see the very book indeed Where all my sins are writ, and that's myself.

Will Fortune never come with both hands full, But write her fair words still in foulest terms?

You are not wood, you are not stones, but men; And being men, hearing the will of Caesar, It will inflame you, it will make you mad.

My wits begin to turn.

Good God, the souls of all my tribe defend From jealousy!

I will through and through Cleanse the foul body of th' infected world, If they will patiently receive my medicine.

I have nothing Of woman in me; now from head to foot I am marble-constant.

Nay, we must think men are not gods, Nor of them look for such observancy As fits the bridal.

Women's weapons, water-drops.

Haply a woman's voice may do some good When articles too nicely urged be stood on.

I had as lief have been myself alone.

I myself am best When least in company.

No villainous bounty yet hath passed my heart; Unwisely, not ignobly, have I given.

Let us, like merchants, show our foulest wares, And think perchance they'll sell; if not, The lustre of the better yet to show Shall show the better.

The seasons change their manners, as the year Had found some months asleep and leapt them over.

This blessèd plot, this earth, this realm, this England This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings, . . . This land of such dear souls, this dear dear land.

To England will I steal, and there I'll steal.

A turn or two I'll walk To still my beating mind.

Here was a Caesar! When comes such another?

Let me, if not by birth, have lands by wit; All with me's meet that I can fashion fit.

I begin to find an idle and fond bondage in the oppression of aged tyranny, who sways, not as it hath power, but as it is suffered.

I would with such perfection govern, sir, T'excel the golden age.

For conspiracy, I know not how it tastes, though it be dished For me to try how.

What else may hap, to time I will commit.

Doubting things go ill often hurts more Than to be sure they do; for certainties Either are past remedies, or, timely knowing, The remedy then born.