William Shakespeare Quotes - Page 3

Those that much covet are with gain so fond,For what they have not, that which they possessThey scatter and unloose it from their bond,And so, by hoping more, they have but less;Or, gaining more, the profit of excessIs but to surfeit, and such griefs sustain,That they prove bankrupt in this poor-rich gain.

No longer mourn for me when I am deadThan you shall hear the surly sullen bellGive warning to the world that I am fledFrom this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell;Nay, if you read this line, remember notThe hand that writ it; for I love you so,That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot,If thinking on me then would make you woe.

What's done cannot be undone.

When icicles hang by the wall, And Dick the shepherd blows his nail,And Tom bears logs into the hall, And milk comes frozen home in pail, When blood is nipp'd, and ways be foul,Then nightly sings the staring owl, To-whit! To-who!—a merry note, While greasy Joan doth keel the pot. When all aloud the wind doe blow,And coughing drowns the parson's saw, And birds sit brooding in the snow, And Marian's nose looks red and raw, When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl, Then nightly sings the staring owl,To-whit! To-who!—a merry note, While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

The rest is silence.

O my love, my wife!Death, that hath suck'd the honey of thy breathHath had no power yet upon thy beauty.

Go wisely and slowly. Those who rush stumble and fall.

I profess myself an enemy to all other joys, which the most precious square of sense possesses, and find I am alone felicitate in your dear highness love.

And shake the yoke of inauspicious starsFrom this world-wearied flesh. Eyes, look your last!

The small amount of foolery wise men have makes a great show.

To be thus is nothing, but to be safely thus...

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

The undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveller returns.

LEAR: ...yet you see how this world goes.GLOS.: I see it feelingly.

These blessed candles of the night.

We few we happy few we band of brothers For he today that sheds his blood with me Shall be my brother.

What do I fear? Myself? There’s none else by.Richard loves Richard; that is, I and I.

The Brightness of her cheek would shame those stars as daylight doth a lamp; her eyes in heaven would through the airy region stream so bright that birds would sing, and think it were not night.

The most peaceable way for you, if you do take a thief, is, to let him show himself what he is and steal out of your company.

Sweet are the uses of adversity.

I can say little more than I have studied, and that question's out of my part.

He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his argument.

The single and peculiar mind is boundWith all the strength and armor of the mindTo keep itself from noyance, but much moreThat spirit upon whose weal depends and restsThe lives of many. The cess of majestyDies not alone, but like a gulf doth drawWhat's near it with it; or it is a massy wheelFixed on the summit of the highest mount,To whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser thingsAre mortised and adjoined, which, when it falls,Each small annexment, petty consequence,Attends the boist'rous ruin. Never aloneDid the king sigh, but with a general groan.

Those lips that Love's own hand did makeBreathed forth the sound that said, 'I hate'To me that languished for her sake,But, when she saw my woeful state,Straight in her heart did mercy come,Chiding that tongue that ever sweetWas used in giving gentle doom,And taught it thus anew to greet:'I hate,' she altered with an endThat followed it as gentle dayDoth follow night, who like a fiendFrom Heaven to Hell is flown away.'I hate' from hate away she threwAnd saved my life, saying 'not you'.

The law hath not been dead though it hath slept.

More grief to hide than hate to utter love. Polonius, Hamlet.

Mistrust of good success hath done this deed.O hateful error, Melancholy's child,Why dost thou show to the apt thoughts of menThe things that are not? O Error, soon concieved,Thou never com'st unto a happy birth,But kill'st the mother that engendered thee.

I cannot live to hear the news from England.But I do prophesy th' election lightsOn Fortinbras; he has my dying voice.So tell him, with th' occurents, more and less,Which have solicited - the rest is silence.

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.

Men in rage strike those that wish them best.

Ay, that I had not done a thousand more.Even now I curse the day—and yet, I think,Few come within the compass of my curse,—Wherein I did not some notorious ill,As kill a man, or else devise his death,Ravish a maid, or plot the way to do it,Accuse some innocent and forswear myself,Set deadly enmity between two friends,Make poor men's cattle break their necks;Set fire on barns and hay-stacks in the night,And bid the owners quench them with their tears.Oft have I digg'd up dead men from their graves,And set them upright at their dear friends' doors,Even when their sorrows almost were forgot;And on their skins, as on the bark of trees,Have with my knife carved in Roman letters,'Let not your sorrow die, though I am dead.'Tut, I have done a thousand dreadful thingsAs willingly as one would kill a fly,And nothing grieves me heartily indeedBut that I cannot do ten thousand more.

Poor and content is rich and rich enough.

There are more things in heaven and earth...than are dreamt of by your philosophy.

My dull brain was wrought with things forgotten.

To be honest, as this world goes is to be one man picked out of ten thousand.Hamlet Act II, Scene II Lines 178-179

Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly:Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly:Then, heigh-ho, the holly!This life is most jolly.

There's some ill planet reigns:I must be patient till the heavens lookWith an aspect more favourable. Good my lords,I am not prone to weeping, as our sexCommonly are; the want of which vain dewPerchance shall dry your pities: but I haveThat honourable grief lodged here which burnsWorse than tears drown: beseech you all, my lords,With thoughts so qualified as your charitiesShall best instruct you, measure me; and soThe king's will be perform'd!

Is there no pity sitting in the clouds that sees into the bottom of my grief?

But thought’s the slave of life, and life time’s fool;And time, that takes survey of all the world,Must have a stop. O, I could prophesy,But that the earthy and cold hand of deathLies on my tongue

There's villainous news abroad.

She vied so fast, protesting oath after oath,that in a twink she won me to her love.O, you are novices. 'Tis a world to seeHow tame, when men and women are alone,A meacock wretch can make the curstest shrew.

Mum, mum,He that keeps nor crust nor crumb,Weary of all, shall want some.

He stopped the flyersAnd by his rare example made the cowardTurn terror into sport. As weeds beforeA vessel under sail, so men obeyedAnd fell below his stem. His sword, Death's stamp,Where it did mark, it took; from face to footHe was a thing of blood, whose every motionWas timed with dying cries. Alone he enteredThe mortal gate o' th' city, which he paintedWith shunless destiny; aidless came offAnd with a sudden reinforcement struckCorioles like a planet. Now all's his,When by and by the dim of war gan pierceHis ready sense; then straight his doubled spiritRequickened what in flesh was fatigate,And to the battle came he, where he didRun reeking o'er the lives of men as if'Twere a perpetual spoil; and till we calledBoth field and city ours, he never stoodTo ease his breast with panting.

O for a Muse of fire, that would ascendThe brightest heaven of invention!

The dreadful dead of dark midnight.

Stars, hide your fires; Let not light see my black and deep desires.

This was the noblest Roman of them all.

O teach me how I should forget to think (1.1.224)

for my grief's so greatThat no supporter but the huge firm earthCan hold it up: here I and sorrows sit;Here is my throne, bid kings come bow to it.(Constance, from King John, Act III, scene 1)

So oft it chances in particular menThat for some vicious mole of nature inthem—As in their birth (wherein they are not guilty,Since nature cannot choose his origin),By the o'ergrowth of some complexion,Oft breaking down the pales and forts ofreason,Or by some habit that too much o'erleavensThe form of plausive manners—that thesemen,Carrying, I say, the stamp of one defect,Being nature’s livery or fortune’s star,Their virtues else (be they as pure as grace,As infinite as man may undergo)Shall in the general censure take corruptionFrom that particular fault. The dram of evilDoth all the noble substance of a doubtTo his own scandal.

If music be the food of love, play on,Give me excess of it; that surfeiting,The appetite may sicken, and so die.

For your sake, jewel,I am glad at soul I have no other child;For thy escape would teach me tyranny,To hang clogs on them.

We defy augury. There is special providence inthe fall of a sparrow. If it be now, 'tis not to come; if it be not tocome, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come—thereadiness is all. Since no man, of aught he leaves, knows what is'tto leave betimes, let be. (Hamlet 5.2.217-224)

How now! Here's the smell of the blood still: all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand." Lady Macbeth

Make use of time let not advantage slip.

And yet,to say the truth, reason and love keep little company together nowadays.

If I could write the beauty of your eyesAnd in fresh numbers number all your graces,The age to come would say 'this poet lies! Such heaven never touched earthly faces

Ram. My lord constable, the armor that I saw in your tent to-night, are those stars or suns upon it?Con. Stars, my lord.Dau. Some of them will fall to-morrow, I hope.Con. And yet my sky shall not want.Dau. That may be, for you bear a many superfluously, and ’twere more honor some were away.Con. Even as your horse bears your praises; who would trot as well, were some of your brags dismounted.Henry V, 3.7.69-78

...and then, in dreaming, / The clouds methought would open and show riches / Ready to drop upon me, that when I waked / I cried to dream again.

To hold as 't were the mirror up to nature.