William Shakespeare Quotes

Sometimes we punish our selves the most.

Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;But do not dull thy palm with entertainmentOf each new-hatch'd, unfledg'd comrade.

To business that we love we rise betime And go to it with delight.

O ill-starred wench! Pale as your smock!

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,To the last syllable of recorded time;And all our yesterdays have lighted foolsThe way to dusty death.- Macbeth Act V, Scene V

Love is my sin, and thy dear virtue hate,Hate of my sin, grounded on sinful loving,

There's little of the melancholy element in her, my lord: she is never sad but when she sleeps; and not ever sad then; for I have heard my daughter say, she hath often dreamt of unhappiness, and waked herself with laughing.

Love is not loveWhich alters when it alteration finds,Or bends with the remover to remove.O no, it is an ever-fixed markThat looks on tempests and is never shaken;It is the star to every wand'ring bark,Whose worth's unknown, although his height be t

When sorrows come they come not as single spies But in battalions!

If we shadows have offended, Think but this, and all is mended,That you have but slumbered hereWhile these visions did appear.And this weak and idle theme,No more yielding but a dream,Gentles, do not reprehend:If you pardon, we will mend:And, as I am an honest Puck,If we have unearned luckNow to 'scape the serpent's tongue,We will make amends ere long;Else the Puck a liar call;So, good night unto you all.Give me your hands, if we be friends,And Robin shall restore amends.

But man, proud man,Dress'd in a little brief authority,Most ignorant of what he's most assur'd—His glassy essence—like an angry apePlays such fantastic tricks before high heavenAs makes the angels weep; who, with our spleens,Would all themselves laugh mortal.

And nothing is, but what is not.

You gotta be cruel to be kind.

turn him into stars and form a constellation in his image. His face will make the heavens so beautiful that the world will fall in love with the night and forget about the garish sun.

Travellers ne'er did lie,Though fools at home condemn 'em.-Antonio

Middle Tennessee? Really? My bracket is more busted than Screech's face during puberty.

The curse of true love never did run smooth.

Sigh no more ladies sigh no more Men were deceivers ever One foot in sea and one on shore To one thing constant never.

Golden lads and girls all must, like chimmney-sweepers, come to dust.

Thus weary of the world, away she hies,And yokes her silver doves; by whose swift aidTheir mistress mounted through the empty skiesIn her light chariot quickly is convey'd;Holding their course to Paphos, where their queenMeans to immure herself and not be seen.

Tis torture, and not mercy. Heaven is here Where Juliet lives, and every cat and dog And little mouse, every unworthy thing, Live here in heaven and may look on her, But Romeo may not.

The insolence of office.

There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.

What's in a name? that which we call a roseBy any other name would smell as sweet.

Afore me! It is so very late,That we may call it early by and by.

For some must watch, while some must sleep So runs the world away

O, how this spring of love resemblethThe uncertain glory of an April day,Which now shows all the beauty of the sun,And by and by a cloud takes all away!

Talkers are no good doers.

They are but beggars that can count their worth.

Weigh oath with oath, and you will nothing weigh,Your vows to her and me, put in two scales,Will even weigh, and both as light as tales.

Love is merely a madness; and, I tell you, deserves as well a dark house and a whip as madmen do; and the reason why they are not so punish'd and cured is that the lunacy is soordinary that the whippers are in love too.

O fortune fortune! all men call thee fickle.

Men have died from time to time and worms have eaten them - but not for love.

Eye of newt, and toe of frog, Wool of bat, and tongue of dog, Adder's fork, and blind-worm's sting, Lizard's leg, and owlet's wing,— For a charm of powerful trouble, Like a hell-broth boil and bubble. Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and caldron bubble.

By my soul I swear, there is no power in the tongue of man to alter me.

All things are ready, if our mind be so.

For some must watch while some must sleep thus runs the world away.

In thy foul throat thou liest.

To move wild laughter in the throat of death? It cannot be, it is impossible: Mirth cannot move a soul in agony.

My words fly up my thoughts remain below Words without thoughts never to heaven go.

My soul is in the sky.

The native hue of resolution is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought; and enterprises of great pitch and moment, With this regard, their currents turn awry, and lose the name of action.

This rough magicI here abjure, and, when I have requiredSome heavenly music, which even now I do,To work mine end upon their senses thatThis airy charm is for, I'll break my staff,Bury it certain fathoms in the earth,And deeper than did ever plummet soundI'll drown my book.

Hark, villains! I will grind your bones to dust. (Act V, Scene 2, 2503)

I'll find a day to massacre them allAnd raze their faction and their family,The cruel father and his traitorous sons,To whom I sued for my dear son's life,And make them know what 'tis to let a queenKneel in the streets and beg for grace in vain.

The quality of mercy is not strain'd,It droppeth as the gentle rain from heavenUpon the place beneath: it is twice blest;It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:'Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomesThe throned monarch better than his crown;His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,The attribute to awe and majesty,Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;But mercy is above this sceptred sway;It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,It is an attribute to God himself;And earthly power doth then show likest God'sWhen mercy seasons justice.

Within the infant rind of this small flowerPoison hath residence and medicine power.For this, being smelt, with that part cheers each part;Being tasted, stays all senses with the heart.Two such opposèd kings encamp them still,In man as well as herbs—grace and rude will. And where the worser is predominant,Full soon the canker death eats up that plant.(Inside the little rind of this weak flower, there is both poison and powerful medicine. If you smell it, you feel good all over your body. But if you taste it, you die. There are two opposite elements in everything, in men as well as in herbs—good and evil. When evil is dominant, death soon kills the body like cancer.)

The time approachesThat will with due decision make us knowWhat we shall say we have and what we owe.Thoughts speculative their unsure hopes relate,But certain issue strokes must arbitrate;Towards which, advance th

Give me my Romeo. And when I shall die,Take him and cut him out in little stars,And he will make the face of heaven so fineThat all the world will be in love with nightAnd pay no worship to the garish sun.

If music be the food of love play on Give me excess of it that surfeiting The appetite may sicken and so die. That strain again! it had a dying fall: O it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound.

When I saw you, I fell in love, and you smiled because you knew

Were such things here as we do speak about?Or have we eaten on the insane rootThat takes the reason prisoner?

Modest doubt is call'd the beacon of the wise.

Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind.

Doubt thou the stars are fire Doubt thou the sun doth moveDoubt truth to be a liar But never doubt I love

Well, I must do’t. Away, my disposition, and possess me Some harlot’s spirit! My throat of war be turn’d, Which quier’d with my drum, into a pipe Small as an eunuch, or the virgin voice That babies lull asleep! The smiles of knaves Tent in my cheeks, and schoolboys’ tears take up The glasses of my sight! A beggar’s tongue Make motion through my lips, and my arm’d knees, Who bow’d but in my stirrup, bend like his That hath receiv’d an alms! I will not do’t, Lest I surcease to honor mine own truth, And by my body’s action teach my mind A most inherent baseness.

How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of this world.

We number nothing that we spend for you;Our duty is so rich, so infinite,That we may do it still without accompt.Vouchsafe to show the sunshine of your face,That we, like savages, may worship it.

Life... is a paradise to what we fear of death.