Better a witty fool, than a foolish wit.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE In time we hate that which we often fear.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Therefore another prologue must tell he is not a lion
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Up and down, up and down
I will lead them up and down
I am feared in field in town
Go...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Oh why rebuke you him that loves you so? / Lay breath so bitter on your bitter foe.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE I’ll follow thee and make a heaven of hell,
To die upon the hand I love so well.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE And yet,to say the truth, reason and love keep little company together nowadays.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE good alone
Is good without a name, vileness is so
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Twas a good lady, 'twas a good lady: we may pick a thousand salads ere we light on such another herb...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE A young man married is a man that's marred.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE All's well that ends well.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Dispute not with her: she is lunatic.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE When we are born, we cry that we are come to this great stage of fools.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE And worse I may be yet: the worst is not
So long as we can say 'This is the worst.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more,
Men were deceivers ever,-
One foot in sea and one on s...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Good counselors lack no clients.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE A whoreson jackanapes must take me up for swearing; as if I borrowed mine oaths of him and might not...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE O world, how apt the poor are to be proud!
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE My bounty is as boundless as the sea, my love as deep. The more I give thee, the more I have, For bo...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE A peace above all earthly dignities, a still and quiet conscience.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE That which ordinary men are fit for, I am qualified in. and the best of me is diligence.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE That which in mean men we entitle patience is pale cold cowardice in noble breasts.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE One pain is lessened by another's anguish.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Present mirth hath present laughter. What's to come is still unsure.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE It is the mind that makes the body rich; and as the sun breaks through the darkest clouds, so honor ...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE The jury, passing on the prisoner's life, may have in the sworn twelve a thief or two guiltier than ...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Time is the justice that examines all offenders. As You Like It
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE My salad days, when I was green in judgment.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE People usually are the happiest at home.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Grief fills the room up of my absent child, lies in his bed, walks up and down with me, puts on his ...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE For precious friends hid in death's dateless night.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind; the thief doth fear each bush an officer.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Oppose not rage while rage is in its force, but give it way a while and let it waste.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Some men there are love not a gaping pig, some that are mad if they behold a cat, and others when th...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE In my stars I am above thee; but be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve great...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE The fool thinks himself to be wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool. Measure For Measure
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE The apparel oft proclaims the man.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE There is tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; omitted, all th...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Oft expectation fails, and most oft there
Where most it promises; and oft it hits
Where hope i...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE There's small choice in rotten apples.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Then to Silvia let us sing that Silvia is excelling. She excels each mortal thing upon the dull eart...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Modest doubt is called the beacon of the wise.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Thou seest I have more flesh than another man, and therefore more frailty.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Words pay no debts.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE He that dies pays all his debts.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Send danger from the east unto the west, so honor cross it from the north to south.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Yon Cassius has a lean and hungry look; He thinks too much; such men are dangerous. Julius Caesar
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE O, it is excellent to have a giant's strength, but it is tyrannous to use it like a giant.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE It is the bright day that brings forth the adder, and that craves wary walking.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE It provokes the desire but it takes away the performance. Therefore much drink may be said to be an ...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Oh! it offends me to the soul to hear a robust periwig-pated fellow, tear a passion to tatters, to v...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you -- tripping on the tongue; but if you mouth ...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Angels and ministers of grace defend us.
Be thou a spirit of health, or goblin damned,
Bring w...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 'Tis not enough to help the feeble up, but to support him after.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE For I am full of spirit and resolve to meet all perils very constantly.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE I have bought golden opinions from all sorts of people.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE The quality of mercy is not strain'd,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the pla...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE O, let me not be mad, not mad, sweet heaven! Keep me in temper. I would not be mad.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE But thy eternal summer shall not fade.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE So did this horse excel a common one
In shape, in courage, color, pace and bone.
...What a hor...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE For there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Company, villainous company, hath been the spoil of me.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE What we determine we often break. Purpose is but the slave to memory.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Virtue is bold and goodness never fearful.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Let's not burden our remembrance with a heaviness that's gone.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE One may smile, and smile, and be a villain. Hamlet
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE I am a man more sinned against than sinning.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Would the cook were o' my mind!
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Contemplation makes a rare turkey cock of him. How he jets under his advanced plumes!
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE The even mead, that erst brought sweetly forth The freckled cowslip, burnet, and green clover, ...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE This Tharsus, o'er which I have the government, A city on whom Plenty held full hand, For Rich...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Conceit, more rich in matter than in words, Brags of his substance, not of ornament. They are ...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE These signs have marked me extraordinary, And all the courses of my life do show I am not in t...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE The noble sister of Publicola, The moon of Rome, chaste as the icicle That's curded by the fro...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE The more thou dam'st it up, the more it burns. The current that with gentle murmur glides, Tho...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Fight till the last gasp.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE I ask, that I might waken reverence, And bid the cheek be ready with a blush Modest as morning...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE He that is strucken blind cannot forget The precious treasure of his eyesight lost.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Nay, my lords, ceremony was but devised at first To set a gloss on faint deeds, hollow welcomes, ...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE But doth not the appetite alter? A man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his ag...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Epicurean cooks Sharpen with cloyless sauce his appetite, That sleep and feeding may prorogue ...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Now, good digestion wait on appetite, and health on both!
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE He seems to be of great authority. Close with him, give him gold; and though authority be a stubbo...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Thus can the demigod Authority Make us pay down for our offense by weight The words of heaven;...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Those he commands move only in command, Nothing in live. Now does he feel his title Hang loos...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE And now how abhorred in my imagination it is!
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE I have shot mine arrow o'er the house And hurt my brother.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE If it will feed nothing else, it will feed my revenge.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Not a mouse Shall disturb this hallowed house. I am sent, with broom, before, To sweep t...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Rebellion in this land shall lose his sway, Meeting the check of such another day; And since t...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE O, what may man within him hide, Though angel on the outward side!
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE He who has never hoped can never despair.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Therefore I say again I utterly abhor, yea, from my soul Refuse you for my judge, whom yet onc...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE A plague upon it when thieves cannot be true one to another!
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE A murderer and a villain, A slave that is not twentieth part the tithe Of your precedent lord,...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Yet thanks I must you con That you are thieves professed, that you work not In holier shapes; ...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Why, so can I, or so can any man; But will they come when you do call for them?
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Give me that man That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him In my heart's core, ay, in m...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE I do not hate a proud man, as I do hate the engendering of toads.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE I almost die for food, and let me have it!
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Why, 'a stalks up and down like a peacock--a stride and a stand; ruminates like an hostess that hat...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE I have heard The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn, Doth with his lofty and shrill-soundin...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE I am giddy; expectation whirls me round. Th' imaginary relish is so sweet That it enchants my ...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Oft expectation fails, and most oft there Where most it promises; and oft it hits Where hope i...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE If all the year were playing holidays, To sport would be as tedious as to work; And nothing pl...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE What wound did ever heal but my degrees?
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE He jests at scars that never felt a wound
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Now, good my lord, Let there be some more test made of my mettle Before so noble and so great ...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Methinks I am a prophet new inspired And thus, expiring, do foretell of him: His rash fierce b...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (Celia:) Here come Monsieur Le Beau. (Rosalind:) With his mouth full of news. (Celia:) Whic...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Though it be honest, it is never good To bring bad news; give to a gracious message An host of...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE A knave, a rascal, an eater of broken meats; a base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three-suited, hundre...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Or, if there were a sympathy in choice, War, death, or sickness did lay siege to it, Making it...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE To die, to sleep --
To sleep, perchance to dream, ay there's the rub,
For in that sleep of dea...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Pluck up thy spirits, look cheerfully upon me. Here, love, thou seest how diligent I am To dre...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Whip me such honest knaves!
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE There is gold for you. Sell me your good report.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (Pistol:) And tidings do I bring and lucky joys And golden times and happy news of price. (Fa...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Sweets to the sweet! Farewell.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Be not too tame neither, but let your own discretion be your tutor. Suit the action to the word, t...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Soft pity enters an iron gate.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Be it not in thy care. Go, I charge thee, invite them all; let in the tide Of knaves once mor...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Come, we have a hot venison pasty to dinner.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE My free drift Halts not particularly, but moves itself In a wide sea of wax; no levelled malic...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Let's teach ourselves that honorable stop, Not to outsport discretion.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE There is a divinity in odd numbers, either in nativity, chance or death.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE If you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us, do we not die...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE What fates impose, that men must needs abide; It boots not to resist both wind and tide
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Here comes the lady. O, so light a foot Will ne'er wear out the everlasting flint.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Every man has business and desire,
Such as it is.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE So full of artless jealousy is guilt,
It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE What's gone and what's past help
Should be past grief.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE I dote on his very absence.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE I am not bound to please thee with my answers.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE He who has injured thee was either stronger or weaker than thee. If weaker, spare him; if stronger, ...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Blow, blow, thou winter wind
Thou art not so unkind,
As man's ingratitude.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE And thus I clothe my naked villainy
With old odd ends, stol'n forth of holy writ;
And seem a...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Here will be an old abusing of God's patience and the king's English.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Our doubts are traitors,
And make us lose the good we oft might win
By fearing to attempt.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother's death the memory be green.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE I would forget it fain; But, O, it presses to my memory, like damned guilty deeds to a sinners mind.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE O, beware, my lord, of jealousy!
It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock
The meat it feed...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE We burn daylight.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE How comes it, that thou art then estranged from thyself?
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE The purest treasure mortal times afford is spotless reputation; that away, men are but gilded loam o...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE I do oppose my patience to his fury, and am arm'd to suffer with a quietness of spirit, the very tyr...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE How poor are they that have not patience! What wound did ever heal but by degrees?
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE A very little thief of occasion will rob you of a great deal of patience.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices
Make instruments to plague us.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Where nothing wants that want itself doth seek.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE If wishes would prevail with me, my purpose should not fail with me.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Winter, which, being full of care, makes summer's welcome thrice more wish'd, more rare.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Lady you bereft me of all words,
Only my blood speaks to you in my veins,
And there is such ...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE In a false quarrel there is no true valour.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE If it be a sin to covet honor, I am the most offending soul.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE I hate ingratitude more in a man
than lying, vainness, babbling, drunkenness,
or any taint o...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE If he be so resolved, I can o'ersway him; for he loves to hear That unicorns may be betrayed w...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Love all, but trust a few.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Our bodies are our gardens... our wills are our gardeners.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE A man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE It is a kind of good deed to say well; and yet words are not deeds.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life, is rounded with a sleep. The Tempest
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE The play's the thing
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE To be slow in words is a woman's only virtue.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Though men can cover crimes with bold stern looks, poor women's faces are their own faults' books.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Let me have men about me that are fat,
Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o' nights:
Yond...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE How hard it is for women to keep counsel!
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Though I want a kingdom, yet in marriage I may not prove inferior to yourself.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE While you live tell truth and shame the devil.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Truth will come to light ... at the length, the truth will out.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE But 'tis strange and oftentimes, to win us to our harm, the instruments of darkness tell us truths, ...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE The whirligig of time brings in his revenges.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE The sands are number'd that make up my life.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Pleasure and action make the hours seem short.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Call home thy ancient thoughts from banishment.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Were such things here as we do speak about? Or have we eaten on the insane root that takes the reaso...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Matter and impertinency mix'd! Reason in madness!
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE There's little of the melancholy element in her, my lord: she is never sad but when she sleeps; and ...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE He does it with a better grace, but I do it more natural.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Share the advice betwixt you; if both gain all The gift doth stretch itself as 'tis receiv'd, ...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE O, grief hath changed me since you saw me last, And careful hours, with Time's deformed hand, ...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players.
They have their exits and ...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Praising what is lost
Makes the remembrance dear.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE For aught that I could ever read,
Could ever hear by tale or history,
The course of true love ...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE When we are born, we cry, that we are come
To this great stage of fools.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Against self-slaughter there is a prohibition so divine that cravens my weak hand.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Friends, Romans countrymen, lend me your ears; I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Wisely and slow. They stumble that run fast.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden; Too like the lightning, which doth cease to be Ere ...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Stand not upon the order of your going, But go at once.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Mine honor is my life; both grow in one; Take honor from me, and my life is done.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE If you can look into the seeds of time And say which grain will grow and which will not, Speak...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Friendship is constant in all other things
Save in the office and affairs of love:
Therefo...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE