Quotes by Shakespeare, William




Born ca. 1564 and died ca. 1616 during the Renaissance period (1450-1599). One of the greatest writers of all time, Shakespeare, the peerless poet of the Sonnets and the creator of such dramatic masterpieces as Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, and King Lear, is a playwright of paradigmatic originality. In his discussion of the Western literary canon, critic Harold Bloom declared: "Shakespeare and Dante are the center of the Canon because they excel all other Western writer in cognitive acuity, linguistic energy, and power of invention." However, one could go a step further and suggest that Shakespeare defines the Western canon because he transcends it. If Shakespeare, as Ben Jonson declared, "was not of an age, but for all time," the great dramatist, one could argue, spoke to the ultimate concerns of humankind, regardless of period or cultural tradition..

"The fool thinks himself to be wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool. [Measure For Measure]"

Shakespeare, William on fools and foolishness
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"The dullness of the fool is the whetstone of the wits."

Shakespeare, William on fools and foolishness
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"He uses his folly like a stalking-horse, and under the presentation of that he shoots his wit."

Shakespeare, William on fools and foolishness    Share

"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 by shallows and in misery. [Julius Caesar]"

Shakespeare, William on fortune    Share

"We defy augury. There's a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, 'Tis not to come. If it be not to come, it will be now. If it be not now, yet it will come. The readiness is all."

Shakespeare, William on free will    Share

"Friendship is constant in all other things, Save in the office and affairs of love."

Shakespeare, William on friends and friendship
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"Words are easy, like the wind; Faithful friends are hard to find."

Shakespeare, William on friends and friendship
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"A friend should bear a friend's infirmities, But Brutus makes mine greater than they are."

Shakespeare, William on friends and friendship    Share

"A friend is one that knows you as you are, understands where you have been, accepts what you have become, and still, gently allows you to grow."

Shakespeare, William on friends and friendship
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"The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel, but do not dull thy palm with entertainment of each new-hatched unfledged comrade."

Shakespeare, William on friends and friendship    Share

"A walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more."

Shakespeare, William on futility
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"We know what we are, but know not what we may be."

Shakespeare, William on the future
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"Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind."

Shakespeare, William on gifts    Share

"My age is as a lusty winter, frosty but kindly."

Shakespeare, William on age and aging    Share

"Let every eye negotiate for itself and trust no agent."

Shakespeare, William on agents
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"O world, world! thus is the poor agent despised. O traitors and bawds, how earnestly are you set a-work, and how ill requited! Why should our endeavor be so loved, and the performance so loathed?"

Shakespeare, William on agents    Share

"I told you, sir, they were red-hot with drinking; so full of valor that they smote the air, for breathing in their faces, beat the ground for kissing of their feet."

Shakespeare, William on alcohol and alcoholism    Share

"Macduff: What three things does drink especially provoke? Porter: Marry, sir, nose-painting, sleep, and urine."

Shakespeare, William on alcohol and alcoholism    Share

"O God, that men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains! That we should with joy, pleasance, revel, and applause transform ourselves into beasts!"

Shakespeare, William on alcohol and alcoholism    Share

"O thou invisible spirit of wine, if thou hast no name to be known by, let us call thee devil."

Shakespeare, William on alcohol and alcoholism
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"It provokes the desire but it takes away the performance. Therefore much drink may be said to be an equivocator with lechery: it makes him and it mars him; it sets him on and it takes him off."

Shakespeare, William on alcohol and alcoholism    Share

"The very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream."

Shakespeare, William on ambition
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"As he was valiant, I honor him. But as he was ambitious, I slew him."

Shakespeare, William on ambition    Share

"Ambition should be made of sterner stuff."

Shakespeare, William on ambition    Share

"Your tale, sir, would cure deafness."

Shakespeare, William on anecdotes
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"I have touched the highest point of all my greatness, and from that full meridian of my glory I haste now to my setting."

Shakespeare, William on glory    Share

"The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together."

Shakespeare, William on evil
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"How far that little candle throws its beams! So shines a good dead in a naughty world."

Shakespeare, William on goodness
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"I hate ingratitude more in a person; than lying, vainness, babbling, drunkenness, or, any taint of vice whose strong corruption inhabits our frail blood. [Twelfth Night]"

Shakespeare, William on gratitude
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"He receives comfort like cold porridge."

Shakespeare, William on gratitude    Share

"He is not great who is not greatly good."

Shakespeare, William on greatness
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"Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them. [Twelfth Night]"

Shakespeare, William on greatness
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"In my stars I am above thee, but be not afraid of greatness. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness ;thrust upon em."

Shakespeare, William on greatness
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"The abuse of greatness is when it disjoins remorse from power."

Shakespeare, William on greatness
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"Be not afraid of greatness; some are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them."

Shakespeare, William on greatness
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"Let me tell you, Cassius, you yourself are much condemned to have an itching palm."

Shakespeare, William on greed    Share

"Patch grief with proverbs."

Shakespeare, William on grief
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"Grief fills the room up of my absent child, lies in his bed, walks up and down with me, puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words."

Shakespeare, William on grief    Share

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

Shakespeare, William on guilt
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"How use doth breed a habit in man!"

Shakespeare, William on habit    Share

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Shakespeare, William - 78px-First_Folio.jpeg - Engraved portrait of William Shakespeare by Martin Droeshout, from the First Folio of shakespeare's plays   Photos >>