Quotes from William Shakespeare

The more pity that fools may not speak wisely what wise men do foolishly.

O, let us pay the time but needful woe, Since it hath been beforehand with our griefs. This England never did, nor never shall, Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror But when it first did help to wound itself. Now these her princes are come home again, Come the three corners of the world in arms, And we shall shock them. Nought shall make us rue If England to itself do rest but true.

The sauce to meat is ceremony; Meeting were bare without it.

The will of man is by his reason sway'd;

For when my outward action doth demonstrate The native act and figure of my heart In complement extern 'tis not long after But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve For daws to peck at I am not what I am.

Brief as the lightning in the collied night; That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and Earth, And ere a man hath power to say Behold! The jaws of darkness do devour it up. So quick bright things come to confusion.

Let him forever go!-Let him not, Charmian. Though he be painted one way like a Gorgon, The other way he's a Mars.

Is it possible he should know what he is, and be that he is?

A kiss, long as my exile, as sweet as my revenge.

To die is to be a counterfeit, for he is but the counterfeit of a man who hath not the life of a man; but to counterfeit dying when a man thereby liveth is to be no counterfeit, but the true and perfect image of life indeed.

Wisdom and goodness to the vile seem vile.

No, I will be the pattern of all patience; I will say nothing.

Here come those I have done good to against my will

How now? Even so quickly may one catch the plague?

Swift as shadow, short as any dream

I am agreed, and would I had given him the best horse in Padua to begin his wooing that would thoroughly woo her, wed her, and bed her, and rid the house of her

How many things by season season'd are, To their right praise and true perfection!

Fortune brings in some boats that are not steered.

I think he'll be to Rome as is the osprey to the fish, who takes it by sovereignty of nature.

Tis a commodity that will lose the gloss with lying; the longer kept, the less worth: off with 't, while 'tis vendible; answer the time of request. Virginity, like an old courtier, wears her cap out of fashion; richly suited, but unsuitable: just like the brooch and the toothpick, which wear not now.

I am even The natural fool of fortune.

Caliban: As I told thee before, I am subject to a tyrant, a sorcerer that by his cunning hath cheated me of the island.

The let-alone lies not in your good will.

For what good turn? Messenger: For the best turn of the bed.