Famous quotes

William shakespeare

Date: November 2, 2006

Speak to me as to thy thinkings,
As thou dost ruminate, and give thy worst of thoughts
The worst of words.

I am not merry; but I do beguile
The thing I am, by seeming otherwise.

And many strokes, though with a little axe,
Hew down and fell the hardest-timbered oak.

He that commends me to mine own content
Commends me to the thing I cannot get.

An honest tale speeds best, being plainly told.

Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale
Her infinite variety.

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

Now would I give a thousand furlongs of sea for an acre of barren ground.

Nothing emboldens sin so much as mercy.

Lady you bereft me of all words,
Only my blood speaks to you in my veins,
And there is such confusion in my powers.

Oh, that way madness lies; let me shun that.

It is a kind of good deed to say well; and yet words are not deeds.

Like one
Who having into truth, by telling of it,
Made such a sinner of his memory,
To credit his own lie.

We know what we are, but know not what we may be.

Cry "Havoc," and let slip the dogs of war.

When sorrows come, they come not single spies, But in battalions.

He that dies pays all debts.

I had rather have a fool make me merry, than experience make me sad.

What seest thou else
In the dark backward and abysm of time?

I will be correspondent to command, And do my spiriting gently.

When we are born, we cry, that we are come
To this great stage of fools.

Life is but a walking Shadow, a poor Player That struts and frets his Hour upon the Stage, And then is heard no more; It is a tall Tale, Told by an Idiot, full of Sound and Fury, Signifying nothing."

The trust I have is in mine innocence,
and therefore am I bold and resolute.

Leave her to heaven
And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge,
To prick and sting her.

From this day forward until the end of the world...we in it shall be remembered...we band of brothers.

Good night, good night! parting is such sweet sorrow,
That I shall say good night till it be morrow.

In time we hate that which we often fear.

Et tu, Brute!

The fringed curtains of thine eye advance.

Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt.

I have heard of your paintings too, well enough; God has given you one face, and you make yourselves another.

The attempt and not the deed
Confounds us.

It is a wise father that knows his own child.

Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind.

If there be no great love in the beginning, yet heaven may decrease it upon better acquaintance, when we are married and have more occasion to know one another: I hope, upon familiarity will grow more contempt.

When he is best, he is a little worse than a man; and when he is worst, he is little better than a beast.

Thou art all the comfort,
The Gods will diet me with.

The soul of this man is in his clothes.

Every man has business and desire,
Such as it is.

I, thus neglecting worldly ends, all dedicated
To closeness and the bettering of my mind.

To be a well-flavored man is the gift of fortune, but to write or read comes by nature.

God bless thee; and put meekness in thy mind, love, charity, obedience, and true duty!

Let the coming hour overflow with joy, and let pleasure drown the brim.

I understand a fury in your words,
But not the words.

The gaudy, blabbing, and remorseful day
Is crept into the bosom of the sea.

I hate ingratitude more in a man
than lying, vainness, babbling, drunkenness,
or any taint of vice whose strong corruption
inhabits our frail blood.

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

We have some salt of our youth in us.

Friendship is constant in all other things
Save in the office and affairs of love:
Therefore all hearts in love use their own tongues;
Let every eye negotiate for itself
And trust no agent.

Though I am not naturally honest, I am so sometimes by chance.

It is meant that noble minds keep ever with their likes; for who so firm that cannot be seduced.

There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.

I would fain die a dry death.

This is the short and the long of it.

This is the third time; I hope good luck lies in odd numbers.... There is divinity in odd numbers, either in nativity, chance, or death.

I do begin to have bloody thoughts.

Small to greater matters must give way.

It is a familiar beast to man, and signifies love.

O, I am slain!

If rough be love with you, be rough with love.

To thine own self be true -; And it must follow as the night the day; Thou canst not be false to any man

O, how this spring of love resembleth
The uncertain glory of an April day!

I will wear my heart upon my sleeve
For daws to peck at.

It is not enough to help the feeble up, but to support him after.

The law hath not been dead, though it hath slept.

Beware the ides of March.

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.

If Love be rough with you, be rough with Love, prick Love for pricking, and you beat Love down.

Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.
Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,
It seems to me most strange that men should fear;
Seeing that death, a necessary end,
Will come when it will come.

No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity, but I know none, therefore am no beast.

He was a man, take him for all in all,
I shall not look upon his like again.

I have not slept one wink.

Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore, So do our minutes hasten to their end.

I pray thee cease thy counsel,
Which falls into mine ears as profitless
as water in a sieve.

Strong reasons make strong actions.

Come what come may,
Time and the hour runs through the roughest day.

Assume a virtue, if you have it not.

Our bodies are our gardens to which our wills are gardeners.

This above all: to thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.

Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.

Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind.

Love goes toward love as schoolboys from their books; but love from look, toward school with heavy looks.

The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices
Make instruments to plague us.

He is not great who is not greatly good.

I feel within me a peace above all earthly dignities, a still and quiet conscience.

Action is eloquence.

Home-keeping youth have ever homely wits.

I would fain die a dry death.

He wears his faith but as the fashion of his hat.

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

I cannot tell what the dickens his name is.

Nothing will come of nothing.

What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god!

So full of artless jealousy is guilt,
It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.

False face must hide what the false heart doth know.

I must be cruel only to be kind;
Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind.

Truth is truth
To the end of reckoning.

Brevity is the soul of wit.

This England never did, nor never shall,
Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror.

The end crowns all,
And that old common arbitrator, Time,
Will one day end it.

When lenity and cruelty play for a kingdom, the gentler gamester is the soonest winner.

He who has injured thee was either stronger or weaker than thee. If weaker, spare him; if stronger, spare thyself.

Mine honour is my life; both grow in one; take honour from me and my life is done.

A hit, a very palpable hit.

Your face is a book, where men may read strange matters.

He that is giddy thinks the world turns round.

This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands,--
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.

The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.

True is it that we have seen better days.

I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.

I am not bound to please thee with my answers.

A little more than kin, and less than kind.

Love is a gross exaggeration of the difference between one person and everyone else.

Our doubts are traitors,
And make us lose the good we oft might win
By fearing to attempt.

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments: love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds.

He is winding the watch of his wit; by and by it will strike.

The rest is silence.

Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.

Now cracks a noble heart. Good night sweet prince:
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!

See first that the design is wise and just: that ascertained, pursue it resolutely; do not for one repulse forego the purpose that you resolved to effect.

My salad days,
When I was green in judgment.

Frailty, thy name is woman!

In time we hate that which we often fear.

When griping grief the heart doth wound,
and doleful dumps the mind opresses,
then music, with her silver sound,
with speedy help doth lend redress.

Some men never seem to grow old. Always active in thought, always ready to adopt new ideas, they are never chargeable with foggyism. Satisfied, yet ever dissatisfied, settled, yet ever unsettled, they always enjoy the best of what is, are the first to find the best of what will be.

There is a tide in the affairs of men
Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.

Brevity is the soul of wit.

The hand that hath made you fair hath made you good.

The worst is not
So long as we can say, "This is the worst."

Love comforteth like sunshine after rain.

Although the last, not least.

Each present joy or sorrow seems the chief.

What seest thou else
In the dark backward and abysm of time?

Is this a dagger which I see before me,
The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee.
I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.
Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible
To feeling as to sight? or art thou but
A dagger of the mind, a false creation,
Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?

I wasted time, now time doth waste me.

Out, damned spot! out, I say!

So may he rest, his faults lie gently on him!

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

Simply the thing that I am shall make me live.

There was a star danced, and under that was I born.

Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny. Get thee to a nunnery, go.

Your hearts are mighty, your skins are whole.

Brevity is the soul of wit.

He hath eaten me out of house and home.

What a deformed thief this fashion is.

Life is as tedious as a twice-told tale
Vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man.

The little foolery that wise men have makes a great show.

Sweet are the uses of adversity, which, like a toad, though ugly and venomous, wears yet a precious jewel in its head.

I shall despair. There is no creature loves me;
And if I die no soul will pity me:
And wherefore should they, since that I myself
Find in myself no pity to myself?

There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.

The devil hath power
To assume a pleasing shape.

I have
Immortal longings in me.

My meaning in saying he is a good man, is to have you understand me that he is sufficient.

How use doth breed a habit in a man.

The peace of heaven is theirs that lift their swords, in such a just and charitable war.

A kind
Of excellent dumb discourse.

Small cheer and great welcome makes a merry feast.

My tongue will tell the anger of mine heart, Or else my heart, concealing it, will break.

The game is up.

How use doth breed a habit in a man!

Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind.

In false quarrels there is no true valor.

I am wealthy in my friends.

From the still-vexed Bermoothes.

If this were played upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction.

A very ancient and fish-like smell.

Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.

Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind; the thief doth fear each bush an officer.

Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.

My library
Was dukedom large enough.

How poor are they who have not patience! What wound did ever heal but by degrees.

The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!

While thou livest keep a good tongue in thy head.

It is the mind that makes the body rich; and as the sun breaks through the darkest clouds, so honor peereth in the meanest habit.

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones.

Virtue and genuine graces in themselves speak what no words can utter.

Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing.

I will make a Star-chamber matter of it.

We have seen better days.

Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall.

I must be cruel, only to be kind.

The more pity, that fools may not speak wisely what wise men do foolishly.

Life is a tale told by an idiot -- full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Thou art the Mars of malcontents.

But love is blind and lovers cannot see
The pretty follies that themselves commit;
For if they could, Cupid himself would blush
To see me thus transformed to a boy.

Silence is the perfectest herald of joy: I were but little happy, if I could say how much.

O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?

Merrily, merrily shall I live now,
Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.

But no perfection is so absolute, That some impurity doth not pollute.

Courage mounteth with occasion.

Things are neither good nor bad but thinking makes it so.

Ill deeds are doubled with an evil word.

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.

I wish you well and so I take my leave,
I Pray you know me when we meet again.

In a false quarrel there is no true valour.

Excellent wretch! Perdition catch my soul,
But I do love thee! and when I love thee not,
Chaos is come again.

What the great ones do, the less will prattle of

For they are yet ear-kissing arguments.

Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs, Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers’ eyes, Being vexed, a sea nourished with lovers’ tears. What is it else? A madness most discreet, A choking gall and a preserving sweet.

We burn daylight.

But to my mind, though I am native here
And to the manner born, it is a custom
More honoured in the breach than the observance.

Be great in act, as you have been in thought.

I dote on his very absence.

Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds.

Though I am not naturally honest, I am so sometimes by chance.

Their understanding
Begins to swell and the approaching tide
Will shortly fill the reasonable shores
That now lie foul and muddy.

Strong reasons make strong actions.

If all the year were playing holidays,
To sport would be as tedious as to work.

There is occasions and causes why and wherefore in all things.

A wretched soul, bruised with adversity,
We bid be quiet when we hear it cry;
But were we burdened with like weight of pain,
As much or more we should ourselves complain.

But, for my own part, it was Greek to me.

Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie.

And since you know you cannot see yourself,
so well as by reflection, I, your glass,
will modestly discover to yourself,
that of yourself which you yet know not of.

Pray you now, forget and forgive.

Praising what is lost makes the remembrance dear.

Pity is the virtue of the law, and none but tyrants use it cruelly.

False face must hide what the false heart doth know.

His life was gentle; and the elements
So mixed in him, that Nature might stand up,
And say to all the world, THIS WAS A MAN!

I dote on his very absence.

Thou shalt be both the plaintiff and the judge of thine own cause.

The course of true love was never easy.

Oft expectation fails, and most oft where most it promises; and oft it hits where hope is coldest; and despair most sits.

O, woe is me,
To have seen what I have seen, see what I see!

We do not keep the outward form of order, where there is deep disorder in the mind.

Though inclination be as sharp as will,
My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent,
And, like a man to double business bound,
I stand in pause where I shall first begin,
And both neglect.

That man that hath a tongue, I say, is no man,
If with his tongue he cannot win a woman.

Oh God, that men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains!

Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once.

Now would I give a thousand furlongs of sea for an acre of barren ground.

I pray you bear me henceforth from the noise and rumour of the field, where I may think the remnant of my thoughts in peace, and part of this body and my soul with contemplation and devout desires.

Conversation should be pleasant without scurrility, witty without affectation, free without indecency, learned without conceitedness, novel without falsehood.

Come not within the measure of my wrath.

O, beware, my lord, of jealousy!
It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock
The meat it feeds on.

The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.

Our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything.

There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.

Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind.

Glory is like a circle in the water,
Which never ceaseth to enlarge itself,
Till by broad spreading it disperses to naught.

For Brutus is an honourable man;
So are they all, all honourable men.

They say, best men are moulded out of faults,
And, for the most, become much more the better
For being a little bad.

You cram these words into mine ears against the stomach of my sense.

By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes.
Open, locks,
Whoever knocks!

I must be cruel, only to be kind:
Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind.

We know what we are, but not what we may be.

We know what we are, but know not what we may be.

How many ages hence
Shall this our lofty scene be acted over
In states unborn and accents yet unknown!

I like this place, and willingly would waste my time in it.

When my love swears that she is made of truth, I do believe her, though I know she lies.

Those that are good manners at the court are as ridiculous in the country, as the behavior of the country is most mockable at the court.

Cursed be he that moves my bones.

Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.

Thy words, I grant are bigger, for I wear not, my dagger in my mouth.

Hereafter, in a better world than this,
I shall desire more love and knowledge of you.

Love all, trust a few. Do wrong to none.

Fill all thy bones with aches.

I thank God I am as honest as any man living that is an old man and no honester than I.

Every man has his fault, and honesty is his.