William Shakespeare Quotes, Quotations, and Sayings

2,311 Famous Quotes by William Shakespeare
“Hark, hark, the lark at heaven's gate sings, And Phoebus gins arise, His steeds to water at those springs On chaliced flowers that lies; And winking Mary-buds begin To ope their golden eyes. With every thing that pretty is, My lady sweet, arise, Arise, arise!”
Larks Quotes
Source: Cymbeline (Musicians at II, ii)
“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 dare stir abroad, The nights are wholesome, then no planets strike, No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm. So hallowed and so gracious is that time.”
Larks Quotes
Source: Hamlet Prince of Denmark (Marcellus at I, i)
“It is the lark that sings so out of tune, Straining harsh discords and unpleasing sharps.”
Larks Quotes
Source: Romeo and Juliet (Juliet at III, v)
“It was the lark, the herald of the morn; No nightingale.”
Larks Quotes
Source: Romeo and Juliet (Romeo at III, v)
“Lo, here the gentle lark, weary of rest, From his moist cabinet mounts up on high And wakes the morning, from whose silver breast The sun ariseth in his majesty; Who doth the world so gloriously behold That cedar tops and hills seem burnished gold.”
Larks Quotes
Source: Venus and Adonis (l. 853)
“This guest of summer, The temple-haunting martlet, does approve By his loved mansionry that the heaven's breath Smells wooingly here. No jutty, frieze, Buttress, nor coign of vantage, but this bird Hath made his pendent bed and procreant cradle. Where they most breed and haunt, I have observed The air is delicate.”
Martlets Quotes
Source: Macbeth (Banquo at I, vi)
“What many men desire--that 'many' may be meant By the fool multitude that choose by show, Not learning more than the fond eye doth teach, Which pries not to th' interior, but like the martlet Builds in the weather on the outward wall, Even in the force and road of casualty.”
Martlets Quotes
Source: The Merchant of Venice (Arragon at II, ix)
“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!”
Nightingales Quotes
Source: The Merchant of Venice (Portia at V, i)
“All furnished, all in arms; All plum'd like estridges that with the wind Bated like eagles having lately bathed; Glittering in golden coats like images; As full of spirit as the month of May And gorgeous as the sun at midsummer; Wanton as youthful goats, wild as young bulls.”
Ostriches (estridges) Quotes
Source: King Henry the Fourth, Part I (Vernon at IV, ii)
“When all aloud the wind doth 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, Tu-who; Tu-whit, tu-who: a merry note, While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.”
Owls Quotes
Source: Love's Labor's Lost (Winter at V, ii)
“It is the owl that shrieked, the fatal bellman Which gives the stern'st good-night.”
Owls Quotes
Source: Macbeth (Lady Macbeth at II, ii)
“Come, now a roundel and a fairy song; Then, for the third part of a minute, hence-- Some to kill canters in the musk-rose buds, Some war with reremice for their leathren wings, To make my small elves coats, and some keep back The clamorous owl, that nightly hoots and wonders At our quaint spirits.”
Owls Quotes
Source: A Midsummer Night's Dream (Titania at II, ii)
“Who finds the partridge in the puttock's nest But may imagine how the bird was dead, Although the kite soar with unbloodied beak?”
Partridges Quotes
Source: King Henry the Sixth, Part II (Warwick at III, ii)
“Fly pride, says the peacock: mistress, that you know.”
Peacocks Quotes
Source: The Comedy of Errors (Dromio of Syracuse at IV, iii)
“Why, 'a stalks up and down like a peacock--a stride and a stand; ruminates like an hostess that hath no arithmetic but her brain to set down her reckoning; bites his lip with a politic regard, as who should say, 'There were wit in this head an 'twould out'; and so there is, but it lies as coldly in him as fire in a flint, which will not show without knocking.”
Peacocks Quotes
Source: The History of Troilus and Cressida (Thersites at III, iii)
“Let frantic Talbot triumph for a while And like a peacock sweep along his tail; We'll pull his plumes and take away his train, If Dauphin and the rest will be but ruled.”
Peacocks Quotes
Source: King Henry the Sixth, Part I (Pucelle at III, iii)
“(Celia:) Here come Monsieur Le Beau. (Rosalind:) With his mouth full of news. (Celia:) Which he will put on us as pigeons feed their young. (Rosalind:) Then shall we be news-crammed.”
Pigeons Quotes
Source: As You Like It (Celia & Rosalind at I, ii)
“Hold, there is the very remuneration I had of thy master, thou halfpenny purse of wit, thou pigeon-egg of discretion.”
Pigeons Quotes
Source: Love's Labor's Lost (Costard at V, i)
“This fellow pecks up wit, as pigeons pease, And utters it again when God doth please.”
Pigeons Quotes
Source: Love's Labor's Lost (Berowne at V, ii)
“Here's Agamemnon, an honest fellow enough, and one that loves quails, but he has not so much brain as ear-wax; and the goodly transformation of Jupiter there, his brother, the bull, the primitive statue and oblique memorial of cockolds; a thrifty shoeing-horn in a chain, hanging at his brother's leg, to what form but that he is should wit larded with malice and malice forced with wit turn him to? To an ass, were nothing; he is both ass and ox: to an ox, were nothing; he is both ox and ass. To be a dog, a mule, a cat, a fitchew, a toad, a lizard, an owl, a puttock, or a herring without roe, I would not care; but to be Memelaus! I would conspire against destiny.”
Quail Quotes
Source: The History of Troilus and Cressida (Thersites at V, i)
“Come, the croaking raven doth bellow for revenge.”
Ravens Quotes
Source: Hamlet Prince of Denmark (Hamlet at III, ii)
“The raven himself is hoarse That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan Under my battlements.”
Ravens Quotes
Source: Macbeth (Lady Macbeth at I, v)
“Thou said'st--O, it comes o'er my memory As doth the raven o'er the infected house, Boding to all!--He had my handkerchief.”
Ravens Quotes
Source: Othello the Moor of Venice (Othello at IV, i)
“Did ever raven sing so like a lark That gives sweet tidings of the sun's uprise?”
Ravens Quotes
Source: Titus Andronicus (Titus at III, i)
“Marry, by these special marks: first, you have learned, like Sir Proteus, to wreathe your arms like a malcontent, to relish a love-song like a robin-redbreast, to walk alone like one that had the pestilence, to sigh like a schoolboy that had lost his A B C, to weep like a young wench that had buried her grandam, to fast like one that takes diet, to watch like one that fears robbing, to speak puling like a beggar at Hallowmas.”
Robins Quotes
Source: The Two Gentlemen of Verona (Speed at II, i)
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