210+ William Shakespeare Quotes to Inspire Love, Wisdom, and the Beauty of Language

Updated 2024/12/06

April 26, 1564 – April 23, 1616
Born in England
Playwright, poet, actor
Wrote many masterpieces such as “Hamlet,” “Romeo and Juliet,” and “Macbeth,” and had a great influence on English literature

“O thou invisible spirit of wine, if thou hast no name to be known by, let us call thee devil.”
“But O, how bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man’s eyes.”
“We are such stuff as dreams are made on; and our little life is rounded with a sleep.”
“If we are marked to die, we are enough to do our country loss; and if to live, the fewer men, the greater share of honor.”
“False face must hide what the false heart doth know.”
“Maids want nothing but husbands, and when they have them, they want everything.”
“Let no such man be trusted.”
“We are time’s subjects, and time bids be gone.”
“Lord, Lord, how subject we old men are to this vice of lying!”
“He does it with better grace, but I do it more natural.”
“I had rather have a fool to make me merry than experience to make me sad and to travel for it too!”
“Sweet mercy is nobility’s true badge.”
“We cannot conceive of matter being formed of nothing, since things require a seed to start from… Therefore there is not anything which returns to nothing, but all things return dissolved into their elements.”
“Now, God be praised, that to believing souls gives light in darkness, comfort in despair.”
“Neither a borrower nor a lender be.”
“Exceeds man’s might: that dwells with the gods above.”
“Like as the waves make towards the pebbl’d shore, so do our minutes, hasten to their end.”
“To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.”
“I will praise any man that will praise me.”
“The very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream.”
“O! for a muse of fire, that would ascend the brightest heaven of invention.”
“Nothing can come of nothing.”
“In a false quarrel there is no true valor.”
“Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs.”
“We know what we are, but know not what we may be.”
“Wisely, and slow. They stumble that run fast.”
“Good night, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say good night till it be morrow.”
“Though she be but little, she is fierce.”
“Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful.”
“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages.”
“A peace is of the nature of a conquest; for then both parties nobly are subdued, and neither party loser.”
“The stroke of death is as a lover’s pinch, which hurts and is desired.”
“Thou know’st the first time that we smell the air we wawl and cry. When we are born we cry, that we are come to this great state of fools.”
“Better a witty fool than a foolish wit.”
“God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another.”
“Let me embrace thee, sour adversity, for wise men say it is the wisest course.”
“It is a wise father that knows his own child.”
“Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.”
“Ignorance is the curse of God; knowledge is the wing wherewith we fly to heaven.”
“Words without thoughts never to heaven go.”
“Who could refrain that had a heart to love and in that heart courage to make love known?”
“Love sought is good, but given unsought, is better.”
“Better three hours too soon than a minute too late.”
“It will have blood, they say; blood will have blood.”
“How far that little candle throws its beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world.”
“I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.”
“This above all; to thine own self be true.”
“The wheel is come full circle.”
“There’s place and means for every man alive.”
“Our peace shall stand as firm as rocky mountains.”
“Having nothing, nothing can he lose.”
“No, I will be the pattern of all patience; I will say nothing.”
“Life every man holds dear; but the dear man holds honor far more precious dear than life.”
“I like not fair terms and a villain’s mind.”
“Teach not thy lip such scorn, for it was made For kissing, lady, not for such contempt.”
“Kindness in women, not their beauteous looks, shall win my love.”
“I give unto my wife my second best bed with the furniture.”
“I must be cruel, only to be kind.”
“Men’s vows are women’s traitors!”
“Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt.”
“And why not death rather than living torment? To die is to be banish’d from myself; And Silvia is myself: banish’d from her Is self from self: a deadly banishment!”
“Nature hath framed strange fellows in her time.”
“Boldness be my friend.”
“Death is a fearful thing.”
“Children wish fathers looked but with their eyes; fathers that children with their judgment looked; and either may be wrong.”
“Things won are done, joy’s soul lies in the doing.”
“In time we hate that which we often fear.”
“Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.”
“A man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age.”
“Praised us as we are tasted, allow us as we prove.”
“As soon go kindle fire with snow, as seek to quench the fire of love with words.”
“Hell is empty and all the devils are here.”
“If you can look into the seeds of time, and say which grain will grow and which will not, speak then unto me.”
“Fishes live in the sea, as men do a-land; the great ones eat up the little ones.”
“Use every man after his desert, and who should scape whipping?”
“There are many events in the womb of time, which will be delivered.”
“Well, if Fortune be a woman, she’s a good wench for this gear.”
“They say miracles are past.”
“I were better to be eaten to death with a rust than to be scoured to nothing with perpetual motion.”
“Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.”
“If it be a sin to covet honor, I am the most offending soul.”
“What is past is prologue.”
“My crown is called content, a crown that seldom kings enjoy.”
“The undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns.”
“The fashion of the world is to avoid cost, and you encounter it.”
“What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god.”
“Talking isn’t doing. It is a kind of good deed to say well; and yet words are not deeds.”
“There have been many great men that have flattered the people who ne’er loved them.”
“There have been many great men that have flattered the people who ne’er loved them.”
“Suit the action to the word, the word to the action.”
“As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods; they kill us for their sport.”
“God has given you one face, and you make yourself another.”
“Women may fall when there’s no strength in men.”
“If you prick us do we not bleed? If you tickle us do we not laugh? If you poison us do we not die? And if you wrong us shall we not revenge?”
“I shall the effect of this good lesson keep as watchman to my heart.”
“Life is as tedious as twice-told tale, vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man.”
“Brevity is the soul of wit.”
“The lunatic, the lover, and the poet, are of imagination all compact.”
“But if it be a sin to covet honour, I am the most offending soul alive.”
“Farewell, fair cruelty.”
“Pleasure and action make the hours seem short.”
“I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano; A stage where every man must play a part, And mine is a sad one.”
“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”
“Give me my robe, put on my crown; I have Immortal longings in me.”
“How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child!”
“O’ What may man within him hide, though angel on the outward side!”
“Ambition should be made of sterner stuff.”
“For I can raise no money by vile means.”
“There is no darkness but ignorance.”
“He is winding the watch of his wit; by and by it will strike.”
“Mind your speech a little lest you should mar your fortunes.”
“Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once.”
“So foul and fair a day I have not seen.”
“How well he’s read, to reason against reading!”
“Faith, there hath been many great men that have flattered the people who ne’er loved them.”
“The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”
“My pride fell with my fortunes.”
“For my part, it was Greek to me.”
“An overflow of good converts to bad.”
“The most peaceable way for you, if you do take a thief, is, to let him show himself what he is and steal out of your company.”
“I say there is no darkness but ignorance.”
“The valiant never taste of death but once.”
“Lawless are they that make their wills their law.”
“What’s done can’t be undone.”
“The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.”
“Most dangerous is that temptation that doth goad us on to sin in loving virtue.”
“O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!”
“Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.”
“Let every eye negotiate for itself and trust no agent.”
“Now is the winter of our discontent.”
“The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.”
“Come, gentlemen, I hope we shall drink down all unkindness.”
“Words, words, mere words, no matter from the heart.”
“I bear a charmed life.”
“‘Tis one thing to be tempted, another thing to fall.”
“He that loves to be flattered is worthy o’ the flatterer.”
“There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.”
“As he was valiant, I honour him. But as he was ambitious, I slew him.”
“I never see thy face but I think upon hell-fire.”
“It is the stars, The stars above us, govern our conditions.”
“Men shut their doors against a setting sun.”
“How poor are they that have not patience! What wound did ever heal but by degrees?”
“But men are men; the best sometimes forget.”
“To do a great right do a little wrong.”
“I dote on his very absence.”
“Things done well and with a care, exempt themselves from fear.”
“If music be the food of love, play on.”
“The man that hath no music in himself, Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils.”
“If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men’s cottage princes’ palaces.”
“‘Tis better to bear the ills we have than fly to others that we know not of.”
“Go to you bosom: Knock there, and ask your heart what it doth know.”
“A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool.”
“I am not bound to please thee with my answer.”
“When words are scarce they are seldom spent in vain.”
“And this, our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything.”
“Speak low, if you speak love.”
“If you have tears, prepare to shed them now.”
“One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.”
“Time and the hour run through the roughest day.”
“‘Tis not enough to help the feeble up, but to support them after.”
“Love is too young to know what conscience is.”
“What, man, defy the devil. Consider, he’s an enemy to mankind.”
“It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.”
“By that sin fell the angels.”
“O God, O God, how weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of this world!”
“Listen to many, speak to a few.”
“Poor and content is rich, and rich enough.”
“Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall.”
“O! Let me not be mad, not mad, sweet heaven; keep me in temper; I would not be mad!”
“The attempt and not the deed confounds us.”
“And oftentimes excusing of a fault doth make the fault the worse by the excuse.”
“Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind.”
“There’s no art to find the mind’s construction in the face.”
“There was never yet fair woman but she made mouths in a glass.”
“They do not love that do not show their love.”
“Fortune brings in some boats that are not steered.”
“Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot that it do singe yourself.”
“Such as we are made of, such we be.”
“The robbed that smiles, steals something from the thief.”
“Reputation is an idle and most false imposition; oft got without merit, and lost without deserving.”
“Desire of having is the sin of covetousness.”
“Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice.”
“The course of true love never did run smooth.”
“Where every something, being blent together turns to a wild of nothing.”
“O, had I but followed the arts!”
“Doubt thou the stars are fire, Doubt that the sun doth move. Doubt truth to be a liar, But never doubt I love.”
“I may neither choose who I would, nor refuse who I dislike; so is the will of a living daughter curbed by the will of a dead father.”
“Truly, I would not hang a dog by my will, much more a man who hath any honesty in him.”
“Love is not love that alters when it alteration finds.”
“How oft the sight of means to do ill deeds makes ill deeds done!”
“Is it not strange that desire should so many years outlive performance?”
“‘Tis best to weigh the enemy more mighty than he seems.”
“Virtue itself scapes not calumnious strokes.”
“There’s not a note of mine that’s worth the noting.”
“Alas, I am a woman friendless, hopeless!”
“I was adored once too.”
“The love of heaven makes one heavenly.”
“I see that the fashion wears out more apparel than the man.”
“To be, or not to be, that is the question.”
“This life, which had been the tomb of his virtue and of his honour, is but a walking shadow; a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
“Give thy thoughts no tongue.”
“Men are April when they woo, December when they wed. Maids are May when they are maids, but the sky changes when they are wives.”
“With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come.”
“There’s many a man has more hair than wit.”
“Many a good hanging prevents a bad marriage.”
“When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions.”
“No legacy is so rich as honesty.”
“Sweet are the uses of adversity which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, wears yet a precious jewel in his head.”
“There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat. And we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures.”
“Modest doubt is called the beacon of the wise.”
“He that is giddy thinks the world turns round.”
“When we are born we cry that we are come to this great stage of fools.”