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William Shakespeare 1564-1616

English playwright

It were all one That I should love a bright particular star And think to wed it, he is so above me.

All’s Well that Ends Well (1603-4) act 1, sc. 1, l. [97]

The hind that would be mated with the lion Must die of love.

All’s Well that Ends Well (1603-4) act 1, sc. 1, l. [103]

It is like a barber’s chair that fits all buttocks.

All’s Well that Ends Well (1603-4) act 2, sc. 2, l. [18]

The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together: our virtues would be proud if our faults whipped them not; and our crimes would despair if they were not cherished by our own virtues.

All’s Well that Ends Well (1603-4) act 4, sc. 3, l. [83]

CLEOPATRA: If it be love indeed, tell me how much.

ANTONY: There’s beggary in the love that can be reckoned.

CLEOPATRA: I’ll set a bourn how far to be beloved.

ANTONY: Then must thou needs find out new heaven, new earth.

Antony and Cleopatra (1606-7) act 1, sc. 1, l. 14

Let Rome in Tiber melt, and the wide arch Of the ranged empire fall. Here is my space. Kingdoms are clay; our dungy earth alike Feeds beast as man; the nobleness of life Is to do thus; when such a mutual pair And such a twain can do’t.

Antony and Cleopatra (1606-7) act 1, sc. 1, l. 33

I have seen her die twenty times upon far poorer moment. I do think there is mettle in death which commits some loving act upon her, she hath such a celerity in dying.

Antony and Cleopatra (1606-7) act 1, sc. 2, l. [150]

Indeed the tears live in an onion that should water this sorrow.

Antony and Cleopatra (1606-7) act 1, sc. 2, l. [181]

Eternity was in our lips and eyes, Bliss in our brows bent.

Antony and Cleopatra (1606-7) act 1, sc. 3, l. 35

Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale Her infinite variety; other women cloy The appetites they feed, but she makes hungry Where most she satisfies; for vilest things Become themselves in her, that the holy priests Bless her when she is riggish.

Antony and Cleopatra (1606-7) act 2, sc. 2, l. [243]

Give me some music music, moody food Of us that trade in love.

Antony and Cleopatra (1606-7) act 2, sc. 5, l. 1

I will praise any man that will praise me.

Antony and Cleopatra (1606-7) act 2, sc. 6, l. [88]

To business that we love we rise betime, And go to ’t with delight.

Antony and Cleopatra (1606-7) act 4, sc. 4, l. 20

I am dying, Egypt, dying; only I here importune death awhile, until Of many thousand kisses the poor last I lay upon thy lips.

Antony and Cleopatra (1606-7) act 4, sc. 13, l. 18

Therefore my age is as a lusty winter, Frosty, but kindly.

As You Like It (1599) act 2, sc. 3, l. 52

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. At first the infant, Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms. And then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel, And shining morning face, creeping like snail Unwillingly to school. And then the lover, Sighing like furnace, with a woful ballad Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier, Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard, Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel, Seeking the bubble reputation Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice, In fair round belly with good capon lined, With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut, Full of wise saws and modern instances; And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts Into the lean and slippered pantaloon, With spectacles on nose and pouch on side, His youthful hose well saved a world too wide For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice, Turning again towards childish treble, pipes And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all, That ends this strange eventful history, Is second childishness, and mere oblivion, Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

As You Like It (1599) act 2, sc. 7, l. 139

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.

As You Like It (1599) act 4, sc. 1, l. [153]

It was a lover and his lass, With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino, That o’er the green cornfield did pass, In the spring time, the only pretty ring time, When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding; Sweet lovers love the spring.

As You Like It (1599) act 5, sc. 3, l. [18]

The retort courteous the quip modest the reply churlish the reproof valiant the countercheck quarrelsome the lie circumstantial the lie direct.

As You Like It (1599) act 5, sc. 4, l. [96] (of the degrees of a lie)

I thought her As chaste as unsunned snow.

Cymbeline (1609 10) act 2, sc. 5, l. 12

Not a mouse stirring.

Hamlet (1601) act 1, sc. 1, l. 10

It faded on the crowing of the cock. 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 hallowed and so gracious is the time.

Hamlet (1601) act 1, sc. 1, l. 157

A little more than kin, and less than kind.

Hamlet (1601) act 1, sc. 2, l. 65

Murder most foul, as in the best it is; But this most foul, strange, and unnatural.

Hamlet (1601) act 1, sc. 5, l. 27

Doubt thou the stars are fire; Doubt that the sun doth move; Doubt truth to be a liar; But never doubt I love.

Hamlet (1601) act 2, sc. 2, l. [115]

Brevity is the soul of wit.

Hamlet (1601) act 2, sc. 2, l. 90

There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.

Hamlet (1601) act 2, sc. 2, l. [259]

To be, or not to be: that is the question: Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep; No more; and, by a sleep to say we end The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to, ’tis a consummation Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep; To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub; For in that sleep of death what dreams may come When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause. There’s the respect That makes calamity of so long life; For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely, The pangs of disprized love, the law’s delay, The insolence of office, and the spurns That patient merit of the unworthy takes, When he himself might his quietus make With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear, To grunt and sweat under a weary life, But that the dread of something after death, The undiscovered country from whose bourn No traveller returns, puzzles the will, And makes us rather bear those ills we have, Than fly to others that we know not of? Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all; And thus the native hue of resolution Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought, And enterprises of great pith and moment With this regard their currents turn awry, And lose the name of action.

Hamlet (1601) act 3, sc. 1, l. 56