Your old virginity is like one of our French withered pears: it looks ill, it eats drily.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, All's Well That Ends Well
Many a good hanging prevents a bad marriage.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Twelfth Night
Tis in ourselves that we are thus or thus. Our bodies are our gardens to the which our wills are gardeners.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Othello
What we have we prize not to the worth
Whilse we enjoy it, but being lacked and lost,
Why, then we rack the value, then we find
The virtue that possession would not show us
Whiles it was ours.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Much Ado About Nothing
Do but see his vice;
'Tis to his virtues a just equinox,
The one as long as the other.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Othello
Devils soonest tempt, resembling spirits of light.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Love's Labour's Lost
Silence is the perfectest herald of joy:
I were but little happy, if I could say how much.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Much Ado About Nothing
Brevity is the soul of wit.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Hamlet
The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices
Make instruments to plague us.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, King Lear
Violent delights have violent ends,
And in their triumph die; like fire and powder,
Which, as they kiss, consume.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Romeo and Juliet
Upon my tongues continual slanders ride,
The which in every language I pronounce,
Stuffing the ears of men with false reports
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Henry IV
Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, All's Well That Ends Well
There was speech in their dumbness, language in their very gesture.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, The Winter's Tale
My thoughts are whirled like a potter's wheel.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Henry VI, Part I
Farewell, Monsieur Traveller: look you lisp and wear strange suits, disable all the benefits of your own country.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, As You Like It
'Tis time to fear, when tyrants seem to kiss.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Pericles, Prince of Tyre
Truth makes all things plain.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, A Midsummer Night's Dream
Robes and furr'd gowns hide all. Plate sin with gold,
And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks;
Arm it in rags, a pigmy's straw doth pierce it.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, King Lear
Men should be what they seem;
Or those that be not, would they might seem none!
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Othello
'Tis slander,
Whose edge is sharper than the sword, whose tongue
Outvenoms all the worms of Nile, whose breath
Rides on the posting winds and doth belie
All corners of the world; kings, queens and states,
Maids, matrons, nay, the secrets of the grave
This viperous slander enters.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Cymbeline
I 'gin to be aweary of the sun,
And wish the estate o' the world were now undone.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Macbeth
A little snow, tumbled about, anon becomes a mountain.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, King John
Society is no comfort
To one not sociable.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Cymbeline
When sorrows come, they come not single spies,
But in battalions.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Hamlet
To weep with them that weep doth ease some deal;
But sorrow flouted at is double death.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Titus Andronicus
Wherever sorrow is, relief would be:
If you do sorrow at my grief in love,
By giving love, your sorrow and my grief were both extermin'd.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, As You Like It
The skies are painted with unnumber'd sparks,
They are all fire and every one doth shine,
But there's but one in all doth hold his place.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Julius Caesar
April hath put a spirit of youth in everything.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, "Sonnet XCVIII"
That orbed continent the fire
That severs day from night.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Twelfth Night
O shame! Where is thy blush?
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Hamlet
I'll speak to thee in silence.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Cymbeline
The robb'd that smiles, steals something from the thief;
He robs himself that spends a bootless grief.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Othello
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Sonnet XVIII
He hath never fed of the dainties that are bred in a book; he hath not eat paper, as it were; he hath not drunk ink: his intellect is not replenished; he is only an animal, only sensible in the duller parts.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Love's Labour's Lost
What then? what rests?
Try what repentance can: what can it not?
Yet what can it when one cannot repent?
O wretched state! O bosom black as death!
O limed soul, that struggling to be free
Art more engag'd!
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Hamlet
I have offended reputation,
A most unnoble swerving.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Antony and Cleopatra
These blessed candles of the night.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, The Merchant of Venice
And like bright metal on a sullen ground,
My reformation, glittering o'er my fault,
Shall show more goodly and attract more eyes
Than that which hath no foil to set it off.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Henry IV, Part I
I see my reputation is at stake:
My fame is shewdly gor'd.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Troilus and Cressida
What art thou, thou idol ceremony?
What kind of god art thou, that suffer'st more
Of mortal griefs than do thy worshippers?
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Henry V
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.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Henry IV, Part II
Or are you like the painting of a sorrow, a face without a heart?
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Hamlet
Give me that man
That is not passion's slave.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Hamlet
Many strokes, though with a little axe,
Hew down and fell the hardest-timber'd oak.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Henry VI, Part III
He that is proud eats up himself: pride is his own glass, his own trumpet, his own chronicle; and whatever praises itself but in the deed, devours the deed in the praise.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Troilus and Cressida
How goes it now, sir? This news which is called true is so like an old tale, that the verity of it is in strong suspicion.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, The Winter's Tale
My pride fell with my fortunes.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, As You Like It
Though this be madness, yet there is a method in't.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Hamlet
Let them obey that know not how to rule.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Henry VI, Part II
Art thou base, common and popular?
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Henry V
I am not mad; I would to heaven I were!
For then, 'tis like I should forget myself.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, King John
His nature is too noble for the world:
He would not flatter Neptune for his trident,
Or Jove for's power to thunder.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Coriolanus
Here comes Monsieur le Beau
With his mouth full of news,
Which he will put on us, as pigeons feed their young.
Then shall we be news-crammed.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, As You Like It
No, madam, 'tis not so well that I am poor, though many of the rich are damned.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, All's Well That Ends Well
Remember thee!
Yea, from the table of my memory
I'll wipe away all trivial fond records.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Hamlet
Men's evil manners live in brass; their virtues
We write in water.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Henry VIII
Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, The Tempest
We have seen better days.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Timon of Athens
Though I perchance am vicious in my guess,
As, I confess, it is my nature's plague
To spy into abuses, and oft my jealousy
Shapes faults that are not.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Othello
There's such divinity doth hedge a king,
That treason can but peep to what it would.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Hamlet
O, beware, my lord, of jealousy;
It is the green-ey'd monster, which doth mock
The meat it feeds on.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Othello
Great floods have flown
From simple sources, and great seas have dried
When miracles have by the greatest been denied.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, All's Well That Ends Well
And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen
Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, A Midsummer Night's Dream
Let us sit upon the ground
And tell sad stories of the death of kings:
How some have been depos'd, some slain in war,
Some haunted by the ghosts they have depos'd,
Some poison'd by their wives, some sleeping kill'd;
All murder'd.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Richard II
But jealous souls will not be answer'd so;
They are not ever jealous for the cause,
But jealous for they are jealous.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Othello
Ingratitude is monstrous; and for the multitude to be ingrateful, were to make a monster of the multitude.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Coriolanus
Who can say more than this rich praise, that you alone are you.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, "Sonnet 84"
Dispute not with her: she is lunatic.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Richard III
Wisely, and slow; they stumble that run fast.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Romeo and Juliet
Nay, but make haste; the better foot before.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, King John
In time we hate that which we often fear.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Antony and Cleopatra
See that you come
Not to woo honour, but to wed it.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, All's Well That Ends Well
There is a history in all men's lives.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, King Henry IV, Part II
Take note, take note, O world,
To be direct and honest is not safe.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Othello
Double double toil and trouble,
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Macbeth
Mine honor is my life, both grow in one. Take honor from me, and my life is done. Then, dear my liege, mine honor let me try; In that I live, and for that I will die.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Richard II
Away, and mock the time with fairest show;
False face must hide what the false heart doth know.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Macbeth
Jesters do often prove prophets.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, King Lear
Our stomachs
Will make what's homely savoury.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Cymbeline
Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Hamlet
My more-having would be as a sauce
To make me hunger more.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Macbeth
'Tis too much proved--that with devotion's visage
And pious action we do sugar o'er
The devil himself.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Hamlet
This is the fairy-land; O spite of spites!
We talk with goblins, owls and sprites.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, The Comedy of Errors
Let none presume
To wear an undeserv'd dignity.
O, that estates, degrees and offices
Were not deriv'd corruptly, and that clear honour
Were purchas'd by the merit of the wearer!
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, The Merchant of Venice
What are these,
So wither'd, and so wild in their attire;
That look not like the inhabitants o' th' earth,
And yet are on 't?
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Macbeth
I will instruct my sorrows to be proud: For grief is proud, and makes his owner stoop.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, King John
Glory is like a circle in the water,
Which never ceaseth to enlarge itself
Till, by broad spreading it disperse to nought.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Henry VI, Part I
Patch grief with proverbs; make misfortune drunk
With candle-wafters; bring him yet to me,
And I of him will gather patience.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Much Ado About Nothing
O, then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you.
She is the fairies' midwife, and she comes
In shape no bigger than an agate-stone
On the forefinger of an alderman.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Romeo and Juliet
The art of our necessities is strange,
That can make vile things precious.
