William Shakespeare Quotes on Youth (52 Quotes)


    Your children were vexation to your youth;
    But mine shall be a comfort to your age.

    Now follows, that you know, young Fortinbras,
    Holding a weak supposal of our worth,
    Or thinking by our late dear brother's death
    Our state to be disjoint and out of frame,
    Colleagued with this dream of his advantage,
    He hath not fail'd to pester us with message
    Importing the surrender of those lands
    Lost by his father, with all bands of law,
    To our most valiant brother.


    And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth,
    When that shall vade, by verse distills your truth.






    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.

    For pity of mine age, whose youth was spent
    In dangerous wars whilst you securely slept;
    For all my blood in Rome's great quarrel shed,
    For all the frosty nights that I have watch'd,
    And for these bitter tears, which now you see
    Filling the aged wrinkles in my cheeks,
    Be pitiful to my condemned sons,
    Whose souls are not corrupted as 'tis thought.

    from forth a copse that neighbours by,
    A breeding jennet, lusty, young, and proud,
    Adonis' trampling courser doth espy,
    And forth she rushes, snorts and neighs aloud;
    The strong-neck'd steed, being tied unto a tree,
    Breaketh his rein, and to her straight goes he.

    I protest-
    Maugre thy strength, youth, place, and eminence,
    Despite thy victor sword and fire-new fortune,
    Thy valour and thy heart- thou art a traitor;
    False to thy gods, thy brother, and thy father;
    Conspirant 'gainst this high illustrious prince;
    And from th' extremest upward of thy head
    To the descent and dust beneath thy foot,
    A most toad-spotted traitor.


    Thou hast passed by the ambush of young days,
    Either not assailed, or victor being charged;
    Yet this thy praise cannot be so thy praise,
    To tie up envy, evermore enlarged.

    In thee thy mother dies, our household's name,
    My death's revenge, thy youth, and England's fame.

    Whether it be through force of your report,
    My noble Lord of Suffolk, or for that
    My tender youth was never yet attaint
    With any passion of inflaming love,
    I cannot tell; but this I am assur'd,
    I feel such sharp dissension in my breast,
    Such fierce alarums both of hope and fear,
    As I am sick with working of my thoughts.

    But let me conjure you by the rights
    of our fellowship, by the consonancy of our youth, by the
    obligation of our ever-preserved love, and by what more dear a
    better proposer could charge you withal, be even and direct with
    me, whether you were sent for or no.

    I am young, but something
    You may deserve of him through me, and wisdom
    To offer up a weak, poor, innocent lamb
    To appease an angry god.

    Is not birth, beauty, good
    shape, discourse, manhood, learning, gentleness, virtue, youth,
    liberality, and such like, the spice and salt that season a man?

    Young Adam Cupid, he that shot so trim, When King Cophetua loved the beggar-maid.

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


    A sweeter and a lovelier gentleman-
    Fram'd in the prodigality of nature,
    Young, valiant, wise, and no doubt right royal-
    The spacious world cannot again afford;
    And will she yet abase her eyes on me,
    That cropp'd the golden prime of this sweet prince
    And made her widow to a woeful bed?

    From you have I been absent in the spring,
    When proud-pied April, dressed in all his trim,
    Hath put a spirit of youth in everything,
    That heavy Saturn laughed and leaped with him,
    Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell
    Of different flowers in odor and in hue,
    Could make me any summer's story tell,
    Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew.

    Beseeching him to give her virtuous breeding-
    She is young, and of a noble modest nature;
    I hope she will deserve well-and a little
    To love her for her mother's sake, that lov'd him,
    Heaven knows how dearly.

    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.

    Here comes Monsieur Le Beau. With his mouth full of news. Which he will put on us as pigeons feed their young.

    This is his uncle's teaching, this Worcester,
    Malevolent to you In all aspects,
    Which makes him prune himself and bristle up
    The crest of youth against your dignity.

    He was to imagine me his
    love, his mistress; and I set him every day to woo me; at which
    time would I, being but a moonish youth, grieve, be effeminate,
    changeable, longing and liking, proud, fantastical, apish,
    shallow, inconstant, full of tears, full of smiles; for every
    passion something and for no passion truly anything, as boys and
    women are for the most part cattle of this colour; would now like
    him, now loathe him; then entertain him, then forswear him; now
    weep for him, then spit at him; that I drave my suitor from his
    mad humour of love to a living humour of madness; which was, to
    forswear the full stream of the world and to live in a nook
    merely monastic.

    As a decrepit father takes delight
    To see his active child do deeds of youth,
    So I, made lame by Fortune's dearest spite,
    Take all my comfort of thy worth and truth.

    Read o'er the volume of young Paris' face,
    And find delight writ there with beauty's pen;
    Examine every married lineament,
    And see how one another lends content;
    And what obscur'd in this fair volume lies
    Find written in the margent of his eyes,
    This precious book of love, this unbound lover,
    To beautify him only lacks a cover.

    Ah, he is young; and his minority
    Is put unto the trust of Richard Gloucester,
    A man that loves not me, nor none of you.

    I would there were no age between sixteen 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 ancientry, stealing, fighting.

    Do you set down your name in the scroll of youth, that are written down old with all the characters of age


    Day, night, late, early,
    At home, abroad, alone, in company,
    Waking or sleeping, still my care hath been
    To have her match'd; and having now provided
    A gentleman of princely parentage,
    Of fair demesnes, youthful, and nobly train'd,
    Stuff'd, as they say, with honourable parts,
    Proportion'd as one's thought would wish a man-
    And then to have a wretched puling fool,
    A whining mammet, in her fortune's tender,
    To answer 'I'll not wed, I cannot love;
    I am too young, I pray you pardon me'!


    Some say thy fault is youth, some wantonness;
    Some say thy grace is youth and gentle sport;
    Both grace and faults are loved of more and less;
    Thou mak'st faults graces that to thee resort.

    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.

    The brain may devise
    laws for the blood, but a hot temper leaps o'er a cold decree;
    such a hare is madness the youth, to skip o'er the meshes of good
    counsel the cripple.

    Fear no more the lightning-flash,
    Nor the all-dread thunder-stone;
    Fear not slander, censure rash;
    Thou hast finished joy and moan;
    All lovers young, all lovers must
    Consign to thee, and come to dust.

    The weight of this sad time we must obey, Speak what we feel not what we ought to say. The oldest hath borne most we that are young Shall never see so much, nor live so long.

    Crabbed age and youth cannot live together Youth is full of pleasance, age is full of care.

    I'll hold thee any wager,
    When we are both accoutred like young men,
    I'll prove the prettier fellow of the two,
    And wear my dagger with the braver grace,
    And speak between the change of man and boy
    With a reed voice; and turn two mincing steps
    Into a manly stride; and speak of frays
    Like a fine bragging youth; and tell quaint lies,
    How honourable ladies sought my love,
    Which I denying, they fell sick and died-
    I could not do withal.

    John, to stop Arthur's tide in the whole,
    Hath willingly departed with a part;
    And France, whose armour conscience buckled on,
    Whom zeal and charity brought to the field
    As God's own soldier, rounded in the ear
    With that same purpose-changer, that sly devil,
    That broker that still breaks the pate of faith,
    That daily break-vow, he that wins of all,
    Of kings, of beggars, old men, young men, maids,
    Who having no external thing to lose
    But the word 'maid,' cheats the poor maid of that;
    That smooth-fac'd gentleman, tickling commodity,
    Commodity, the bias of the world-
    The world, who of itself is peised well,
    Made to run even upon even ground,
    Till this advantage, this vile-drawing bias,
    This sway of motion, this commodity,
    Makes it take head from all indifferency,
    From all direction, purpose, course, intent-
    And this same bias, this commodity,
    This bawd, this broker, this all-changing word,
    Clapp'd on the outward eye of fickle France,
    Hath drawn him from his own determin'd aid,
    From a resolv'd and honourable war,
    To a most base and vile-concluded peace.

    When my love swears that she is made of truth I do believe her, though I know she lies, That she might think me some untutor'd youth, Unlearned in the world's false subtleties. Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young, Although she knows my days are past the best, Simply I credit her false speaking tongue On both sides thus is simple truth suppress'd. But wherefore says she not she is unjust And wherefore say not I that I am old O, love's best habit is in seeming trust, And age in love loves not to have years told Therefore I lie with her and she with me, And in our faults by lies we flatter'd be.

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

    My life upon't, young though thou art, thine eye
    Hath stay'd upon some favour that it loves;
    Hath it not, boy?

    Young men's love then lies not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes.

    Thou hast most traitorously corrupted the youth of the realm in erecting a grammar school.


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