Popular William Shakespeare's Quotes And Sayings

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

Lovers can do their amorous rites by their own beauties

This royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle, This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, This other Eden, demi-Paradise.

Heaven truly knows that thou art false as hell.

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

If your mind dislike anything obey it

This thing of darkness I acknowlege mine. There is nothing more confining than the prison we don't know we are in.

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

Words spoken can not be recalled so think twice before you speak.

Things without all remedy should be without regard: what's done is done.

Kindness in women, not their beauteous looks, Shall win my love.

A countenance more in sorrow than in anger.

Being your slave what should I do but tend, Upon the hours, and times of your desire? I have no precious time at all to spend; Nor services to do till you require.

Smooth runs the water where the brook is deep.

This above all; to thine own self be true.

A smile cures the wounding of a frown.

Neither a borrower nor a lender be, for loan oft loses both itself and friend, and borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.

Say, what abridgement have you for this evening? What masque, what music? How shall we beguile The lazy time if not with some delight?

Let the sap of reason quench the fire of passion.

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

Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall.

Welcome ever smiles, and farewell goes out sighing.

How is it that the clouds still hang on you?

Affection is a coal that must be cooled; else, suffered, it will set the heart on fire.

Many a true word hath been spoken in jest.

Let me embrace thee, sour adversity, for wise men say it is the wisest course.

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

Love is the greatest of dreams, yet the worst of nightmares.

O Lord that lends me life, Lend me a heart replete with thankfulness!

A good heart 'is worth gold.

Tis the times' plague, when madmen lead the blind.

Nature teaches beasts to know their friends.

Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind.

Grief makes one hour ten.

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

Love sought is good, but given unsought, is better.

To weep is to make less the depth of grief.

Let gentleness my strong enforcement be.

Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.

A light heart lives long.

Love asks me no questions, and gives me endless support.

Tis a blushing shame-faced spirit that mutinies in a man's bosom. It fills a man full of obstacles. It made me once restore a purse of gold that (by chance) I found. It beggars any man that keeps it.

Praising what is lost makes the remembrance dear

Tears water our growth.

God shall be my hope, my stay, my guide and lantern to my feet.

Words are easy, like the wind; Faithful friends are hard to find.

There is plenty of time to sleep in the grave

Pleasure and action make the hours seem short.

Lord, what fools these mortals be!

Women speak two languages - one of which is verbal.

Sit by my side, and let the world slip: we shall ne'er be younger.

To do a great right do a little wrong.

Talking isn't doing. It is a kind of good deed to say well; and yet words are not deeds.

A good heart is the sun and the moon; or, rather, the sun and not the moon, for it shines bright and never changes.

Don't waste your love on somebody, who doesn't value it.

Love comforteth like sunshine after rain, But Lust's effect is tempest after sun; Love's gentle spring doth always fresh remain, Lust's winter comes ere summer half be done; Love surfeits not, Lust like a glutton dies; Love is all truth, Lust full of forged lies.

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

A fellow by the hand of nature mark'd, Quoted, and sign'd, to do a deed of shame.

Frame your mind to mirth and merriment which bars a thousand harms and lengthens life.

Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice; Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment.

And it is very much lamented,... That you have no such mirrors as will turn Your hidden worthiness into your eye That you might see your shadow.

Ignorance is the curse of God; knowledge is the wing wherewith we fly to heaven.

Modest doubt is called the beacon of the wise.

To be, or not to be, that is the question: Whether 'tis Nobler in the mind to suffer The Slings and Arrows of outrageous Fortune, Or to take Arms against a Sea of troubles, And by opposing end them: to die, to sleep No more; and by a sleep, to say we end The Heart-ache, and the thousand Natural shocks That Flesh is heir to? 'Tis a consummation Devoutly to be wished. To die to sleep, To sleep, perchance to Dream; Aye, there's the rub.

Let every man be master of his time.

If you prick us do we not bleed? If you tickle us do we not laugh? If you poison us do we not die? And if you wrong us shall we not revenge?

You speak an infinite deal of nothing.

My crown is in my heart, not on my head; not decked with diamonds and Indian stones, nor to be seen: my crown is called content, a crown it is that seldom kings enjoy.

All things are ready, if our mind be so.

My grief lies all within, And these external manners of lament Are merely shadows to the unseen grief That swells with silence in the tortured soul.

Music can minister to minds diseased, pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow, raze out the written troubles of the brain, and with its sweet oblivious antidote, cleanse the full bosom of all perilous stuff that weighs upon the heart.

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.

Reputation is an idle and most false imposition; oft got without merit, and lost without deserving.

Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful.

Highly fed and lowly taught.

Her passions are made of nothing but the finest part of pure love

God, the best maker of all marriages, Combine your hearts into one.

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

God has given you one face, and you make yourself another.

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

Time's the king of men; he's both their parent, and he is their grave, and gives them what he will, not what they crave.

Things base and vile, holding no quantity, Love can transpose to form and dignity. Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind. Nor hath Love's mind of any judgment taste; Wings and no eyes figure unheedy haste.

Do not for one repulse, forego the purpose That you resolved to effect.

Well, honor is the subject of my story.

Time does not have the same appeal for every one

The silence often of pure innocence persuades when speaking fails.

Though she be but little, she is fierce!

Good company, good wine, good welcome, can make good people.

Nothing can come of nothing.

The tongues of dying men enforce attention like deep harmony.

The voice of parents is the voice of gods, for to their children they are heaven's lieutenants.

Corruption wins not more than honesty.

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.

What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

And he goes through life, his mouth open, and his mind closed.

Sweet are the uses of adversity

One may smile, and smile, and be a villain.

Who could refrain that had a heart to love and in that heart courage to make love known?

A good leg will fall; a straight back will stoop; a black beard will turn white; a curl'd pate will grow bald; a fair face will wither; a full eye will wax hollow: but a good heart, Kate, is the sun and the moon; or, rather, the sun, and not the moon, — for it shines bright, and never changes, but keeps his course truly.

Fishes live in the sea, as men do a-land; the great ones eat up the little ones.