Quotes About Shakespeare

it struck me what quality went to form a Man of Achievement, especially in Literature, and which Shakespeare possessed so enormously - I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.

Shakespeare permeated his whole being, and his influence is to be detected not in a resemblance of style, for Shakespeare can have no imitators, but in a broadening view of life, and increased humanity.

several things dove-tailed in my mind, and at once it struck me what quality went to form a Man of Achievement, especially in Literature, and which Shakespeare possessed so enormously—I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason

A Man's life of any worth is a continual allegory, and very few eyes can see the Mystery of his life—a life like the scriptures, figurative—which such people can no more make out than they can the Hebrew Bible. Lord Byron cuts a figure but he is not figurative—Shakspeare led a life of Allegory: his works are the comments on it

And it is a very beautiful idea, and possibly true, that a common man from Stratford with a common education was able to write these plays.

I quickly learned, however, that a university education is not a prerequisite to reading Shakespeare. After all, his original audience was not college-educated. Neither was he.

Shakespeare's so bloody difficult, and I don't like failure. You can fail on film, but there's nobody actually there in the flesh to watch you failing.

William Shakespeare: My muse, as always, is Aphrodite. Philip Henslowe: Aphrodite Baggett, who does it behind the Dog and Crumpet?

The church is empty, but for the demented, grieving figure of SHAKESPEARE, kneeling, praying, weeping, banging his head, in his private purgatory, dimly lit by tallow candles, gazed upon by effigies of the dead and images of his Redeemer. He is wet, bedraggled, weeds and leaves in his hair.

Nine tenths of the ills from which intelligent people suffer spring from their intellect. They need at least a doctor who understands the disease. How can you expect Cottard to be able to treat you? He has made allowances for the difficulty of digesting sauces, for gastric trouble, but he has made no allowance for the effect of reading Shakespeare.

Zounds! I was never so bethumped with words since I first called my brother's father dad.

To fear the worst oft cures the worst.

We all fear loneliness, madness, dying. Shakespeare and Walt Whitman, Leopardi and Hart Crane will not cure those fears. And yet these poets bring us fire and light.

O all you host of heaven! O earth! What else?And shall I couple Hell?

Literature doesn't have a country. Shakespeare is an African writer. His Falstaff, for example, is very African in his appetite for life, his largeness of spirit. The characters of Turgenev are ghetto dwellers. di..ens' characters are Nigerians. Do y

He has made allowances for the difficulty of digesting sauces, for gastric trouble, but he has made no allowance for the effect of reading Shakespeare.

you know, my dear sir." "Oh!" said Ben literally, "I didn't know as you needed padding. All right, if it is necessary." "It's antique, and perfectly lovely, and just like Shakespeare," cried Polly

To like Keats is a test of fitness for understanding poetry, just as to like Shakespeare is a test of general mental capacity.

Here is a rural fellow that will not be denied your Highness' presence: he brings you figs.

Thy food is such As hath been belch'd on by infected lungs.

We must be free or die, who speak the tongue That Shakespeare spake; the faith and morals hold Which Milton held.

O friendship, I too will press flowers between the pages of Shakespeare's sonnets!

Avoiding the Scylla of the nunnery, Hermia sails dangerously close to the Charybdis of Titania's lust for the ass-headed Bottom, but emerges safely, and somewhat more self-knowledgeably, into the orderly harbor of marriage.

He was young, no older than fifteen, pale and dark-haired, wearing jeans and a soft white T-shirt that had SHAKESPEARE HATES YOUR EMO POEMS written across the chest.