2,311 Famous Quotes by William Shakespeare
4/23/1564 - 4/23/1616
Also Known As:
Shakespeare
The Bard
Shaxper
Professions:
Information:
About William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon". His extant works, including some collaborations, consist of about 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, two epitaphs on a man named John Combe, one epitaph on Elias James, and several other poems. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright.
Shakespeare was born and brought up in Stratford-upon-Avon. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part owner of a playing company called the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later known as the King's Men. He appears to have retired to Stratford around 1613 at age 49, where he died three years later. Few records of Shakespeare's private life survive, and there has been considerable speculation about such matters as his physical appearance, sexuality, religious beliefs, and whether the works attributed to him were written by others.
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Unkindness may do much;
And his unkindness may defeat my life,
But never taint my love.
Unkindness
Quotes, by William Shakespeare , Source: Othello the Moor of Venice (Desdemona at IV, ii)
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In nature there's no blemish but the mind;
None can be called deformed but the unkind.
Unkindness
Quotes, by William Shakespeare , Source: Twelfth night, or, What You Will (Antonio at III, iv)
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Come, seeling night,
Scarf up the tender eye of pitiful day,
And with thy bloody and invisible hand
Cancel and tear to pieces that great bond
Which keeps me pale. Light thickens, and the crow
Makes wing to th' rooky wood.
Good things of day begin to droop and drowse,
While night's black agents to their prey do rouse.
Crows
Quotes, by William Shakespeare , Source: Macbeth (Macbeth at III, ii)
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The crow doth sing as sweetly as the lark
When neither is attended; and I think
The nightingale, if she should sing by day
When every goose is cackling, would be thought
No better a musician than the wren.
How many thing by season seasoned are
To their right praise and true perfection!
Crows
Quotes, by William Shakespeare , Source: The Merchant of Venice (Portia at V, i)
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That were to blow at fire in hope to quench it;
For who digs hills because they do aspire
Throws down one mountain to cast up a higher.
Mountains
Quotes, by William Shakespeare , Source: Pericles Prince of Tyre (Dionyza at I, iv)
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So shall you hear
Of carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts,
Of accidental judgments, casual slaughters,
Of deaths put on by cunning and forced cause,
And, in this upshot, purposes mistook
Fall'n on th' inventors' heads.
Errors
Quotes, by William Shakespeare , Source: Hamlet Prince of Denmark (Horatio at V, ii)
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Ah, poor our sex! this fault in us I find,
The error of our eye directs our mind.
What error leads must error.
Errors
Quotes, by William Shakespeare , Source: The History of Troilus and Cressida (Cressida at V, ii)
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This is your devoted friend, sir, the manifold linguist and the
armipotent soldier.
Linguists
Quotes, by William Shakespeare , Source: All's Well That Ends Well (Second Lord at IV, iii)
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But those that understood him smiled at one another and shook
their heads; but for mine own part, if was Greek to me.
Linguists
Quotes, by William Shakespeare , Source: Julius Caesar (Casca at I, ii)
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O, good my lord, no Latin!
I am not such a truant since my coming
As not to know the language I have lived in.
A strnage tongue makes my cause more strnage, suspicious.
Pray speak in English.
Linguists
Quotes, by William Shakespeare , Source: The Life of King Henry the Eighth (Katherine at III, i)
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He plays o' th' viol-de-gamboys, and speaks three or four
languages word for word without book, and hath all the good gifts
of nature.
Linguists
Quotes, by William Shakespeare , Source: Twelfth Night, or, What You Will (Toby at I, iii)
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But to the purpose--for we cite our faults
That they may hold excused our lawless lives;
And partly, seeing you are beautified
With goodly shape, and by your own report
A linguist, and a man of such perfection
As we do in our quality much want--
Linguists
Quotes, by William Shakespeare , Source: The Two Gentlemen of Verona (First Outlaw at IV, i)
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If we do meet again, we'll smile indeed;
If not, 'tis true this parting was well made.
Parting
Quotes, by William Shakespeare , Source: Julius Caesar (Cassius at V, i)
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Good night, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow,
That I shall say good night till it be morrow.
Parting
Quotes, by William Shakespeare , Source: Romeo and Juliet (Juliet at II, ii)
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I will go wash;
And when my face is fair, you shall perceive
Whether I blush or no.
Blushes
Quotes, by William Shakespeare , Source: Coriolanus (Coriolanus at I, ix)
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I ask, that I might waken reverence,
And bid the cheek be ready with a blush
Modest as morning when she coldly eyes
The youthful Phoebus,
Which is that god in office, guiding men?
Blushes
Quotes, by William Shakespeare , Source: The History of Troilus and Cressida (Aeneas at I, iii)
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Fit thy consent to my sharp appetite,
Lay by all nicety and prolixious blushes,
That banish what they sue for: redeem thy brother
By yielding up thy body to my will,
Or else he must not only die the death,
But thy unkindess shall his death draw out
To ling'ring sufferance.
Blushes
Quotes, by William Shakespeare , Source: Measure for Measure (Angelo at II, iv)
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I have marked
A thousand blushing apparitions
To start into her face, a thousand innocent shames
In angel whiteness beat away those blushes,
And in her eye there hath appeared a fire
To burn the errors that these princes hold
Against her maiden truth.
Blushes
Quotes, by William Shakespeare , Source: Much Ado About Nothing (Friar Francis at IV, i)
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Yet will she blush, here be it said,
To bear her secrets so bewrayed.
Blushes
Quotes, by William Shakespeare , Source: The Passionate Pilgrim (XVIII, l. 53), a poem of doubtful authenticity
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His kindled duty kindled her mistrust,
That two red fires in both faces blazed.
She thought he blushed as knowing Tarquin's lust,
And, blushing with him, wistly on him gazed;
Her earnest eye did make him more amazed.
Blushes
Quotes, by William Shakespeare , Source: The Rape of Lucrece (l. 1,352)
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Where now I have no one to blush with me,
To cross their arms and hang their heads with mine,
To mask their brows and hide their infamy;
But I alone, alone must sit and pine,
Seasoning the earth with show'rs of silver brine,
Mingling my talk with tears, my grief with groans,
Poor wasting monuments of lasting moans.
Blushes
Quotes, by William Shakespeare , Source: The Rape of Lucrece (l. 792)
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