William Shakespeare Quotes on Time (101 Quotes)

Time goes on crutches till love have all his rites.

Time travels at different speeds for different people. I can tell you who time strolls for, who it trots for, who it gallops for, and who it stops cold for.

Well, sir, learn to jest in good time;
there's a time for all things.

You or any man living may be drunk at some time, man.

O, I have pass'd a miserable night,
So full of fearful dreams, of ugly sights,
That, as I am a Christian faithful man,
I would not spend another such a night
Though 'twere to buy a world of happy days-
So full of dismal terror was the time!

Why with the time do I not glance aside
To new-found methods, and to compounds strange?

Many a time hath banish'd Norfolk fought
For Jesu Christ in glorious Christian field,
Streaming the ensign of the Christian cross
Against black pagans, Turks, and Saracens;
And, toil'd with works of war, retir'd himself
To Italy; and there, at Venice, gave
His body to that pleasant country's earth,
And his pure soul unto his captain, Christ,
Under whose colours he had fought so long.

Spite of cormorant devouring Time.

If you can look into the seeds of time, and say which grain will grow and which will not, speak then unto me.

In the spring time, the only pretty ring time,When birds do sing, hey ding a dingSweet lovers love the spring.

Men may sleep, and
they may have their throats about them at that time; and some say
knives have edges.

That thou hast wronged in the time
o'erpast;
For I myself have many tears to wash
Hereafter time, for time past wrong'd by thee.

Time is the nurse and breeder of all good.

Fleet the time carelessly, as they did in the golden world.

The chronicle of wasted time.

Thou art thy mother's glass, and she in thee
Calls back the lovely April of her prime;
So thou through windows of thine age shalt see,
Despite of wrinkles, this thy golden time.

I see them now; then was a blessed time.

Therefore should every soldier in the wars do as every sick man
in his bed- wash every mote out of his conscience; and dying so,
death is to him advantage; or not dying, the time was blessedly
lost wherein such preparation was gained; and in him that escapes
it were not sin to think that, making God so free an offer, He
let him outlive that day to see His greatness, and to teach
others how they should prepare.

What's more to do,
Which would be planted newly with the time,
As calling home our exiled friends abroad
That fled the snares of watchful tyranny,
Producing forth the cruel ministers
Of this dead butcher and his fiend-like queen,
Who, as 'tis thought, by self and violent hands
Took off her life; this, and what needful else
That calls upon us, by the grace of Grace
We will perform in measure, time, and place.

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.

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.

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.

ROMEO to BALTHASAR But if thou, jealous, dost return to pry In what I further shall intend to do, By heaven, I will tear thee joint by joint And strew this hungry churchyard with thy limbs The time and my intents are savage-wild, More fierce and more inexorable far Than empty tigers or the roaring sea.

Make use of time, let not advantage slip Beauty within itself should not be wasted Fair flowers that are not gathered in their prime Rot and consume themselves in little time.

I never did repent for doing good,
Nor shall not now; for in companions
That do converse and waste the time together,
Whose souls do bear an equal yoke of love,
There must be needs a like proportion
Of lineaments, of manners, and of spirit,
Which makes me think that this Antonio,
Being the bosom lover of my lord,
Must needs be like my lord.

So is the time that keeps you as my chest,
Or as the wardrobe which the robe doth hide,
To make some special instant special-blest
By new unfolding his imprisoned pride.

Come, I cannot
cog, and say thou art this and that, like a many of these
lisping hawthorn-buds that come like women in men's
apparel, and smell like Bucklersbury in simple time; I
cannot; but I love thee, none but thee; and thou deserv'st it.

Well, Time is the old justice that examines all such
offenders, and let Time try.

And therefore take the present time,
With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,
For love is crowned with the prime,
In the spring time, &c.

Being held a foe, he may not have access
To breathe such vows as lovers use to swear,
And she as much in love, her means much less
To meet her new beloved anywhere;
But passion lends them power, time means, to meet,
Temp'ring extremities with extreme sweet.

There was a time when all the body's members
Rebell'd against the belly; thus accus'd it:
That only like a gulf it did remain
I' th' midst o' th' body, idle and unactive,
Still cupboarding the viand, never bearing
Like labour with the rest; where th' other instruments
Did see and hear, devise, instruct, walk, feel,
And, mutually participate, did minister
Unto the appetite and affection common
Of the whole body.

Now I come to't, my lord:
She that accuses him of fornication,
In self-same manner doth accuse my husband;
And charges him, my lord, with such a time
When I'll depose I had him in mine arms,
With all th' effect of love.

If, in the course
And process of this time, you can report,
And prove it too against mine honour, aught,
My bond to wedlock or my love and duty,
Against your sacred person, in God's name,
Turn me away and let the foul'st contempt
Shut door upon me, and so give me up
To the sharp'st kind of justice.

Your lordship, though not clean past your youth, have yet some smack of age in you, some relish of the saltness of time.

But music for the time doth change his nature. 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 music.

I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.

That but this blow, Might be the be-all and end end-all here, But here, upon this bank and shoal of time, We'd jump the life to come.

O, let not virtue seek
Remuneration for the thing it was;
For beauty, wit,
High birth, vigour of bone, desert in service,
Love, friendship, charity, are subjects all
To envious and calumniating Time.

Time is the justice that examines all offenders. As You Like It

We must obey the time.

Time shall unfold what plighted cunning hides, Who covert faults at last with shame derides

Silvius, the time was that I hated thee;
And yet it is not that I bear thee love;
But since that thou canst talk of love so well,
Thy company, which erst was irksome to me,
I will endure; and I'll employ thee too.

But wherefore do not you a mightier way
Make war upon this bloody tyrant, Time,
And fortify your self in your decay
With means more blessèd than my barren rhyme?

Not of this country, though my chance is now
To use it for my time.

Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back. Wherein he puts alms for oblivion.

Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth,
And delves the parallels in beauty's brow,
Feeds on the rarities of nature's truth,
And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow.

What I believe, I'll wall;
What know, believe; and what I can redress,
As I shall find the time to friend, I will.

And now what rests but that we spend the time; With stately triumphs, mirthful comic shows, Such as befits the pleasure of the court; Sound drums and trumpets farewell sour annoy; For here, I hope, begins our lasting joy.

Were nothing but to waste night, day, and time.

But thought's the slave of life, and life time's foolAnd time, that takes survey of all the world,Must have a stop.