William Shakespeare Quotes - Page 16

A walking shadow a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more.

CARDINAL WOLSEYSo farewell to the little good you bear me.Farewell! a long farewell, to all my greatness!This is the state of man: to-day he puts forthThe tender leaves of hopes; to-morrow blossoms,And bears his blushing honours thick upon him;The third day comes a frost, a killing frost,And, when he thinks, good easy man, full surelyHis greatness is a-ripening, nips his root,And then he falls, as I do. I have ventured,Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders,This many summers in a sea of glory,But far beyond my depth: my high-blown prideAt length broke under me and now has left me,Weary and old with service, to the mercyOf a rude stream, that must for ever hide me.Vain pomp and glory of this world, I hate ye:I feel my heart new open'd. O, how wretchedIs that poor man that hangs on princes' favours!There is, betwixt that smile we would aspire to,That sweet aspect of princes, and their ruin,More pangs and fears than wars or women have:And when he falls, he falls like Lucifer,Never to hope again

The better part of valour is discretion.

Life ... is a taleTold by an idiot, full of sound and fury,Signifying nothing.

Her blood is settled, and her joints are stiff;Life and these lips have long been separated:Death lies on her like an untimely frostUpon the sweetest flower of all the field.

I have more care to staythan will to go.

The evil that men do lives after them The good is oft interred with their bones.

Thou wouldst as soon go kindle fire with snow as seek to quench the fire of love with words.

Out of my sight! Thou dost infect mine eyes.

I care not a man can die but once we owe God a death.

Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,Such shaping fantasies, that apprehendMore than cool reason ever comprehends.The lunatic, the lover and the poetAre of imagination all compact:One sees more devils than vast hell can hold,That is, the madman: the lover, all as frantic,Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt:The poet's eye, in fine frenzy rolling,Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;And as imagination bodies forthThe forms of things unknown, the poet's penTurns them to shapes and gives to airy nothingA local habitation and a name.

For I am born to tame you, Kate,And bring you from a wild Kate to a KateComfortable as other household Kates.

... one fire burns out another’s burning.One pain is lessened by another’s anguish. -Romeo & Juliet

Tis in ourselves that we are thus or thus. Our bodies are our gardens to the which our wills are gardeners.

I’ll prove the prettier fellow of the two and wear my dagger with the braver grace

Self-love, my liege, is not so vile a sin as self-neglecting.

What's in a name? that which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet.

A plague o' both your houses.

And seeing ignorance is the curse of God Knowledge the wing wherewith we fly to heaven.

If [God] send me no husband, for the which blessing I am at him upon my knees every morning and evening ...

To be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of ten thousand.

By heaven, I'll make a ghost of him that lets me.

What's gone and what's past help Should be past grief.

I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine.

...and when he dies, cut him out in little stars, and the face of heaven will be so fine that all the world will be in love with night and pay no heed to the garish sun.

There is a tide in the affairs of men Which taken at the flood leads on to fortune.

Yet but three come one more.Two of both kinds make up four.Ere she comes curst and sad.Cupid is a knavish lad.Thus to make poor females mad.

The play's the thing.

Shake off this downy sleep, death’s counterfeit,And look on death itself!

How poor are they that have not patience? What wound did ever heal but by degrees?

POLONIUS My lord, the queen would speak with you, and presently.HAMLET Do you see yonder cloud that's almost in shape of a camel?POLONIUS By th'mass, and 'tis like a camel indeed.HAMLET Methinks it is like a weasel.POLONIUS It is backed like a weasel.HAMLET Or like a whale?POLONIUS Very like a whale.HAMLET Then I will come to my mother by and by. - They fool me to the top of my bent. - I will come by and by.

If music be the food of love, play on.

In time we hate that which we often fear.

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,Must give us pause

So oft it chances in particular menThat for some vicious mole of nature inthem—As in their birth (wherein they are not guilty,Since nature cannot choose his origin),By the o'ergrowth of some complexion,Oft breaking down the pales and forts ofreason,Or by some habit that too much o'erleavensThe form of plausive manners—that thesemen,Carrying, I say, the stamp of one defect,Being nature’s livery or fortune’s star,Their virtues else (be they as pure as grace,As infinite as man may undergo)Shall in the general censure take corruptionFrom that particular fault. The dram of evilDoth all the noble substance of a doubtTo his own scandal.

The shadow of my sorrow. Let's see, 'tis very true. My griefs lie all within and these external manners of laments are mere shadows to the unseen grief which swells with silence in the tortured soul.There lies the substance.

One pain is lessened by another’s anguish. ... Take thou some new infection to thy eye, And the rank poison of the old will die.

O, wonder!How many goodly creatures are there here!How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,That has such people in't!

Better a witty fool, than a foolish wit.

Hell is empty and all the devils are here.

I earn that I eat get that I wear owe no man hate envy no man's happiness glad of other men's good content with my harm.

Parting is such sweet sorrow that I shall say goodnight till it be morrow.

It is excellent / To have a giant's strenght / But it is tyrannous / To use it like a giant(Isabella)

QUINCEFrancis Flute, the bellows-mender.FLUTEHere, Peter Quince.QUINCEFlute, you must take Thisby on you.FLUTEWhat is Thisby? a wandering knight?QUINCEIt is the lady that Pyramus must love.FLUTENay, faith, let me not play a woman; I have a beard coming.

Of all matches never was the like.

For never was a story of more woe than this of Juliet and her Romeo.

What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet

The course of true love never die run smooth

By the sweet power of music: therefore the poet did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones and floods; since nought so stockish, hard and full of rage, but music for the time doth change his nature. The man that hath no music in himself, nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils; The motions of his spirit are dull as night and his affections dark as Erebus: Let no such man be trusted. Mark the music.

Give me that man that is not passion's slave, and I will wear him in my heart's core, in my heart of heart, as I do thee.

Well, I must do’t. Away, my disposition, and possess me Some harlot’s spirit! My throat of war be turn’d, Which quier’d with my drum, into a pipe Small as an eunuch, or the virgin voice That babies lull asleep! The smiles of knaves Tent in my cheeks, and schoolboys’ tears take up The glasses of my sight! A beggar’s tongue Make motion through my lips, and my arm’d knees, Who bow’d but in my stirrup, bend like his That hath receiv’d an alms! I will not do’t, Lest I surcease to honor mine own truth, And by my body’s action teach my mind A most inherent baseness.

Under loves heavy burden do I sink.--Romeo

Like madness is the glory of this life.

Suffer love! A good ephitet! I do suffer love indeed, for I love thee against my will.

Alas poor Yorick! I knew him Horatio: a fellow of infinite jest of most excellent fancy.

My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical,Shakes so my single state of manThat function is smothered in surmise,And nothing is but what is not.

But thoughts the slave of life, and life, Time’s fool,And Time, that takes survey of all the world,Must have a stop.

This goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory, this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?

A right fair mark, fair coz, is soonest hit.

The stroke of death is as a lover's pinch Which hurts and is desired.