William Shakespeare Quotes on Time (101 Quotes)


    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.

    Appear it to your mind
    That, through the sight I bear in things to come,
    I have abandon'd Troy, left my possession,
    Incurr'd a traitor's name, expos'd myself
    From certain and possess'd conveniences
    To doubtful fortunes, sequest'ring from me all
    That time, acquaintance, custom, and condition,
    Made tame and most familiar to my nature;
    And here, to do you service, am become
    As new into the world, strange, unacquainted-
    I do beseech you, as in way of taste,
    To give me now a little benefit
    Out of those many regist'red in promise,
    Which you say live to come in my behalf.

    I wasted time, and now doth time waste me;
    For now hath time made me his numb'ring clock:
    My thoughts are minutes; and with sighs they jar
    Their watches on unto mine eyes, the outward watch,
    Whereto my finger, like a dial's point,
    Is pointing still, in cleansing them from tears.


    To this I witness call the fools of Time,
    Which die for goodness, who have lived for crime.


    For if you were by my unkindness shaken
    As I by yours, y'have passed a hell of time,
    And I, a tyrant, have no leisure taken
    To weigh how once I suffered in your crime.


    Thus we play the fool with the time and the spirits of the wise sit in the clouds and mock us.


    Sir,
    For holy offices I have a time; a time
    To think upon the part of business which
    I bear i' th' state; and nature does require
    Her times of preservation, which perforce
    I, her frail son, amongst my brethren mortal,
    Must give my tendance to.






    If you can look into the seeds of time, And tell me which grain will grow and which will not, Speak then to me, who neither beg nor fear Your favours nor your hate.

    For he is but a bastard to the time that doth not smack of observation.

    Look in thy glass, and tell the face thou viewest
    Now is the time that face should form another,
    Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest,
    Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother.

    Then, York, be still awhile, till time do serve;
    Watch thou and wake, when others be asleep,
    To pry into the secrets of the state;
    Till Henry, surfeiting in joys of love
    With his new bride and England's dear-bought queen,
    And Humphrey with the peers be fall'n at jars;
    Then will I raise aloft the milk-white rose,
    With whose sweet smell the air shall be perfum'd,
    And in my standard bear the arms of York,
    To grapple with the house of Lancaster;
    And force perforce I'll make him yield the crown,
    Whose bookish rule hath pull'd fair England down.

    So all their praises are but prophecies
    Of this our time, all you prefiguring;
    And, for they looked but with divining eyes,
    They had not skill enough your worth to sing.


    But these
    are all lies: men have died from time to time, and worms have
    eaten them, but not for love.


    Of very reverend reputation, sir,
    Of credit infinite, highly belov'd,
    Second to none that lives here in the city;
    His word might bear my wealth at any time.


    How sour sweet music is When time is broke and no proportion kept So is it in the music of men's lives.

    And yet this time removed was summer's time,
    The teeming autumn, big with rich increase,
    Bearing the wanton burden of the prime,
    Like widowed wombs after their lords' decease:
    Yet this abundant issue seemed to me
    But hope of orphans, and unfathered fruit,
    For summer and his pleasures wait on thee,
    And thou away, the very birds are mute.


    O gentlemen the time of life is short To spend that shortness basely were too long, If life did ride upon a dials point, Still ending at the arrival of an hour.

    Men at some time are masters of their fates. The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.


    Not marble nor the gilded monuments
    Of princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme;
    But you shall shine more bright in these contents
    Than unswept stone, besmear'd with sluttish time.

    All this I know, and to the marriage
    Her nurse is privy; and if aught in this
    Miscarried by my fault, let my old life
    Be sacrific'd, some hour before his time,
    Unto the rigour of severest law.

    The time is out of joint. O cursed spite that ever I was born to set it right

    Time hath a wallet at his back, wherein he puts. Alms for oblivion, a great-sized monster of ingratitudes.



    For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
    Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
    The pangs of despis'd love, the law's delay,
    The insolence of office, and the spurns
    That patient merit of th' unworthy takes,
    When he himself might his quietus make
    With a bare bodkin?

    He hath abandon'd his physicians, madam; under whose
    practices he hath persecuted time with hope, and finds no other
    advantage in the process but only the losing of hope by time.

    Time is a very bankrupt, and owes more than he's worth to season.Nay, he's a thief too have you not heard men sayThat Time comes stealing on by night and day

    My liege, and madam, to expostulate
    What majesty should be, what duty is,
    Why day is day, night is night, and time is time.


    But I-that am not shap'd for sportive tricks,
    Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass-
    I-that am rudely stamp'd, and want love's majesty
    To strut before a wanton ambling nymph-
    I-that am curtail'd of this fair proportion,
    Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,
    Deform'd, unfinish'd, sent before my time
    Into this breathing world scarce half made up,
    And that so lamely and unfashionable
    That dogs bark at me as I halt by them-
    Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace,
    Have no delight to pass away the time,
    Unless to spy my shadow in the sun
    And descant on mine own deformity.

    Not that I think you did not love your father;
    But that I know love is begun by time,
    And that I see, in passages of proof,
    Time qualifies the spark and fire of it.


    Experience is by industry achieved, and perfected by the swift course of time

    But whate'er you are That in this desert inaccessible, Under the shade of melancholy boughs, Lose and neglect the creeping hours of time If you have ever looked on better days, If ever been where bells knoll'd to church, If ever sat at any good man's feast, If ever from your eyelids wiped a tear, And know what 'tis to pity and be pitied, Let gentleness my strong enforcement be....

    Let's take the instant by the forward top for we are old, and on our quickest decrees, the inaudible and noiseless foot of time steals ere we can effect them

    Cock-crow at Christmas Some say that ever 'gainst that season comes Wherein our Saviour's birth is celebrated, The bird of dawning singeth all night long And then, they say, no spirit can walk abroad The nights are wholesome then no planets strike, No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm, So hallow'd and so gracious is the time.

    Patience, good lady; wizards know their times:
    Deep night, dark night, the silent of the night,
    The time of night when Troy was set on fire;
    The time when screech-owls cry and ban-dogs howl,
    And spirits walk and ghosts break up their graves-
    That time best fits the work we have in hand.


    More William Shakespeare Quotations (Based on Topics)


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