Quotes from William Shakespeare

I am afeard there are few die well that die in battle, for how can they charitably dispose of anything when blood is their argument?

To be a well-favoured man is the gift of fortune; but to write and read comes by nature.

I count myself in nothing else so happy as in a soul remembering my good Friends

I long to hear the story of your life, which must captivate the ear strangely.

Nothing in his life became him like the leaving it.

Tis the times' plague, when madmen lead the blind.

Well, God give them wisdom that have it; and those that are fools, let them use their talents.

Will you stay no longer? nor will you not that I go with you? Sebastian: By your patience, no. My stars shine darkly over me; the malignancy of my fate might, perhaps, distemper yours; therefore I shall crave of you your leave that I may bear my evils alone. It were a bad recompense for your love to lay any of them on you.

My dear dear lord, The purest treasure mortal times afford Is spotless reputation: that away, Men are but gilded loam or painted clay. A jewel in a ten-times-barr'd-up chest Is a bold spirit in a loyal breast. Mine honour is my life; both grow in one: Take honour from me, and my life is done: Then, dear my liege, mine honour let me try; In that I live and for that will I die.

So will I turn her virtue into pitch, And out of her own goodness make the net That shall enmesh them all.

We, ignorant of ourselves, Beg often our own harms, which the wise powers Deny us for our good; so find we profit By losing of our prayers.

A knavish speech sleeps in a fool's ear.

Assume a virtue, if you have it not. That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat, Of habits devil, is angel yet in this, That to the use of actions fair and good He likewise gives a frock or livery That aptly is put on. Refrain tonight, And that shall lend a kind of easiness To the next abstinence; the next more easy; For use almost can change the stamp of nature.

Ha. Against my will I am sent to bid you come into dinner. There's a double meaning in that.

The miserable have no other medicine But only hope: I have hope to live, and am prepared to die.

Come away, come away, Death, And in sad cypress let me be laid; Fly away, fly away, breath, I am slain by a fair cruel maid. My shroud of white stuck all with yew, O prepare it! My part of death no one so true did share it. Not a flower, not a flower sweet, On my black coffin let there be strewn: Not a friend, not a friend greet My poor corpse, where my bones shall be thrown. A thousand thousand sighs to save, lay me O where Sad true lover never find my grave, to weep there!

What win I if I gain the thing I seek? A dream, a breath, a froth of fleeting joy. Who buys a minute's mirth to wail a week? Or sells eternity to get a toy?

And to be merry best becomes you; for, out of question, you were born in a merry hour. No, sure, my lord, my mother cried; but then there was a star danced, and under that was I born.

O, speak again, bright angel, for thou art as glorious to this night, being o'er my head, as is a winged messenger of heaven Unto the white-upturned wond'ring eyes Of mortals fall back to gaze on him.

The moon's an arrant thief, And her pale fire she snatches from the sun.

Love's not love When it is mingled with regards that stand Aloof from th' entire point.

Master, go on, and I will follow thee To the last gasp with truth and loyalty.

Trifles light as air are to the jealous confirmations strong as proofs of holy writ.

When we our betters see bearing our woes, We scarcely think our miseries our foes.