Quotations from Shakespeare plays

All's Well That Ends Well

Great floods have flown from simple sources. (Helena, II.i)

Antony and Cleopatra

Nay, but this dotage of our general’s o’erflows the measure (Philo, I.i)

There’s beggary in the love that can be reckon’d. (Antony, I.ii)

My salad days, when I was green in judgment, cold in blood, to say as I said then! (Cleopatra, I.v)

The barge she sat in, like a burnish’d throne, burn’d on the water; the poop was beaten gold, purple the sails, and so perfumed, that the winds were love-sick with them, the oars were silver, which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made the water which they beat to follow faster, as amorous of their strokes. For her own person, it beggar’d all description (Enobarbus, II.ii)

Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety; other women cloy the appetites they feed, but she makes hungry where most she satisfies; for vilest things become themselves in her, that the holy priests bless her when she is riggish. (Enobarbus, II.ii)

Tell him he wears the rose of youth upon him, (Antony, III.xi)

As You Like It

If thou remember'st not the slightest folly that ever love did make thee run into, thou hast not loved. (Silvius, II.iv)

Blow, blow, thou winter wind, thou art not so unkind as man's ingratitude. (Amiens, II.vii)

All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players (Jaques, II.vii)

Hamlet

A little more than kin, and less than kind. (Hamlet, I.ii)

Seems, madam! Nay, it is; I know not 'seems'. (Hamlet, I.ii)

O! That this too too solid flesh would melt, thaw, and resolve itself into a dew. (Hamlet, I.ii)

Frailty, thy name is woman! (Hamlet, I.ii)

Do not, as some ungracious pastors do, show me the steep and thorny way to heaven, whiles, like a puff'd and reckless libertine, himself the primrose path of dalliance treads. (Ophelia, I.iii)

Neither a borrower nor a lender be (Polonius, I.iii)

This above all: to thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man. (Polonius, I.iii)

It is a custom more honour'd in the breach than the observance. (Hamlet, I.iv)

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark. (Marcellus, I.iv)

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy. (Hamlet, I.v)

I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams. (Hamlet, II.ii)

There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. (Hamlet, II.ii)

What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form, in moving, how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? man delights not me; no, nor woman neither, though, by your smiling, you seem to say so. (Hamlet, II.ii)

O! what a rogue and peasant slave am I. (Hamlet, II.ii)

What's Hecuba to him or he to Hecuba that he should weep for her? (Hamlet, II.ii)

the play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king (Hamlet, II.ii)

The harlot's cheek, beautied with plastering art, is not more ugly to the thing that helps it than is my deed to my most painted word. (Claudius, III.i)

To be, or not to be: that is the question: whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing, end them? (Hamlet, III.i)

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us pause. (Hamlet, III.i)

who would fardels bear, to grunt and sweat under a weary life, but that the dread of something after death, the undiscover'd country from whose bourn no traveller returns, puzzles the will, and makes us rather bear those ills we have Than fly to others that we know not of? (Hamlet, III.i)

And thus the native hue of resolution is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, and enterprises of great pith and moment with this regard their currents turn awry, and lose the name of action. (Hamlet, III.i)

Get thee to a nunnery: why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners? (Hamlet, III.i)

O! what a noble mind is here o'erthrown: the courtier's, soldier's, scholar's, eye, tongue, sword; the expectancy and rose of the fair state, the glass of fashion and the mould of form, the observ'd of all observers, quite, quite down! (Ophelia, III.i)

The lady doth protest too much, methinks. (Gertrude, III.ii)

Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me. You would play upon me; you would seem to know my stops; you would pluck out the heart of my mystery; you would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass; and there is much music, excellent voice, in this little organ, yet cannot you make it speak. 'Sblood, do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, you cannot play upon me. (Hamlet, III.ii)

'Tis now the very witching time of night, (Hamlet, III.ii)

O! my offence is rank, it smells to heaven. (Claudius, III.iii)

What if this cursed hand were thicker than itself with brother's blood, is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens to wash it white as snow? (Claudius, III.iii)

Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell! I took thee for thy better. (Hamlet, III.iv)

How all occasions do inform against me, And spur my dull revenge! (Hamlet, IV.iv)

O! from this time forth, My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth! (Hamlet, IV.iv)

When sorrows come, they come not single spies but in battalions. (Claudius, IV.v)

Alas! poor Yorick. I knew him, Horatio; a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy; he hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is! my gorge rises at it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft. Where be your gibes now? (Hamlet, V.i)

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. (Hamlet, V.ii)

The rest is silence. (Hamlet, V.ii)

Now cracks a noble heart. Good-night, sweet prince, and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest! (Horatio, V.ii)

Henry IV, part 1[?]

Thou art so fat-witted, with drinking of old sack, and unbuttoning thee after supper, and sleeping upon benches after noon, that thou hast forgotten to demand that truly which thou wouldst truly know. (Prince Hal, I.ii)

Thou hast the most unsavory similes, and art, indeed, the most comparative, rascalliest, sweet young prince (Falstaff, I.ii)

thou hast damnable iteration, and art indeed able to corrupt a saint. (Falstaff, I.ii)

Sir John stands to his word, the devil shall have his bargain; for he was never yet a breaker of proverbs: he will give the devil his due. (Prince Hal, I.ii)

There’s neither honesty, manhood, nor good fellowship in thee, nor thou camest not of the blood royal, if thou darest not stand for ten shillings. (Falstaff, I.ii)

So, when this loose behaviour I throw off, and pay the debt I never promised, by how much better than my word I am by so much shall I falsify men’s hopes; 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. (Prince Hal, I.ii)

O! the blood more stirs to rouse a lion than to start a hare. (Hotspur, I.iii)

By heaven methinks it were an easy leap to pluck bright honour from the pale-fac’d moon, or dive into the bottom of the deep, where fathom-line could never touch the ground, and pluck up drowned honour by the locks; so he that doth redeem her thence might wear without corrival all her dignities: but out upon this half-fac’d fellowship! (Hotspur, I.iii)

If the rascal have not given me medicines to make me love him, I’ll be hanged (Falstaff, II.ii)

There live not three good men unhanged in England, and one of them is fat and grows old (Falstaff, II.iv)

’Tis not due yet: I would be loath to pay him before his day. What need I be so forward with him that calls not on me? Well, ’tis no matter; honour pricks me on. Yea, but how if honour prick me off when I come on? how then? Can honour set to a leg? No. Or an arm? No. Or take away the grief of a wound? No. Honour hath no skill in surgery then? No. What is honour? a word. What is that word, honour? Air. (Falstaff, V.i)

O, Harry! thou hast robb’d me of my youth. (Hotspur, V.iv)

The better part of valour is discretion (Falstaff, V.iv)

Lord, Lord, how this world is given to lying! I grant you I was down and out of breath; and so was he. But we rose both at an instant, and fought a long hour by Shrewsbury clock. (Falstaff, V.iv)

Henry IV, part 2[?]

I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other men. (Falstaff, I.ii)

He hath eaten me out of house and home (Mistress Quickly, II.i)

Well, thus we play the fools with the time, and the spirits of the wise sit in the clouds and mock us. (Prince Hal, II.ii)

he was indeed the glass wherein the noble youth did dress themselves (Lady Percy, II.iii)

O sleep! O gentle sleep! Nature’s soft nurse, how have I frighted thee, that thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down and steep my senses in forgetfulness? (King Henry IV, III.i)

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown. (King Henry IV, III.i)

We have heard the chimes at midnight (Falstaff, III.ii)

I know thee not, old man: fall to thy prayers; how ill white hairs become a fool and jester! (King Henry V, V.v)

Henry V

O! for a muse of fire, that would ascend the brightest heaven of invention; a kingdom for a stage, princes to act and monarchs to behold the swelling scene. (Chorus)

Self-love, my liege, is not so vile a sin, as self-neglecting. (Dauphin, II.iv)

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more; or close the wall up with our English dead! (King Henry, III.i)

If we are mark'd to die, we are enow to do our country loss; and if to live, the fewer men, the greater share of honour. God's will! (King Henry, IV.iii)

This day is call'd the feast of Crispian: he that outlives this day, and comes safe home, will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam'd, and rouse him at the name of Crispian. (King Henry, IV.iii)

We few, we happy few, we band of brother; for he to-day that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile this day shall gentle his condition: and gentlemen in England, now a-bed shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here, and hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks that fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day. (King Henry, IV.iii)

A good heart is the sun and the moon; or, rather, the sun and not the moon, for it shines bright and never changes. (King Henry, V.ii)

Henry VI, Part 2

The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers. (Dick, IV.ii)

Henry VI, Part 3

And many strokes, though with a little axe, Hew down and fell the hardest-timber'd oak. (Messenger, II.i)

Henry VIII[?]

Be to yourself as you would to your friend. (Norfolk, I.i)

Julius Caesar

When Cæsar says ‘Do this,’ it is perform’d. (Antony, I.ii)

Beware the ides of March. (Soothsayer, I.ii)

Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world like a Colossus; and we petty men walk under his huge legs, and peep about to find ourselves dishonourable graves. (Cassius, I.ii)

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings. (Cassius, I.ii)

Upon what meat doth this our Cæsar feed, that he is grown so great? (Cassius, I.ii)

Let me have men about me that are fat; sleek-headed men and such as sleep o’ nights. Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look; he thinks too much: such men are dangerous. (Caesar, I.ii)

I rather tell thee what is to be fear’d Than what I fear, for always I am Cæsar. (Caesar, I.ii)

For mine own part, it was Greek to me. (Casca, I.ii)

Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste death but once. (Caesar, II.ii)

Et tu, Brute? Then fall, Cæsar! (Caesar, III.i)

Cry ‘Havoc!’ and let slip the dogs of war. (Antony, III.i)

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears; I come to bury Cæsar, not to praise him. The evil that men do lives after them, The good is oft interred with their bones; So let it be with Cæsar. (Antony, III.ii)

For Brutus is an honourable man; So are they all, all honourable men, (Antony, III.ii)

O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts, And men have lost their reason. (Antony, III.ii)

This was the noblest Roman of them all. (Antony, V.v)

King Lear

Nothing will come of nothing: speak again. (Lear, I.i)

Unhappy that I am, I cannot heave my heart into my mouth: I love your majesty according to my bond; nor more nor less. (Cordelia, I.i)

Come not between the dragon and his wrath. (Lear, I.i)

Now, gods, stand up for bastards! (Edmund, I.ii)

This is the excellent foppery of the world, that, when we are sick in fortune,—often the surfeit of our own behaviour,—we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars; as if we were villains by necessity, fools by heavenly compulsion, knaves, thieves, and treachers by spherical predominance, drunkards, liars, and adulterers by an enforced obedience of planetary influence; and all that we are evil in, by a divine thrusting on: an admirable evasion of whoremaster man, to lay his goatish disposition to the charge of a star! (Edmund, I.ii)

Ingratitude, thou marble-hearted fiend, more hideous, when thou show'st thee in a child, than the sea-monster. (Lear, I.iv)

How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child! (Lear, I.iv)

Striving to better, oft we mar what's well. (Albany, I.iv)

Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow! (Lear, III.ii)

I am a man more sinn'd against than sinning. (Lear, III.ii)

Poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are, that bide the pelting of this pitiless storm, how shall your houseless heads and unfed sides, your loop'd and window'd raggedness, defend you from seasons such as these? O! I have ta'en too little care of this. Take physic, pomp; expose thyself to feel what wretches feel.(Lear, III.iv)

Child Rowland to the dark tower came, his word was still, Fie, foh, and fum, I smell the blood of a British man. (Edgar, III.iv)

As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods; they kill us for their sport. (Gloucester, IV.i)

Wisdom and goodness to the vile seem vile; filths savour but themselves. (Albany, IV.ii)

Ay, every inch a king (Lear, IV.vi)

Come, let's away to prison; we two alone will sing like birds i' the cage. (Lear, V.iii)

Howl, howl, howl, howl! O! you are men of stones: had I your tongues and eyes, I'd use them so that heaven's vaults should crack. She's gone for ever. I know when one is dead, and when one lives; she's dead as earth. (Lear, V.iii)

And my poor fool is hang'd! No, no, no life! Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life, and thou no breath at all? Thou'lt come no more, never, never, never, never, never! (Lear, V.iii)

The weight of this sad time we must obey; speak what we feel, not what we ought to say. The oldest hath borne most: we that are young, shall never see so much, nor live so long. (Albany, V.iii)

Macbeth

When shall we three meet again in thunder, lightning, or in rain? (First Witch, I.i)

When the hurlyburly's done, when the battle's lost and won. (Second Witch, I.i)

Fair is foul, and foul is fair: hover through the fog and filthy air. (Witches, I.i)

So foul and fair a day I have not seen. (Macbeth, I.iii)

Yet do I fear thy nature; it is too full o' the milk of human kindness to catch the nearest way. (Lady Macbeth, I.v)

Come, you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts! unsex me here, and fill me from the crown to the toe top full of direst cruelty. (Lady Macbeth, I.v)

Come to my woman's breasts, and take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers, wherever in your sightless substances you wait on nature's mischief! (Lady Macbeth, I.v)

If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well it were done quickly (Macbeth, I.vii)

I have no spur to prick the sides of my intent, but only vaulting ambition, which o'er-leaps itself and falls on the other. (Macbeth, I.vii)

I have given suck, and know how tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me: I would, while it was smiling in my face, have pluck'd my nipple from his boneless gums, and dash'd the brains out, had I so sworn as you have done to this. (Lady Macbeth, I.vii)

Methought I heard a voice cry "Sleep no more! Macbeth does murder sleep." (Macbeth, II.ii)

Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather the multitudinous seas incarnadine, making the green one red. (Macbeth, II.ii)

Double, double toil and trouble / Fire burn and cauldron bubble. (Witches, IV.i)

laugh to scorn the power of man, for none of woman born shall harm Macbeth. (Second Apparition, IV.i)

Macbeth shall never vanquish'd be until great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill shall come against him. (Third Apparition, IV.i)

Out, damned spot! out, I say! (Lady Macbeth, V.i)

all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. (Lady Macbeth, V.i)

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day, to the last syllable of recorded time; and all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more; it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. (Macbeth, V.v)

Measure for Measure

O! it is excellent to have a giant's strength, but it is tyrannous to use it like a giant. (Isabella, II.ii)

Let me be ignorant, and in nothing good, but graciously to know I am no better. (Isabella, II.iv)

They say, best men are moulded out of faults: And, for the most, become much more the better, for being a little bad. (Mariana, V.i)

The Merchant of Venice

In sooth, I know not why I am so sad. (Antonio, I.i)

The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose. (Antonio, I.iii)

All that glisters is not gold. (Morocco, reading scroll, II.vii)

I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? (Shylock, III.i)

The weakest kind of fruit drops earliest to the ground. (Antonio, IV.i)

The quality of mercy is not strain'd, it droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath (Portia, IV.i)

A Midsummer Night's Dream

Ay me! for aught that ever I could read, could ever hear by tale or history, the course of true love never did run smooth. (Lysander, I.i)

Over hill, over dale, thorough bush, thorough brier, over park, over pale, thorough flood, thorough fire, I do wander every where. (Fairy, II.i)

Lovers and madmen have such seething brains, such shaping fantasies, that apprehend more than cool reason ever comprehends. (Theseus, V.i)

If we shadows have offended/Think but this, and all is mended/That you have but slumber'd here/While these visions did appear. (Puck, V.ii)

Othello

For when my outward action doth demonstrate the native act and figure of my heart in compliment 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. (Iago, I.i)

Even now, now, very now, an old black ram is tupping your white ewe. (Iago, I.i)

your daughter and the Moor are now making the beast with two backs. (Iago, I.i)

Keep up your bright swords, for the dew will rust them. (Othello, I.ii)

My story being done, she gave me for my pains a world of sighs: she swore, in faith, 'twas strange, 'twas passing strange; 'twas pitiful, 'twas wondrous pitiful. (Othello, I.iii)

She lov'd me for the dangers I had pass'd, and I lov'd her that she did pity them. (Othello, I.iii)

Thus do I ever make my fool my purse. (Iago, I.iii)

I hate the Moor, and it is thought abroad that 'twixt my sheets he has done my office: I know not if 't be true, but I, for mere suspicion in that kind, will do as if for surety. (Iago, I.iii)

The Moor is of a free and open nature, that thinks men honest that but seem to be so, and will as tenderly be led by the nose as asses are. (Iago, I.iii)

Knavery's plain face is never seen till us'd. (Iago, II.i)

So will I turn her virtue into pitch, and out of her own goodness make the net that shall enmesh them all. (Iago, II.iii)

Excellent wretch! Perdition catch my soul but I do love thee! and when I love thee not, chaos is come again. (Othello, III.iii)

Men should be what they seem; or those that be not, would they might seem none! (Iago, III.iii)

He that filches from me my good name robs me of that which not enriches him, and makes me poor indeed. (Iago, III.iii)

O! beware, my lord, of jealousy; it is the green-ey'd monster which doth mock the meat it feeds on. (Iago, III.iii)

Think'st thou I'd make a life of jealousy, to follow still the changes of the moon with fresh suspicions? No; to be once in doubt is once to be resolved. (Othello, III.iii)

And, yet, how nature erring from itself, (Othello, III.iii)

If she be false, O! then heaven mocks itself. (Othello, III.iii)

O! now, for ever Farewell the tranquil mind; farewell content! (Othello, III.iii)

Villain, be sure thou prove my love a whore, Be sure of it; give me the ocular proof; or, by the worth of mine eternal soul, thou hadst been better have been born a dog than answer my wak'd wrath. (Othello, III.iii)

I hold my peace, sir? no; no, I will speak as liberal as the north; let heaven and men and devils, let them all, all, all, cry shame against me, yet I'll speak. (Emilia, V.ii)

Demand me nothing: what you know, you know: from this time forth I never will speak word. (Iago, V.ii)

I pray you, in your letters, when you shall these unlucky deeds relate, speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate, nor set down aught in malice: then, must you speak of one that lov'd not wisely but too well; of one not easily jealous, but, being wrought, perplex'd in the extreme; of one whose hand, like the base Indian, threw a pearl away richer than all his tribe; of one whose subdu'd eyes albeit unused to the melting mood, drop tears as fast as the Arabian trees their med'cinable gum. Set you down this; and say besides, that in Aleppo once, where a malignant and a turban'd Turk beat a Venetian and traduc'd the state, I took by the throat the circumcised dog, and smote him thus. (Othello, V.ii)

Pericles, Prince of Tyre[?]

We are gentlemen that neither in our hearts nor outward eyes envy the great nor shall the low despise. (First Knight, II.iii)

Richard II

Old John of Gaunt, time-honour'd Lancaster, (King Richard, I.i)

They say the tongues of dying men enforce attention, like deep harmony: Where words are scarce, they're seldom spent in vain. (Gaunt, II.i)

This royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle, this earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, this other Eden, demi-paradise, this fortress built by Nature for herself against infection and the hand of war, this happy breed of men, this little world, this precious stone set in the silver sea, which serves it in the office of a wall, or as a moat defensive to a house, against the envy of less happier lands, this blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England, this nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings, (Gaunt, II.i)

Not all the water in the rough rude sea can wash the balm from an anointed king; the breath of worldly men cannot depose the deputy elected by the Lord. (King Richard, III.ii)

Of comfort no man speak: let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs; make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes write sorrow on the bosom of the earth; let's choose executors and talk of wills: and yet not so—for what can we bequeath save our deposed bodies to the ground? (King Richard, III.ii)

For God's sake, 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: for within the hollow crown that rounds the mortal temples of a king keeps Death his court. (King Richard, III.ii)

I am greater than a king; for when I was a king, my flatterers were then but subjects; being now a subject, I have a king here to my flatterer. Being so great, I have no need to beg. (Richard, IV.i)

But soft, but see, or rather do not see, my fair rose wither: yet look up, behold, that you in pity may dissolve to dew, and wash him fresh again with true-love tears. (Queen, V.i)

As in a theatre, the eyes of men, after a well-graced actor leaves the stage, are idly bent on him that enters next. (York, V.ii)

Thoughts tending to content flatter themselves that they are not the first of fortune's slaves, nor shall not be the last (Richard, V.v)

Richard III

Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this sun of York; and all the clouds that lour'd upon our house in the deep bosom of the ocean buried. (Gloucester, I.i)

A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse! (King Richard, V.iv)

Romeo and Juliet

A pair of star cross'd lovers (I, Prologue)

O heavy lightness! (Romeo, I.i)

You kiss by the book. (Juliet, I.v)

My only love sprung from my only hate! (Juliet, I.v)

But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun! (Romeo, II.ii)

O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo? (Juliet, II.ii)

What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. (Juliet, II.ii)

Young men's love then lies not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes. (Friar Laurence, II.iii)

A plague o’ both your houses! (Mercutio, III.i)

There’s no trust, No faith, no honesty in men (Nurse, III.ii)

O true apothecary! Thy drugs are quick. Thus with a kiss I die. (Romeo V.iii)

The Taming of the Shrew

And do as adversaries do in law, strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends. (Tranio, I.ii)

What: is the jay more precious than the lark because his feathers are more beautiful? (Petruchio, IV.iii)

The Tempest

I come to answer thy best pleasure; be't to fly, to swim, to dive into the fire, to ride on the curl'd clouds (Ariel, I.ii)

You taught me language; and my profit on't is, I know how to curse. (Caliban, I.ii)

Full fathom five thy father lies/Of his bones are coral made/Those are pearls that were his eyes/Nothing of him that doth fade/But doth suffer a sea-change/Into something rich and strange. (Ariel, I,ii, referenced in T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land)

Be not afeard: the isle is full of noises, sounds and sweet airs, that give delight, and hurt not. Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments will hum about mine ears; and sometime voices, that, if I then had wak'd after long sleep, will make me sleep again: and then, in dreaming, the clouds methought would open and show riches ready to drop upon me; that, when I wak'd I cried to dream again. (Caliban, III.ii)

Our revels now are ended. These our actors, as I foretold you, were all spirits and are melted into air, into thin air: and, like the baseless fabric of this vision, the cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces, the solemn temples, the great globe itself, yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve and, like this insubstantial pageant faded, leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep. (Prospero, IV.i)

But this rough magic I here abjure; and, when I have requir'd some heavenly music, —which even now I do,— to work mine end upon their senses that this airy charm is for, I'll break my staff, bury it certain fathoms in the earth, and, deeper than did ever plummet sound, I'll drown my book. (Prospero, V.i)

O brave new world, that has such people in't! (Miranda, V.i)

As you from crimes would pardon'd be, Let your indulgence set me free. (Prospero, V.i)

Twelfth Night

If music be the food of love, play on; Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting, the appetite may sicken, and so die. That strain again! it had a dying fall: O, it came o’er my ear like the sweet sound that breathes upon a bank of violets, stealing and giving odour! (Orsino, I.i)

one draught above heat makes him a fool, the second mads him, and a third drowns him. (Feste, I.iii)

Bid the dishonest man mend himself; if he mend, he is no longer dishonest. (Olivia, I.v)

She never told her love, but let concealment, like a worm i’ the bud, feed on her damask cheek: she pined in thought, and with a green and yellow melancholy she sat like patience on a monument, smiling at grief. (Viola, II.iv)

Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them. (Malvolio, II.v)

For the rain it raineth every day. (Feste, V.i)

Two Gentlemen of Verona[?]

That man that hath a tongue, I say, is no man, if with his tongue he cannot win a woman. (Valentine, III.i)

The Winter's Tale

The silence often of pure innocence persuades when speaking fails. (Paulina, II.ii)

Daffodils that come before the swallow dares, and takes the winds of March with beauty. (Perdita, IV.iii)

External link

• 1395 quotes from Shakespeare (http://www.online-literature.com/quotes/quotation_search.php?author=William%20Shakespeare)