Quotes by William Shakespeare

About William Shakespeare:

William Shakespeare is often called England's national poet, and the "Bard of Avon". His extant works, including collaborations, consist of approximately 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two 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.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a weary world.

William Shakespeare

If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men’s cottages princes’ palaces. It is a good divine that follows his own instructions: I can easier teach twenty what were good to be done, than be one of...

William Shakespeare

So may the outward shows be least themselves: The world is still deceived with ornament. In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt, But, being seasoned with a gracious voice, Obscures the show of evil? In religion, What damned error, but some sober br...

William Shakespeare

I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano!

William Shakespeare

Beshrew me but I love her heartily, For she is wise, if I can judge of her, And fair she is, if that mine eyes be true, And true she is, as she hath proved herself: And therefore like herself, wise, fair, and true, Shall she be placed in my constant ...

William Shakespeare

The quality of mercy is not strain'd, It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest; It blesseth him that gives and him that takes: 'Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes The throned monarch better than his...

William Shakespeare

How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank! Here will we sit and let the sounds of music Creep in our ears: soft stillness and the night Become the touches of sweet harmony. Sit, Jessica. Look how the floor of heaven Is thick inlaid with patines o...

William Shakespeare

By the sweet power of music: therefore the poet did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones and floods; since nought so stockish, hard and full of rage, but music for the time doth change his nature. The man that hath no music in himself, nor is not mo...

William Shakespeare

The man that hath no music in himself, Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils; The motions of his spirit are dull as night, And his affections dark as Erebus. Let no such man be trusted. Mark the mu...

William Shakespeare

You speak an infinite deal of nothing.

William Shakespeare

The fiend gives the more friendly counsel.

William Shakespeare

By my soul I swear, there is no power in the tongue of man to alter me.

William Shakespeare

Come, gentlemen, I hope we shall drink down all unkindness.

William Shakespeare

I think the devil will not have me damned, lest the oil that's in me should set hell on fire.

William Shakespeare

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.

William Shakespeare

Sir, he hath not fed of the dainties that are bred in a book; He hath not eat paper, as it were; he hath not drunk ink; his intellect is not replenished; he is only an animal, only sensible in the duller parts... (Act IV, Scene II)

William Shakespeare

To move wild laughter in the throat of death? It cannot be, it is impossible: Mirth cannot move a soul in agony.

William Shakespeare

Beauty is bought by judgement of the eye.

William Shakespeare

They have been at a great feast of languages, and stolen the scraps.

William Shakespeare

When icicles hang by the wall, And Dick the shepherd blows his nail, And Tom bears logs into the hall, And milk comes frozen home in pail, When blood is nipp'd, and ways be foul, Then nightly sings the staring owl, To-whit! To-who!—a merry note, Wh...

William Shakespeare

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks within his bending sickle's compass come.

William Shakespeare

Author Bio

  • NameWilliam Shakespeare
  • DescriptionEnglish playwright and poet
  • AliasesShakespeare; The Bard; The Bard of Avon
  • Born1564
  • DiedMay 3, 1616
  • CountryEngland
  • ProfessionPlaywright; Poet; Stage Actor; Writer
  • WorksHamlet; Romeo And Juliet; As You Like It; Macbeth; A Midsummer Night's Dream; Shakespeare's Sonnets