Quotes from William Shakespeare

Where is Polonius? HAMLET In heaven. Send hither to see. If your messenger find him not there, seek him i' th' other place yourself. But if indeed you find him not within this month, you shall nose him as you go up the stairs into the lobby.

There's little of the melancholy element in her, my lord: she is never sad but when she sleeps; and not ever sad then; for I have heard my daughter say, she hath often dreamt of unhappiness, and waked herself with laughing.

A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm

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.

If after every tempest come such calms, May the winds blow till they have waken'd death!

Ay me! sad hours seem long.

true apothecary thy drugs art quick

Give to a gracious message a host of tongues, but let ill tidings tell themselves when they be felt.

Your cause of sorrow must not be measured by his worth, for then it hath no end.

Tis in my memory lock'd, And you yourself shall keep the key of it.

If it be now, 'tis not to come. If it be not to come, it will be now. If it be not now, yet it will come—the readiness is all.

But it is a melancholy of mine own, compounded of many simples, extracted from many objects, and indeed the sundry contemplation of my travels, which, by often rumination, wraps me in the most humorous sadness.

Rumour is a pipe Blown by surmises, jealousies, conjectures And of so easy and so plain a stop That the blunt monster with uncounted heads, The still-discordant wavering multitude, Can play upon it.

I am your wife if you will marry me. If not, I'll die your maid. To be your fellow You may deny me, but I'll be your servant Whether you will or no.

Therefore another prologue must tell he is not a lion

It is not night when I do see your face, Therefore I think I am not in the night; Nor doth this wood lack worlds of company, For you in my respect are all the world: Then how can it be said I am alone, When all the world is here to look on me?

Well, then, go you into hell? BEATRICE No, but to the gate; and there will the devil meet me, like an old cuckold, with horns on his head, and say 'Get you to heaven, Beatrice, get you to heaven; here's no place for you maids:' so deliver I up my apes, and away to Saint Peter for the heavens; he shows me where the bachelors sit, and there live we as merry as the day is long.

Seems, madam? Nay, it is; I know not seems. 'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother, Nor customary suits of solemn black, Nor windy suspiration of forced breath, No, nor the fruitful river in the eye, Nor the dejected 'havior of the visage, Together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief, That can denote me truly: these indeed seem, For they are actions that a man might play: But I have that within which passeth show; These but the trappings and the suits of woe.

Now let it work. Mischief, thou art afoot. Take thou what course thou wilt.

They lie deadly that tell you have good faces.

Conscience is but a word that cowards use, Devis'd at first to keep the strong in awe: Our strong arms be our conscience, swords our law. March on, join bravely, let us to't pell-mell; If not to heaven, then hand in hand to hell.

This fellow is wise enough to play the fool; And to do that well craves a kind of wit: He must observe their mood on whom he jests, The quality of persons, and the time, And, like the haggard, check at every feather That comes before his eye. This is a practise As full of labour as a wise man's art For folly that he wisely shows is fit; But wise men, folly-fall'n, quite taint their wit.

And Caesar's spirit, raging for revenge, With Ate by his side come hot from hell, Shall in these confines with a monarch's voice Cry Havoc! and let slip the dogs of war, That this foul deed shall smell above the earth With carrion men, groaning for burial.

And where two raging fires meet together, they do consume the thing that feeds their fury.