William Shakespeare

How like a winter hath my absence been. From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year! What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen, What old December's bareness everywhere!

— William Shakespeare

Parting is such sweet sorrow.

— William Shakespeare

Oh! it offends me to the soul to hear a robust periwig-pated fellow, tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings.

— William Shakespeare

Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you -- tripping on the tongue; but if you mouth it, as many of your players do, I had as Leif the town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently; for in the very torrent, tempest, and as I may say, the whirlwind of your passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness.

— William Shakespeare

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

— William Shakespeare

If it were done when 'tis done, then t'were well. It were done quickly.

— William Shakespeare

Suit the action to the world, the world to the action, with this special observance, that you overstep not the modesty of nature.

— William Shakespeare

Things won are done, joy's soul lies in the doing.

— William Shakespeare

Action is eloquence.

— William Shakespeare

I would there were no age between ten and three-and-twenty, or that youth would sleep out the rest; for there is nothing in the between but getting wenches with child, wronging the anciently, stealing, fighting.

— William Shakespeare

O curse of marriage that we can call these delicate creatures ours and not their appetites!

— William Shakespeare

Through tattered clothes, small vices do appear. Robes and furred gowns hide all.

— William Shakespeare

Sweet are the uses of adversity, Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, Wears yet a precious jewel in his head; And this our life, exempt from public haunt, Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good in everything.

— William Shakespeare

I shall the effect of this good lesson keeps as watchman to my heart.

— William Shakespeare

With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come. [Merchant Of Venice]

— William Shakespeare

Youth is full of sport, age's breath is short; youth is nimble, age is lame; Youth is hot and bold, age is weak and cold; Youth is wild, and age is tame.

— William Shakespeare

Though I look old, yet I am strong and lusty; for in my youth I never did apply hot and rebellious liquors in my blood; and did not, with unbashful forehead, woo the means of weakness and debility: therefore my age is as a lusty winter, frosty but kindly.

— William Shakespeare

Have you not a moist eye, a dry hand, a yellow cheek, a white beard, a decreasing leg, an increasing belly? Is not your voice broken, your wind short, your chin double, your wit single, and every part about you blasted with antiquity?

— William Shakespeare

I have lived long enough. My way of life is to fall into the sere, the yellow leaf, and that which should accompany old age, as honor, love, obedience, troops of friends I must not look to have.

— William Shakespeare

I wasted time, and now time doth waste me.

— William Shakespeare

Lord, Lord, how subject we old men are to this vice of lying!

— William Shakespeare

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

— William Shakespeare

Let every eye negotiate for itself and trust no agent.

— William Shakespeare

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?

— William Shakespeare

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.

— William Shakespeare

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

— William Shakespeare

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!

— William Shakespeare

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

— William Shakespeare

Lechery, sir, it provokes, and unprovokes; 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. it persuades him, and disheartens him; makes him stand to, and not stand to; in conclusion, equivocates him in a sleep, and, giving him the lie, leaves him.

— William Shakespeare

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

— William Shakespeare

As he was valiant, I honor him. But as he was ambitious, I slew him.

— William Shakespeare

Ambition should be made of sterner stuff.

— William Shakespeare

Your tale, sir, would cure deafness.

— William Shakespeare

Some men there are love not a gaping pig, some that are mad if they behold a cat, and others when the bagpipe sings I the nose cannot contain their urine.

— William Shakespeare

Thou art all ice. Thy kindness freezes.

— William Shakespeare

Let never day nor night unhallowed pass, but still remember what the Lord hath done.

— William Shakespeare

The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.

— William Shakespeare

In a false quarrel there is no true valor.

— William Shakespeare

I will name you the degrees. The first, the Retort Courteous; the second, the Quip Modest; the third, the Reply Churlish; the fourth, the Reproof Valiant; the fifth, the Countercheck Quarrelsome; the sixth, the Lie with Circumstance; the seventh, the Lie Direct.

— William Shakespeare

Tis the soldier's life to have their balmy slumbers waked with strife.

— William Shakespeare

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers. For he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother; be never so vile. This day shall gentle his condition. And gentlemen in England now abed shall think themselves accursed they were not here, and hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks that fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

— William Shakespeare

The object of art is to give life a shape. [Midsummer Nights Dream]

— William Shakespeare

O, had I but followed the arts!

— William Shakespeare

This is the excellent foppery of the world: that when we are sick in fortune -- often the surfeits of our own behavior -- we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and stars, as if we were villains on necessity, fools by heavenly compulsion, knaves, thieves, and treachers by spherical predominance, drunkards, liars, and adulterers by an enforced obedience of planetary influence. An admirable evasion of whoremaster man, to lay his goatish disposition on the charge of a star!

— William Shakespeare

These earthly godfathers of Heaven's lights, that give a name to every fixed star, have no more profit of their shining nights than those that walk and know not what they are.

— William Shakespeare

The teeming Autumn big with rich increase, bearing the wanton burden of the prime like widowed wombs after their lords decease.

— William Shakespeare

He that hath a beard is more than a youth, and he that hath no beard is less than a man.

— William Shakespeare

To me, fair friend, you never can be old. For as you were when first your eye I eyed. Such seems your beauty still.

— William Shakespeare

Beauty is but a vain and doubtful good; a shining gloss that fadeth suddenly; a flower that dies when it begins to bud; a doubtful good, a gloss, a glass, a flower, lost, faded, broken, dead within an hour. -

— William Shakespeare

What angel wakes me from my flowery bed?

— William Shakespeare

For precious friends hid in death's dateless night.

— William Shakespeare

I did send to you for certain sums of gold, which you denied me.

— William Shakespeare

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

— William Shakespeare

O, let my books be then the eloquence and dumb presages of my speaking breast.

— William Shakespeare

For I have neither wit, nor words, nor worth, action nor utterance, nor the power of speech, to stir men's blood. I only speak right on. I tell you that which you yourselves do know.

— William Shakespeare

. . . since brevity is the soul of wit, And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes, I will be brief.

— William Shakespeare

To business that we love we rise betime, and go to't with delight.

— William Shakespeare

It is the bright day that brings forth the adder, and that craves wary walking.

— William Shakespeare

To fear the worst oft cures the worse.

— William Shakespeare

Art made tongue-tied by authority.

— William Shakespeare

Ceremony was but devised at first to set a gloss on faint deeds, hollow welcomes, recanting goodness, sorry ere 'Tis shown; but where there is true friendship, there needs none.

— William Shakespeare

Life every man holds dear; but the dear man holds honor far more precious dear than life.

— William Shakespeare

The empty vessel makes the loudest sound.

— William Shakespeare

I am bewitched with the rogue's company. If the rascal have not given me medicines to make me love him, I'll be hanged.

— William Shakespeare

Your old virginity is like one of our French withered pears: it looks ill, it eats dryly.

— William Shakespeare

For nothing can seem foul to those that win.

— William Shakespeare

The voluntary path to cheerfulness, if our spontaneous be lost, is to sit up cheerfully, and act and speak as if cheerfulness wee already there. To feel brave, act as if we were brave, use all our will to that end, and courage will very likely replace fear. If we act as if from some better feeling, the bad feeling soon folds its tent like an Arab and silently steals away

— William Shakespeare

Children wish fathers looked but with their eyes; fathers that children with their judgment looked; and either may be wrong.

— William Shakespeare

How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child.

— William Shakespeare

Though it make the unskillful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve.

— William Shakespeare

And I did laugh sans intermission an hour by his dial. O noble fool, a worthy fool -- motley's the only wear.

— William Shakespeare

Company, villainous company, hath been the spoil of me.

— William Shakespeare

Mercy but murders, pardoning those that kill.

— William Shakespeare

Strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends.

— William Shakespeare

When you fear a foe, fear crushes your strength; and this weakness gives strength to your opponents.

— William Shakespeare

Conceit, more rich in matter than in words, brags of his substance: they are but beggars who can count their worth.

— William Shakespeare

Conceit in weakest bodies works the strongest.

— William Shakespeare

Conscience does make cowards of us all.

— William Shakespeare

My conscience hath a thousand several tongues, and every tongue brings in a several tale, and every tale condemns me for a villain.

— William Shakespeare

He that is well paid is well satisfied.

— William Shakespeare

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

— William Shakespeare

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

— William Shakespeare

Tis an ill cook that cannot lick his own fingers.

— William Shakespeare

Now join your hands, and with your hands your hearts.

— William Shakespeare

When rich villains have need of poor ones, poor ones may make what price they will.

— William Shakespeare

God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another.

— William Shakespeare

Why so large a cost, having so short a lease, does thou upon your fading mansion spend?

— William Shakespeare

But screw your courage to the sticking-place and we'll not fail.

— William Shakespeare

That's a valiant flea that dares eat his breakfast on the lip of a lion.

— William Shakespeare

I dare to do all that may become a man: who dares do more is none.

— William Shakespeare

Cowards die a thousand deaths. The valiant taste of death but once.

— William Shakespeare

I have full cause of weeping, but this heart shall break into a hundred thousand flaws or ere I'll weep.

— William Shakespeare

He that is robbed, not wanting what is stolen, let him not know't, and he's not robbed at all

— William Shakespeare

The time is out of joint. O cursed spite that ever I was born to set it right!

— William Shakespeare

Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.

— 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

I care not, a man can die but once; we owe God and death.

— William Shakespeare

But I will be a bridegroom in my death, and run into a lover's bed.

— William Shakespeare

All that live must die, passing through nature to eternity.

— William Shakespeare