William Shakespeare Quotes (3360 Quotes)

My heart is ever at your service.

Our wills and fates do so contrary run.

The wealthy curled darlings of our nation.

The Cardinal's letters to the Pope miscarried,
And came to th' eye o' th' King; wherein was read
How that the Cardinal did entreat his Holiness
To stay the judgment o' th' divorce; for if
It did take place, 'I do' quoth he 'perceive
My king is tangled in affection to
A creature of the Queen's, Lady Anne Bullen.

Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear,
Thy dial how thy precious minutes waste;
These vacant leaves thy mind's imprint will bear,
And of this book, this learning mayst thou taste.

The horn, the horn, the lusty horn Is not a thing to laugh to scorn.

Give it an understanding, but no tongue.

The great man down, you mark his favourite flies,
The poor advanc'd makes friends of enemies;
And hitherto doth love on fortune tend,
For who not needs shall never lack a friend,
And who in want a hollow friend doth try,
Directly seasons him his enemy.

My love, forbear to fawn upon their frowns.

Thou hast done a deed whereat valour will weep.

Wit would be out of fashion.

If eyes corrupt by overpartial looks,
Be anchored in the bay where all men ride,
Why of eyes' falsehood hast thou forgèd hooks,
Whereto the judgment of my heart is tied?

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.

Yet fear her, O thou minion of her pleasure!

Nay, he's a flower, in faith- a very flower.

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!

This is the excellent foppery of the world that when we are sick in fortune -- often the surfeits of our own behavior -- we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and stars, as if we were villains on necessity, fools by heavenly compulsion, knaves, thieves, and treachers by spherical predominance, drunkards, liars, and adulterers by an enforced obedience of planetary influence. An admirable evasion of whoremaster man, to lay his goatish disposition on the charge of a star.

To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.

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.

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.

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?

I presume
That, as my hand has open'd bounty to you,
My heart dropp'd love, my pow'r rain'd honour, more
On you than any, so your hand and heart,
Your brain, and every function of your power,
Should, notwithstanding that your bond of duty,
As 'twere in love's particular, be more
To me, your friend, than any.

But, ah, thought kills me that I am not thought,
To leap large lengths of miles when thou art gone,
But that, so much of earth and water wrought,
I must attend time's leisure with my moan,
Receiving nought by elements so slow,
But heavy tears, badges of either's woe.

A friend should bear his friend's infirmities.

There's nothing in this world can make me joy.

The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

This above all; to thine own self be true.

Do as adversaries in law, strive mightily, But eat and drink as friends.

I have lived long enough. My way of life is to fall into the sere, the yellow leaf, and that which should accompany old age, as honor, love, obedience, troops of friends I must not look to have.

Read over Julia's heart, thy first best love,
For whose dear sake thou didst then rend thy faith
Into a thousand oaths; and all those oaths
Descended into perjury, to love me.

Report me and my cause aright.

You must be so good, sir,
to rise and be put to death.

Reputation, reputation, reputation O I have lost my reputation, I have lost the immortal part of myself, and what remains is bestial.

How use doth breed a habit in a man.

Away, inhuman dog, unhallowed slave!

I am the Prince of Wales and think not, Percy, To share with me in glory any more Two stars keep not their motion in one sphere Nor can one England brook a double reign,

I am a kind of burr I shall stick.

My tongue-tied Muse in manners holds her still,
While comments of your praise, richly compiled,
Reserve their character with golden quill,
And precious phrase by all the Muses filed.

The other two, slight air and purging fire,
Are both with thee, wherever I abide;
The first my thought, the other my desire,
These present-absent with swift motion slide.

Farewell a long farewell, to all my greatness.

I know no ways to mince it in love, but
directly to say 'I love you.

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 see you are obsequious in your love, and I
profess requital to a hair's breadth; not only, Mistress Ford, in
the simple office of love, but in all the accoutrement,
complement, and ceremony of it.

Now his son,
Henry the Eighth, life, honour, name, and all
That made me happy, at one stroke has taken
For ever from the world.

Faith, I ran when I saw others run.

Our love was new, and then but in the spring
When I was wont to greet it with my lays,
As Philomel in summer's front doth sing,
And stops her pipe in growth of riper days-
Not that the summer is less pleasant now
Than when her mournful hymns did hush the night,
But that wild music burthens every bough,
And sweets grown common lose their dear delight.

Fathers that wear rags
Do make their children blind;
But fathers that bear bags
Shall see their children kind.

His love, perceiving how he is enrag'd,
Grew kinder, and his fury was assuag'd.