William Shakespeare Quotes (3360 Quotes)

Why so large a cost, having so short a lease, does thou upon your fading mansion spend

Heaven make you better than your thoughts!

Pain pays the income of each precious thing.

I shall the effect of this good lesson keeps as watchman to my heart.

I hear
The strain of strutting chanticleer
Cry, Cock-a-diddle-dow!

It is a part
That I shall blush in acting, and might well
Be taken from the people.

Patch up thine old body for heaven.

All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.

The fashion of the world is to avoid cost, and you encounter it.

We have heard the chimes at midnight.

Stoop, Romans, stoop,
And let us bathe our hands in Caesar's blood
Up to the elbows, and besmear our swords;
Then walk we forth, even to the marketplace,
And waving our red weapons o'er our heads,
Let's all cry, "Peace, freedom, and liberty!

For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds;
Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.

Not to be a-bed after midnight is to be up betimes.

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

In delay there lies no plenty.

I will marry her, sir, at your request; but if there
be no great love in the beginning, yet heaven may decrease
it upon better acquaintance, when we are married and
have more occasion to know one another.

And where the offence is, let the great axe fall.

Take note, take note, O world, To be direct and honest is not safe.

Action is eloquence.

And my poor fool is hanged No, no, no life Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life, And thou no breath at all Thoult come no more, Never, Never, Never, Never, Never Pray you, undo this button.

Tis all men's office to speak patience To those that wring under the load of sorrow But no man's virtue nor sufficiency To be so moral when he shall endure The like himself

By the pricking of my thumbs Something wicked this way comes.

So in the world, 'tis furnish'd well with men,
And men are flesh and blood, and apprehensive;
Yet in the number I do know but one
That unassailable holds on his rank,
Unshaked of motion; and that I am he,
Let me a little show it, even in this;
That I was constant Cimber should be banish'd,
And constant do remain to keep him so.

The words of Mercury are harsh after the songs of Apollo.

Find out the cause of this effect,Or rather say, the cause of this defect,For this effect defective comes by cause.

I would be friends with you, and have your love,
Forget the shames that you have stain'd me with,
Supply your present wants, and take no doit
Of usance for my moneys, and you'll not hear me.

Was ever book containing such vile matterSo fairly bound O, that deceit should dwellIn such a gorgeous palace

Look how my ring encompasseth thy finger, Even so thy breast encloseth my poor heart Wear both of them, for both of them are thine.

When all aloud the wind doe blow,
And coughing drowns the parson's saw,
And birds sit brooding in the snow,
And Marian's nose looks red and raw,
When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
To-whit!

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.

So am I as the rich whose blessèd key
Can bring him to his sweet up-lockèd treasure,
The which he will not every hour survey,
For blunting the fine point of seldom pleasure.

Yea, man and birds are fain of climbing high.

O! for a muse of fire, that would ascend the brightest heaven of invention.

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

Gentle Master Fenton,
Yet seek my father's love; still seek it, sir.

Come, sir, come;
I'll wrestle with you in my strength of love.

They met me in the day of success, and I have
learned by the perfectest report they have more in them than
mortal knowledge.

Here is a letter from Queen Hecuba,
A token from her daughter, my fair love,
Both taxing me and gaging me to keep
An oath that I have sworn.

Like to the Pontic Sea,
Whose icy current and compulsive course
Ne'er feels retiring ebb, but keeps due on
To the Propontic and the Hellespont,
Even so my bloody thoughts, with violent pace,
Shall ne'er look back, ne'er ebb to humble love,
Till that a capable and wide revenge
Swallow them up.

A man whose blood; Is very snow-broth one who never feels; The wanton stings and motions of the sense.

Most subject is the fattest soil to weeds.

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.

Poor and content is rich, and rich enough.

Say I love Brutus and I honor him;
Say I fear'd Caesar, honor'd him, and loved him.

An honest tale speeds best being plainly told.

Since then my office hath so far prevail'd
That face to face and royal eye to eye
You have congreeted, let it not disgrace me
If I demand, before this royal view,
What rub or what impediment there is
Why that the naked, poor, and mangled Peace,
Dear nurse of arts, plenties, and joyful births,
Should not in this best garden of the world,
Our fertile France, put up her lovely visage?

Alas 'tis true I have gone here and there, And made myself a motley to the view.

An angel is like you, Kate, and you are like an angel.

Or mine eyes seeing this, say this is not
To put fair truth upon so foul a face?

Your mystery, your mystery; nay, dispatch.