Quotes by William Shakespeare

Parting is such sweet sorrow that I shall say goodnight till it be morrow.

Seems, madam? Nay, it is; I know not seems.Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,Nor customary suits of solemn black, Nor windy suspiration of forced breath,No, nor the fruitful river in the eye, Nor the dejected havior of the visage,Together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief, That can denote me truly: these indeed seem, For they are actions that a man might play: But I have that within which passeth show; These but the trappings and the suits of woe.

Some grief shows much of love,But much of grief shows still some want of wit.

When Rosencrantz asks Hamlet, Good my lord, what is your cause of distemper? You do surely bar the door upon your own liberty, if you deny your grief to your friends(III, ii, 844-846), Hamlet responds, 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 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. (III,ii, 371-380)

Have I thought long to see this morning’s face,And doth it give me such a sight as this?

for my griefs so greatThat no supporter but the huge firm earthCan hold it up: here I and sorrows sit;Here is my throne, bid kings come bow to it.(Constance, from King John, Act III, scene 1)

My particular grief Is of so flood-gate and oerbearing nature That it engluts and swallows other sorrows, And it is still itself.

Howl, howl, howl, howl! O, you are men of stones!

Do not forever with thy vailed lidsSeek for thy noble father in the dust.Thou knowst tis common; all that lives must die,Passing though nature to eternity.

Each substance of grief hath twenty shadows, which shows like grief itself, but is not so; or sorrows eye, glazed with blinding tears, divides one thing entire to many objects: like perspectives which, rightly gazd upon, show nothing but confusion:

Well, every one can master a grief but he that has it.

Is there no pity sitting in the clouds that sees into the bottom of my grief?

The grief that does not speak whispers the oerfraught heart and bids it break.

Let us not burthen our remembrance withA heaviness thats gone.

I have a soul of leadSo stakes me to the ground I cannot move.

Not a whit, we defy augury: theres a specialprovidence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now,tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will benow; if it be not now, yet it will come: thereadiness is all.

​Sebastian: By your patience, no. My stars shine darkly over me; the malignancy of my fate might, perhaps, distemper yours; therefore I shall carve of you your leave that I may bear my evils alone. It were a bad recompense for your love to lay any of them on you.

Things at the worst will cease, or else climb upwardTo what they were before.

But I am bound upon a wheel of fire, that mine own tears do scald like moulten lead.

Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly:Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly:Then, heigh-ho, the holly!This life is most jolly.