Welcome to our collection of quotes (with shareable picture quotes) by William Shakespeare. We hope you enjoy pondering them and that you will share them widely.
Wikipedia Summary for William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare (bapt. 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet, and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's greatest dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon" (or simply "the Bard"). His extant works, including collaborations, consist of some 39 plays, 154 sonnets, three long narrative poems, and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. They also continue to be studied and reinterpreted.
Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna and twins Hamnet and Judith. Sometime between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part-owner of a playing company called the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later known as the King's Men. At age 49 (around 1613), he appears to have retired to Stratford, where he died three years later. Few records of Shakespeare's private life survive; this has stimulated considerable speculation about such matters as his physical appearance, his sexuality, his religious beliefs, and whether the works attributed to him were written by others.
Shakespeare produced most of his known works between 1589 and 1613. His early plays were primarily comedies and histories and are regarded as some of the best work produced in these genres. He then wrote mainly tragedies until 1608, among them Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth, all considered to be among the finest works in the English language. In the last phase of his life, he wrote tragicomedies (also known as romances) and collaborated with other playwrights.
Many of Shakespeare's plays were published in editions of varying quality and accuracy in his lifetime. However, in 1623, two fellow actors and friends of Shakespeare's, John Heminges and Henry Condell, published a more definitive text known as the First Folio, a posthumous collected edition of Shakespeare's dramatic works that included all but two of his plays. The volume was prefaced with a poem by Ben Jonson, in which Jonson presciently hailed Shakespeare in a now-famous quote as "not of an age, but for all time".
With base? with baseness? bastardy? base, base?
Why, the wrong is but a wrong i'th'world; and having the world for your labour, 'tis a wrong in your own world, and you might quickly make it a right.
Mother, I will look to like. If looking liking moves.
Oh heaven! Were man but constant, he were perfect.
Ad many strokes, though with little ax, hew down and fell the hardest timbered oak.
Those happiest smiles that played on her ripe lips seemed not to know what guests were in her eyes, which parted thence as pearls from diamonds dropped.
Ingratitude! thou marble-hearted friend, more hideous when thou showest thee in a child, than the sea monster.
How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child.
Longer Version:
How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child!
If I lose mine honor, I lose myself.
Unregarded age in corners thrown.
The bitter clamour of two eager tongues.
Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak whispers the o'er~fraught heart and bids it break.
It is time to fear when tyrants seem to kiss.
Riveted, screwed to my memory.
Our enemies are our outward consciences.
I will chide no brother in the world but myself, against whom I know most faults.
How bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man's eyes.
For nothing can seem foul to those that win.
May flight of Angels sing thee to thy rest.
God hath given you one face, and you make yourself another.
Every third thought shall be my grave.
I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,
Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,
With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine:
There sleeps Titania sometime of the night,
Lull'd in these flowers with dances and delight.
Her passions are made of nothing but the finest part of pure love; we cannot call her winds and waters, sighs and tears; they are greater storms and tempests than almanacs can report.
If we are mark'd to die, we are enough To do our country loss; and if to live, The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
O, then, what graces in my love do dwell,. That he hath turn'd a heaven unto a hell!
To be or not to be, that is the question.
Thou wouldst as soon go kindle fire with snow as seek to quench the fire of love with words.
He kills her in her own humor.
From women's eyes this doctrine I derive:
They sparkle still the right Promethean fire;
They are the books, the arts, the academes,
That show, contain and nourish all the world.
A murderer and a villain; a slave that is not twentieth part the tithe of your precedent lord; a vice of kings; a cutpurse of the empire and the rule.
Exposing what is mortal and unsure
To all that fortune, death, and danger dare,
Even for an eggshell. Rightly to be great
Is not to stir without great argument,
But greatly to find quarrel in a straw
When honor's at the stake.
Well said, old mole!
I will be brief. Your noble son is mad.
Good counsellors lack no clients.
Much ado about nothing.
There's language in her eye, her cheek, her lip; Nay, her foot speaks.
Good things should be praised.
May love surround you like sunshine on a sunny day.
Longer Version:
Not only is it Summer Solstice, there is a Full Moon. May love surround you like sunshine on a sunny day.
Love looks not with eyes, but with the mind.
England is safe, if true within itself.
Fight till the last gasp.
Our bodies are our gardens, to which our wills are our gardeners.
Profit is a blessing, if it's not stolen.
Love is familiar. Love is a devil. There is no evil angel but Love.
Praising what is lost makes the remembrance dear.
For new-made honor doth forget men's names.
Mine honor is my life; both grow in one; take honor from me and my life is done.
And oftentimes excusing of a fault
Doth make the fault the worse by the excuse.
Longer Version:
And oftentimes excusing of a fault Doth make the fault the worse by the excuse, As patches set upon a little breach, Discredit more in hiding of the fault Than did the fault before it was so patch'd.
The evil that men do lives after them;The good is oft interred with their bones.
There is plenty of time to sleep in the grave.
Oh! How bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man's eyes.
Now join hands, and with your hands your hearts.
I had rather have a fool to make me merry than experience to make me sad.
Enter Rumour, painted full of tongues.
An honest tale speeds best being plainly told.
The present eye praises the present object.
If all the year were playing holidays, to sport would be as tedious as to work.
When the blood burns, how prodigal the soul
Lends the tongue vows.
Tempt not a desperate man.
Trifles light as air are to the jealous confirmations strong as proofs of holy writ.
O Lord, who lends me life, lend me a heart replete with thankfulness.
Be still prepared for death: and death or life shall thereby be the sweeter.
Doomsday is near; die all, die merrily.
Conscience is a thousand swords.
My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent.
Guiltiness will speak, though tongues were out of use.
How use doth breed a habit in a man.
Forbear to judge, for we are sinners all.
In thy foul throat thou liest.
My father's wit, and my mother's tongue, assist me!
Soft pity enters an iron gate.
If thou dost love, proclaim it faithfully.
Though authority be a stubborn bear, yet he is oft let by the nose with gold.
One pain is lessened by another's anguish.
Longer Version:
One pain is lessened by another’s anguish. ... Take thou some new infection to thy eye, And the rank poison of the old will die.
Bondage is hoarse, and may not speak aloud.
Now I am past all comforts here, but prayer.
Let those that play your clowns speak no more than is set down for them.
My chastity's the jewel of our house, bequeathed down from many ancestors.
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare As any she belied with false compare.
I am not what I am.
We will draw the curtain and show you the picture.
More of your conversation would infect my brain.
Wine loved I deeply, dice dearly.
Let's teach ourselves that honorable stop, Not to outsport discretion.
We do not keep the outward form of order, where there is deep disorder in the mind.
The eagle suffers little birds to sing.
Until I know this sure uncertainty, I'll entertain the offered fallacy.
I fill up a place, which may be better... when I have made it empty.
For here, I hope, begins our lasting joy.
Things may serve long, but not serve ever.
Many can brook the weather that love not the wind.
Thus is his cheek the map of days outworn.
I am not of that feather, to shake off my friend when he must need me.
I am a feather for each wind that blows.
Promising is the very air o' the time; it opens the eyes of expectation.
Policy sits above conscience.
In struggling with misfortunes lies the true proof of virtue.
Your gentleness shall force More than your force move us to gentleness.
Now he'll outstare the lightning. To be furious Is to be frightened out of fear.
Quotes by William Shakespeare are featured in:
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Forgiveness Quotes
Hope Quotes
Humility Quotes
Inspirational Quotes
Justice Quotes
Money Quotes
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Silence Quotes
Simplicity Quotes
Time Quotes
Flower Quotes
Words Of Wisdom Quotes
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Self-Discovery Quotes
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