William Shakespeare Quotes on Love (547 Quotes)

We pray you throw to earth
This unprevailing woe, and think of us
As of a father; for let the world take note
You are the most immediate to our throne,
And with no less nobility of love
Than that which dearest father bears his son
Do I impart toward you.

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

Why, are ye mad, or know ye not in Rome
How furious and impatient they be,
And cannot brook competitors in love?

For the love o' God, peace!

Yes; I think he is not a pick-purse nor a horse-stealer; but
for his verity in love, I do think him as concave as covered
goblet or a worm-eaten nut.

And thence it is
That I to your assistance do make love,
Masking the business from the common eye
For sundry weighty reasons.

Now to seem to affect the malice and
displeasure of the people is as bad as that which he dislikes- to
flatter them for their love.

Her hair is auburn, mine is perfect yellow;
If that be all the difference in his love,
I'll get me such a colour'd periwig.

Love is not so great,
Hortensio, but we may blow our nails together, and fast it fairly
out; our cake's dough on both sides.

Notwithstanding, use your pleasure; if
your love do not persuade you to come, let not my letter.

Now what my love is, proof hath made you know;
And as my love is siz'd, my fear is so.

When from the first to last, betwixt us two,
Tears our recountments had most kindly bath'd,
As how I came into that desert place-
In brief, he led me to the gentle Duke,
Who gave me fresh array and entertainment,
Committing me unto my brother's love;
Who led me instantly unto his cave,
There stripp'd himself, and here upon his arm
The lioness had torn some flesh away,
Which all this while had bled; and now he fainted,
And cried, in fainting, upon Rosalind.

I grant, sweet love, that I did love a lady;
But she is dead.

Unkindness may do much,
And his unkindness may defeat my life,
But never taint my love.

Madam, if your heart be so obdurate,
Vouchsafe me yet your picture for my love,
The picture that is hanging in your chamber;
To that I'll speak, to that I'll sigh and weep;
For, since the substance of your perfect self
Is else devoted, I am but a shadow;
And to your shadow will I make true love.

Mark it, Cesario; it is old and plain;
The spinsters and the knitters in the sun,
And the free maids that weave their thread with bones,
Do use to chant it; it is silly sooth,
And dallies with the innocence of love,
Like the old age.

Doubt that the stars are fire Doubt that the sun doth shine Doubt that truth be a liar But never doubt that I love.

Dead, if you will; but not to be his wife,
That is another's lawful promis'd love.

So did he turn, and over Suffolk's neck
He threw his wounded arm and kiss'd his lips;
And so, espous'd to death, with blood he seal'd
A testament of noble-ending love.

And then for her
To win the Moor, were't to renounce his baptism,
All seals and symbols of redeemed sin,
His soul is so enfetter'd to her love,
That she may make, unmake, do what she list,
Even as her appetite shall play the god
With his weak function.

God bless thee; and put meekness in thy breast,
Love, charity, obedience, and true duty!

I may command where I adore.

In love, the heavens themselves do guide the state;
Money buys lands, and wives are sold by fate.

The sight of lovers feedeth those in love.

Take, O, take those lips away,
That so sweetly were forsworn;
And those eyes, the break of day,
Lights that do mislead the morn;
But my kisses bring again, bring again;
Seals of love, but seal'd in vain, seal'd in vain.

From this time
Such I account thy love.

What stern ungentle hands
Hath lopp'd, and hew'd, and made thy body bare
Of her two branches- those sweet ornaments
Whose circling shadows kings have sought to sleep in,
And might not gain so great a happiness
As half thy love?

Their aunt I am in law, in love their mother.

I will lay trust upon thee, and thou shalt find a dearer
father in my love.

No blown ambition doth our arms incite,
But love, dear love, and our ag'd father's right.

That is my home of love; if I have ranged,
Like him that travels I return again,
Just to the time, not with the time exchanged,
So that myself bring water for my stain.

As man and wife, being two, are one in love,
So be there 'twixt your kingdoms such a spousal
That never may ill office or fell jealousy,
Which troubles oft the bed of blessed marriage,
Thrust in between the paction of these kingdoms,
To make divorce of their incorporate league;
That English may as French, French Englishmen,
Receive each other.

If music be the food of love, play on.

He that plays the king shall be welcome- his Majesty shall
have tribute of me; the adventurous knight shall use his foil and
target; the lover shall not sigh gratis; the humorous man shall
end his part in peace; the clown shall make those laugh whose
lungs are tickle o' th' sere; and the lady shall say her mind
freely, or the blank verse shall halt fort.

And, that my love may appear plain and free,
All that was mine in Silvia I give thee.

In youth when I did love, did love,
Methought it was very sweet;
To contract- O- the time for- a- my behove,
O, methought there- a- was nothing- a- meet.

My youngest boy, and yet my eldest care,
At eighteen years became inquisitive
After his brother, and importun'd me
That his attendant-so his case was like,
Reft of his brother, but retain'd his name-
Might bear him company in the quest of him;
Whom whilst I laboured of a love to see,
I hazarded the loss of whom I lov'd.

A maiden never bold,
Of spirit so still and quiet that her motion
Blush'd at herself; and she- in spite of nature,
Of years, of country, credit, everything-
To fall in love with what she fear'd to look on!

This world is not for aye, nor 'tis not strange
That even our loves should with our fortunes change;
For 'tis a question left us yet to prove,
Whether love lead fortune, or else fortune love.

I charge
you, O women, for the love you bear to men, to like as much of
this play as please you; and I charge you, O men, for the love
you bear to women- as I perceive by your simp'ring none of you
hates them- that between you and the women the play may please.

What tedious homily of love have
you wearied your parishioners withal, and never cried 'Have
patience, good people.

Clarence and Gloucester, love my lovely queen;
And kiss your princely nephew, brothers both.

What is thy soul of adoration?

My love, forbear to fawn upon their frowns.

This forenamed maid hath yet in her the continuance of her
first affection; his unjust unkindness, that in all reason should
have quenched her love, hath, like an impediment in the current,
made it more violent and unruly.

It was a lover and his lass,
With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,
That o'er the green corn-field did pass,
In the spring time, the only pretty ring time,
When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding;
Sweet lovers love the spring.

I have no brother, I am like no brother;
And this word 'love,' which greybeards call divine,
Be resident in men like one another,
And not in me!

Signior Hortensio, 'twixt such friends as we
Few words suffice; and therefore, if thou know
One rich enough to be Petruchio's wife,
As wealth is burden of my wooing dance,
Be she as foul as was Florentius' love,
As old as Sibyl, and as curst and shrewd
As Socrates' Xanthippe or a worse-
She moves me not, or not removes, at least,
Affection's edge in me, were she as rough
As are the swelling Adriatic seas.

Faith, I must leave thee, love, and shortly too;
My operant powers their functions leave to do.

What should it be that he respects in her
But I can make respective in myself,
If this fond Love were not a blinded god?