William Shakespeare Quotes on Beauty (45 Quotes)

How sweet and lovely dost thou make the shame
Which, like a canker in the fragrant rose,
Doth spot the beauty of thy budding name!

He lends thee virtue, and he stole that word
From thy behaviour; beauty doth he give,
And found it in thy cheek; he can afford
No praise to thee, but what in thee doth live.

O death, made proud with pure and princely beauty!

Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?

Yet so they mourn, becoming of their woe,
That every tongue says beauty should look so.

Beauty's a doubtful good, a glass, a flower, Lost, faded, broken, dead within an hour And beauty, blemish'd once, for ever's lost, In spite of physic, painting, pain, and cost.

She hath, and in that sparing makes huge waste;
For beauty, starv'd with her severity,
Cuts beauty off from all posterity.

That if you be honest and fair, your honesty should admit no
discourse to your beauty.

O truant Muse, what shall be thy amends
For thy neglect of truth in beauty dyed?

Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear.

But, in faith, Kate, the elder I wax, the better I shall appear:
my comfort is, that old age, that in layer-up of beauty, can do
no more spoil upon my face; thou hast me, if thou hast me, at the
worst; and thou shalt wear me, if thou wear me, better and
better.

But from thine eyes my knowledge I derive,
And, constant stars, in them I read such art
As truth and beauty shall together thrive
If from thyself to store thou wouldst convert:
Or else of thee this I prognosticate,
Thy end is truth's and beauty's doom and date.

I never sued to friend nor enemy;
My tongue could never learn sweet smoothing word;
But, now thy beauty is propos'd my fee,
My proud heart sues, and prompts my tongue to speak.

Your daughter, if you have not given her leave,
I say again, hath made a gross revolt,
Tying her duty, beauty, wit, and fortunes
In an extravagant and wheeling stranger
Of here and everywhere.

I see the jewel best enamelled
Will lose his beauty; yet the gold bides still
That others touch and, often touching, will
Where gold; and no man that hath a name
By falsehood and corruption doth it shame.

If he be dead,--O no, it cannot be,
Seeing his beauty, thou shouldst strike at it:--
O yes, it may; thou hast no eyes to see,
But hatefully at random dost thou hit.

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

She's beautiful, and therefore to be wooed She is a woman, therefore to be won.

To me, fair friend, you never can be old, For as you were when first your eye I eyed, Such seems your beauty still. Three winters cold Have from the forests shook three summers' pride, Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turn'd In process of the seasons have I seen, Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burn'd, Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green. Ah yet doth beauty, like a dial-hand, Steal from his figure and no pace perceived So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand, Hath motion and mine eye may be deceived For fear of which, hear this, thou age unbred Ere you were born was beauty's summer dead.

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.

Beauty itself doth of itself persuade The eyes of man without an orator.

Virtue is beauty.

For whether beauty, birth, or wealth, or wit,
Or any of these all, or all, or more,
Entitled in thy parts, do crownèd sit,
I make my love engrafted to this store.

O, how this spring of love resembleth The uncertain glory of an April day, Which now shows all the beauty of the sun,And by an by a cloud takes all away

Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce than with honesty?

Daffodils that come before the swallow dares, and takes the winds of March with beauty.

Then, were not summer's distillation left
A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass,
Beauty's effect with beauty were bereft,
Nor it nor no remembrance what it was.

Describe Adonis, and the counterfeit
Is poorly imitated after you;
On Helen's cheek all art of beauty set,
And you in Grecian tires are painted new.

That thou art blamed shall not be thy defect,
For slander's mark was ever yet the fair;
The ornament of beauty is suspect,
A crow that flies in heaven's sweetest air.

In him those holy antique hours are seen,
Without all ornament, itself and true,
Making no summer of another's green,
Robbing no old to dress his beauty new;
And him as for a map doth Nature store,
To show false Art what beauty was of yore.

First he did praise my beauty, then my speech.

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. -

His beauty shall in these black lines be seen,
And they shall live, and he in them still green.

Wilt thou not haply say,
"Truth needs no colour with his colour fixed,
Beauty no pencil, beauty's truth to lay,
But best is best, if never intermixed"?

This silence for my sin you did impute,
Which shall be most my glory, being dumb,
For I impair not beauty, being mute,
When others would give life and bring a tomb.

Beauty provoketh thieves sooner than gold.

Thus hoping that Adonis is alive,
Her rash suspect she doth extenuate;
And that his beauty may the better thrive,
With Death she humbly doth insinuate;
Tells him of trophies, statues, tombs, and stories
His victories, his triumphs and his glories.

My comfort is, that old age, that ill layer-up of beauty, can do no more spoil upon my face.

'By heaven, that thou art fair, is most infallible true, that thou art beauteous truth itself, that thou art lovely. More fairer than fair, beautiful than beauteous, truer than truth itself, have commiseration on thy heroical vassal.

If that the Dauphin there, thy princely son,
Can in this book of beauty read 'I love,'
Her dowry shall weigh equal with a queen;
For Anjou, and fair Touraine, Maine, Poictiers,
And all that we upon this side the sea-
Except this city now by us besieg'd-
Find liable to our crown and dignity,
Shall gild her bridal bed, and make her rich
In titles, honours, and promotions,
As she in beauty, education, blood,
Holds hand with any princess of the world.

Upon my back, to defend my belly; upon my wit, to defend
my wiles; upon my secrecy, to defend mine honesty; my mask, to
defend my beauty; and you, to defend all these; and at all these
wards I lie at, at a thousand watches.

If lusty love should go in quest of beauty,
Where should he find it fairer than in Blanch?

Though yet heaven knows it is but as a tomb
Which hides your life, and shows not half your parts:
If I could write the beauty of your eyes,
And in fresh numbers number all your graces,
The age to come would say, "This poet lies,
Such heavenly touches ne'er touched earthly faces.

Death, that hath suck'd the honey of thy breath,
Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty.

He hath the jewel of my life in hold,
His youngest daughter, beautiful Bianca;
And her withholds from me, and other more,
Suitors to her and rivals in my love;
Supposing it a thing impossible-
For those defects I have before rehears'd-
That ever Katherina will be woo'd.