Wooing, wedding, and repenting is as a Scotch jig, a measure, and a cinque-pace: the first suit is hot and hasty like a Scotch jig--and full as fantastical; the wedding, mannerly modest, as a measure, full of state and ancientry; and then comes repentance and with his bad legs falls into the cinque-pace faster and faster, till he sink into his grave.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Much Ado About Nothing
Full oft we see
Cold wisdom waiting on superfluous folly.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, All's Well That Ends Well
Thy wit is as quick as the greyhound's mouth; it catches.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Much Ado About Nothing
Winter's not gone yet, if the wild-geese fly that way.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, King Lear
Wisdom and goodness to the vile seem vile.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, King Lear
A sentence is but a cheveril glove to a good wit;
How quickly the wrong side may be turned outward!
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Twelfth Night
Get a prayer-book in your hand,
And stand betwixt two churchmen.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Richard III
Saint Valentine is past;
Begin these wood-birds but to couple now?
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, A Midsummer Night's Dream
The jewel that we find, we stoop and take it
Because we see it; but what we do not see
We tread upon and never think of it.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Measure for Measure
Light vanity, insatiate cormorant,
Consuming means, soon preys upon itself.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Richard II
Where doth the world thrust forth a vanity--
So it be
new, there's no respect how vile--
That is not quickly
buzzed into his ears?
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Richard II
Vengeance is in my heart, death in my hand,
Blood and revenge are hammering in my head.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Titus Andronicus
The spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Hamlet
There is no vice so simple but assumes
Some mark of virtue on his outward parts.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, The Merchant of Venice
That, you were made of, is metal to make virgins. Virginity, by being once lost, may be ten times found; by being ever kept, it is ever lost: 'tis too cold a companion; away with it.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, All's Well That Ends Well
Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back,
Wherein he puts alms for oblivion.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Troilus and Cressida
No, I'll not weep:
I have full cause of weeping; but this heart
Shall break into a hundred thousand flaws
Or ere I'll weep.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, King Lear
My plenteous joys,
Wanton in fullness, seek to hide themselves
In drops of sorrow.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Macbeth
I cannot weep; for all my body's moisture
Scarce serves to quench my furnace-burning heart.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Henry VI, Part III
Did he break into tears?
In great measure.
A kind overflow of kindness: there are no faces truer than those that are so washed.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Much Ado About Nothing
See, see what showers arise,
Blown with the windy tempest of my heart.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Henry VI, Part III
What I should say
My tears gainsay; for every word I speak,
Ye see, I drink the water of mine eyes.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Henry VI, Part III
Most dangerous
Is that temptation that doth goad us on
To sin in loving virtue.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Measure for Measure
The river Thames that by our door doth pass,
His first beginning is but small and shallow;
Yet, keeping on his course, grows to a sea.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, his authorship of this play has been rejected by modern scholars who sometimes attribute it to Wentworth Smith or William Sly, The Life and Death of Thomas, Lord Cromwell
Had I but died an hour before this chance
I had liv'd a blessed time; for, from this instant,
There's nothing serious in mortality:
All is but toys; renown and grace is dead:
The wine of life is drawn, and the mere lees
Is left this vault to brag of.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Macbeth
Under the greenwood tree
Who loves to lie with me,
And tune his merry note
Unto the sweet bird's throat,
Come hither, come hither, come hither:
No enemy here shall he see,
But winter and rough weather.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, As You Like It
When I was at home, I was in a better place; but travellers must be content.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, As You Like It
I knew him tyrannous, and tyrants' fears
Decrease not, but grow faster than the years.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Pericles, Prince of Tyre
The mightier man, the mightier is the thing
What makes him honour'd, or begets him hate;
For greatest scandal waits on greatest state.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, The Rape of Lucrece
If you have hitherto conceal'd this sight,
Let it be tenable in your silence still.
And whatsoever else shall hap to-night,
Give it an understanding, but no tongue.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Hamlet
I am a man
More sinn'd against than sinning.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, King Lear
O, fie, fie, fie!
Thy sin's not accidental, but a trade.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Measure for Measure
He that doth the ravens feed,
Yea, providently caters for the sparrow,
Be comfort to my age!
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, As You Like It
Two may keep counsel, putting one away.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Romeo and Juliet
Master, master! news, old news, and such news as you never heard of!
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, The Taming of the Shrew
What need we any spur but our own cause,
To prick us to redress?
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Julius Caesar
All is confounded, all!
Reproach and everlasting shame
Sits mocking in our plumes.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Henry V
Be check'd for silence,
But never tax'd for speech.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, All's Well That Ends Well
Some sins do bear their privilege on earth.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, King John
O! she will sing the savageness out of a bear.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Othello
So thou be good, slander doth but approve
Thy worth the greater.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Sonnet LXX
Those happy smilets,
That play'd on her ripe lip, seem'd not to know
What guests were in her eyes; which parted thence,
As pearls from diamonds dropp'd.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, King Lear
Parting is such sweet sorrow that I shall say goodnight till it be morrow.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Romeo and Juliet
Joy, being altogether wanting,
It doth remember me the more of sorrow.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Richard II
Shine out, fair sun, till I have bought a glass,
That I may see my shadow as I pass.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Richard III
A plague upon it when thieves cannot be true one to another!
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Henry IV, Part I
His tongue is now a stringless instrument.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Richard II
If all the year were playing holidays;
to sport would be as tedious as work.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Henry IV
Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind;
The thief doth fear each bush an officer.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Henry VI, Part III
Men shut their doors against a setting sun.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Timon of Athens
Why, all the souls that are were forfeit once;
And He that might the vantage best have took
Found out the remedy.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Measure for Measure
The purest treasure mortal times afford
Is spotless reputation; that away,
Men are but gilded loam or painted clay.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Richard II
Good name in man and woman, dear my lord,
Is the immediate jewel of their souls:
Who steals my purse steals trash; 'tis something, nothing;
'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands;
But he that filches from me my good name,
Robs me of that which not enriches him,
And makes me poor indeed.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Othello
The sauce to meat is ceremony;
Meeting were bare without it.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Macbeth
Never came reformation in a flood.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Henry V
I will be gone:
That pitiful rumour may report my flight,
To coasolate thine ear.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, All's Well That Ends Well
The painting is almost the natural man:
For since dishonour traffics with man's nature,
He is but outside; pencill'd figures are
Ev'n such as they give out.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Timon of Athens
Know you not,
The fire, that mounts the liquor till it run o'er,
In seeming to augment it, wastes it? Be advis'd:
I say again, there is no English soul
More stronger to direct you than yourself;
If with the sap of reason you would quench,
Or but allay, the fire of passion.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Henry VIII
Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Hamlet
Those that much covet are with gain so fond,
For what they have not, that which they possess
They scatter and unloose it from their bond,
And so, by hoping more, they have but less;
Or, gaining more, the profit of excess
Is but to surfeit, and such griefs sustain,
That they prove bankrupt in this poor-rich gain.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, The Rape of Lucrece
Come, give us a taste of your quality.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Hamlet
My words fly up, my thoughts remain below;
Words without thoughts never to heaven go.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Hamlet
Bow, stubborn knees; and, heart, with strings of steel,
Be soft as sinews of the new-born babe.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Hamlet
All things are ready, if our mind be so.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Henry V
I do hate a proud man, as I hate the engendering of toads.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Troilus and Cressida
I have ventur'd,
Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders,
This many summers in a sea of glory,
But far beyond my depth: my high-blown pride
At length broke under me.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Henry VIII
I have been studying how I may compare
This prison where I live unto the world:
And for because the world is populous
And here is not a creature but myself,
I cannot do it; yet I'll hammer it out.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Richard II
Nor stony tower, nor walls of beaten brass,
Nor airless dungeon, nor strong links of iron,
Can be retentive to the strength of spirit;
But life, being weary of these worldly bars,
Never lacks power to dismiss itself.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Julius Caesar
Past and to come seems best; things present, worst.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Henry IV, Part 2
We are not ourselves
When nature, being oppress'd, commands the mind
To suffer with the body.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, King Lear
Now sit we close about this taper here,
And call in question our necessities.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Julius Caesar
There's a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. 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.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Hamlet
Omission to do what is necessary
Seals a commission to a blank of danger.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Troilus and Cressida
Who are you? Why do you hide in the darkness and listen to my private thoughts?
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Romeo and Juliet
Fetter strong madness in a silken thread.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Much Ado About Nothing
And be these juggling fiends no more believ'd,
That palter with us in a double sense:
That keep the word of promise to our ear,
And break it to our hope.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Macbeth
Thy promises are like Adonis' gardens
That one day bloomed and fruitful were the next.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Henry VI, Part I
We know what we are, but know not what we may be.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Hamlet
Necessity's sharp pinch!
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, King Lear
Madness in great ones must not unwatched go.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Hamlet
Divinely bent to meditation;
And in no worldly suits would he be mov'd,
To draw him from his holy exercise.Madness in great ones must not unwatched go.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Richard III
Fit for the mountains and the barb'rous caves,
Where manners ne'er were preach'd.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Twelfth Night
News fitting to the night,
Black, fearful, comfortless and horrible.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, King John
The force of his own merit makes his way.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Henry VIII
Meagre were his looks,
Sharp misery had worn him to the bones.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Romeo and Juliet
Misery makes sport to mock itself.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Richard II
Can it be
That modesty may more betray our sense
Than woman's lightness? Having waste ground enough,
Shall we desire to raze the sanctuary
And pitch our evils there?
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Measure for Measure
The worst is not
So long as we can say "This is the worst."
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, King Lear
O, give me thy hand,
One writ with me in sour misfortune's book.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Romeo and Juliet
Not stepping o'er the bounds of modesty.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Romeo and Juliet
The king's name is a tower of strength,
Which they upon the adverse party want.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Richard III
And all my mother came into mine eyes
And gave me up to tears.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Henry V
Trifles light as air
Are to the jealous confirmations strong
As proofs of holy writ.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Othello
My Crown is in my heart, not on my head:
Not deck'd with Diamonds, and Indian stones:
Nor to be seen: my Crown is call'd Content,
A Crown it is, that seldom Kings enjoy.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Henry VI, Part III
It must be so; for miracles are ceased
And therefore we must needs admit the means
How things are perfected.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Henry V
A substitute shines brightly as a king
Until a king be by, and then his state
Empties itself, as doth an inland brook
Into the main waters.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, The Merchant of Venice
The common curse of mankind -- folly and ignorance.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Troilus and Cressida
O thou monster, Ignorance, how deformed dost thou look!
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Love's Labour's Lost
For he's honourable
And doubling that, most holy.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Cymbeline
For honour travels in a strait so narrow,
Where one but goes abreast.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Troilus and Cressida
If it be a sin to covet honor, I am the most offending soul alive.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Henry V
Thou art a fellow of a good respect;
Thy life hath had some smatch of honour in it.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Julius Caesar
The lunatic, the lover and the poet
Are of imagination all compact.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, A Midsummer Night's Dream
This is the very coinage of your brain:
This bodiless creation ecstasy.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Hamlet
This sickness doth infect
The very life-blood of our enterprise.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Henry IV, Part I
Her immortal part with angels lives.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Romeo and Juliet
O sleep, O gentle sleep, Nature's soft nurse, how have I frightened thee. That thou no more will weigh my eyelids down, And steep my senses in forgetfulness?
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Henry IV, Part 2
Ingratitude! thou marble-hearted fiend,
More hideous, when thou show'st thee in a child,
Than the sea-monster!
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, King Lear
A jest's prosperity lies in the ear
Of him that hears it, never in the tongue
Of him that makes it.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Love's Labour's Lost
Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Julius Caesar
I hate ingratitude more in a man,
Than lying, vainness, babbling, drunkenness,
Or any taint of vice.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Twelfth Night
Now I perceive the devil understands Welsh;
And 'tis no marvel he is so humorous.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Henry IV, Part I
They said they were an-hungry; sigh'd forth proverbs,
That hunger broke stone walls, that dogs must eat,
That meat was made for mouths, that the gods sent not
Corn for the rich men only: with these shreds
They vented their complainings.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Coriolanus
But then I sigh; and, with a piece of scripture,
Tell them that God bids us do good for evil:
And thus I clothe my naked villainy
With old odd ends stolen out of holy writ;
And seem a saint, when most I play the devil.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Richard III
If I shall be condemn'd
Upon surmises, all proofs sleeping else
But what your jealousies awake, I tell you,
'Tis rigour, and not law.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, The Winter's Tale
Small herbs have grace, great weeds do grow apace.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Richard III
Now 'tis the spring, and weeds are shallow-rooted;
Suffer them now, and they'll o'ergrow the garden,
And choke the herbs for want of husbandry.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Henry VI
I will speak daggers to her, but use none;
My tongue and soul in this be hypocrites.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Hamlet
The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead
Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Hamlet
Do not spread the compost on the weeds
To make them ranker.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Hamlet
There is thy gold, worse poison to men's souls,
Doing more murder in this loathsome world,
Than these poor compounds that thou mayst not sell.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Romeo and Juliet
They are fairies; he that speaks to them shall die:
I'll wink and couch: no man their works must eye.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Merry Wives of Windsor
O Lord, that lends me life,
Lend me a heart replete with thankfulness!
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Henry VI, Part II
I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
Why, so can I, or so can any man;
But will they come when you do call for them?
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Henry IV, Part I
To weep is to make less the depth of grief.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Henry VI, Part III
Fairies, black, grey, green, and white,
You moonshine revellers, and shades of night.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Merry Wives of Windsor
To me, and to the state of my great grief,
Let kings assemble; for my grief's so great
That no supporter but the huge firm earth
Can hold it up: here I and sorrow sit;
Here is my throne, bid kings come bow to it.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, King John
And then it started like a guilty thing
Upon a fearful summons.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Hamlet
A lion among ladies is a most dreadful thing.
