Quotes by William Shakespeare

There is more things in heaven and earth...than are dreamt of by your philosophy.

And this our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything. I would not change it.

Knowing I lovd my books, he furnishd me From mine own library with volumes that I prize above my dukedom.

In time we hate that which we often fear.

Screw your courage to the sticking-place

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

I could a tale unfold whose lightest wordWould harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood,Make thy two eyes like stars start from their spheres,Thy knotted and combined locks to part,And each particular hair to stand on endLike quills upon the fretful porpentine.But this eternal blazon must not beTo ears of flesh and blood.List, list, O list!

Ay, but to die, and go we know not where;To lie in cold obstruction and to rot;This sensible warm motion to becomeA kneaded clod; and the delighted spiritTo bathe in fiery floods, or to resideIn thrilling region of thick-ribbed ice;To be imprisond in the viewless winds,And blown with restless violence round aboutThe pendent world; or to be worse than worstOf those that lawless and incertain thoughtImagine howling: tis too horrible!The weariest and most loathed worldly lifeThat age, ache, penury and imprisonmentCan lay on nature is a paradiseTo what we fear of death.

Tis in ourselves that we are thus or thus. Our bodies are our gardens to the which our wills are gardeners.

...what care I for words? Yet words do wellWhen he that speaks them pleases those that hear.

Words are easy, like the wind; Faithful friends are hard to find.

Give me that man that is not passions slave, and I will wear him in my hearts core, in my heart of heart, as I do thee.

I have unclaspd to thee the book even of my secret soul.

But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,All losses are restored and sorrows end.

Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;But do not dull thy palm with entertainmentOf each new-hatchd, unfledgd comrade.

This hand shall never more come near thee with such friendship

Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war!

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;Or close the wall up with our English dead!In peace theres nothing so becomes a manAs modest stillness and humility:But when the blast of war blows in our ears,Then imitate the action of the tiger.

I am afeard there are few die well that die in battle, for how can they charitably dispose of anything when blood is their argument?

In peace theres nothing so becomes a man as modest stillness and humility; but when the blast of war blows in our ears, then imitate the action of the tiger; stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood, disguise fair nature with hard-favord rage.