Quotes by William Shakespeare

[Act 5, Scene 4, ROSALIND] If I were a woman I would kiss as many of you as had beards that pleased me, complexions that liked me and breaths that I defied not: and, I am sure, as many as have good beards or good faces or sweet breaths will, for my kind offer, when I make curtsy, bid me farewell.

If I could write the beauty of your eyesAnd in fresh numbers number all your graces,The age to come would say this poet lies! Such heaven never touched earthly faces

Must I observe you? Must I stand & crouchUnder your testy humour? By the gods, You shall digest the venom ofyour spleen,Though it do split you, for, from thisday forth, Ill use you for my mirth, yea,for my laughter, when you are waspish.

No, take more! What may be sworn by, both divine and human, Seal what I end withal! This double worship, Where [one] part does disdain with cause, the other Insult without all reason; where gentry, title, wisdom, Cannot conclude but by the yea and no Of general ignorance— it must omit Real necessities, and give way the while To unstable slightness. Purpose so barr’d, it follows Nothing is done to purpose. Therefore beseech you— You that will be less fearful than discreet; That love the fundamental part of state More than you doubt the change on’t; that prefer A noble life before a long, and wish To jump a body with a dangerous physic That’s sure of death without it— at once pluck out The multitudinous tongue; let them not lick The sweet which is their poison. Your dishonor Mangles true judgment, and bereaves the state Of that integrity which should become’t; Not having the power to do the good it would, For th’ ill which doth control’t.

Turn hell-hound, turn.

How true a twain Seemeth this concordant one! Love hath reason, Reason none, If what parts, can so remain.

Timon: I’ll beat thee, but I should infect my hands.

Timon: Would thou wert clean enough to spit upon!

O mother, mother!What have you done? Behold, the heavens do ope,The gods look down, and this unnatural sceneThey laugh at. O my mother, mother! O!You have won a happy victory to Rome;But, for your son,--believe it, O, believe it,Most dangerously you have with him prevaild,If not most mortal to him.

Tis like she comes to speak of Cassio’s death,The noise was high. Ha! No more moving?Still as the grave. Shall she come in? Were ’t good?I think she stirs again—No. What’s best to do?If she come in, she’ll sure speak to my wife—My wife! my wife! what wife? I have no wife.Oh, insupportable! Oh, heavy hour!Methinks it should be now a huge eclipseOf sun and moon, and that th affrighted globeShould yawn at alteration.

I’ll prove the prettier fellow of the two and wear my dagger with the braver grace

The rest is silence.

I can say little more than I have studied, and that questions out of my part.

Then the conceit of this inconstant staySets you rich in youth before my sight,Where wasteful Time debateth with Decay,To change your day of youth to sullied night;And all in war with Time for love of you,As he takes from you I engraft you new.

And shake the yoke of inauspicious starsFrom this world-wearied flesh. Eyes, look your last!

For all that beauty that doth cover theeIs but the seemly raiment of my heart,Which in thy breast doth live, as thine in me.How can I then be elder than thou art?

To give yourself away keep yourself still,And you must live drawn by your own sweet skill.

But from thine eyes my knowledge I derive,And, constant stars, in them I read such art,As truth and beauty shall together thriveIf from thyself to store thou wouldst convert;Or else of thee I prognosticate,Thy end is truths and beautys doom and date.

Then, were not summers distillation leftA liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass,Beautys effect with beauty were bereft,Nor it nor no remembrance what it was.But flowers distilled, though they with winter meet,Leese but their show; their substance still lives sweet.

Then of thy beauty do I question make,That thou among the wastes of time must go,Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake,And die as fast as they see others grow.