Quotes by William Shakespeare

Hang there like a fruit, my soul, Till the tree die!-Posthumus LeonatusAct V, Scene V

Women may fail when there is no strength in man

You gotta be cruel to be kind.

Diseases desperate grown,By desperate appliance are relieved,Or not at all.

Be not self-willed, for thou art much too fairTo be death’s conquest and make worms thine heir.

Brutus: Kneel not, gentle Portia.Portia: I should need not, if you were gentle Brutus. Within the bond of marriage, tell me, Brutus, Is it excepted I should know no secrets That appertain to you? Am I yourself But, as it were, in sort or limitation, To keep with you at meals, comfort your bed, And talk to you sometimes? Dwell I but in the suburbs Of your good pleasure? If it be no more, Portia is Brutus harlot, not his wife.

Foul words is but foul wind, and foul wind is but foul breath, and foul breath is noisome; therefore I will depart unkissed.

Strike as thou didst at Caesar; for I know / When though didst hate him worst, thou loved’st him better / Than ever thou loved’st Cassius.

Friar Laurence:O, mickle is the powerful grace that liesIn herbs, plants, stones, and their true qualities: For nought to vile that on the earth doth live, But to the earth some special good doth give; nor aught so good, but, straind from that fair use, Revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse: Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied, And vice sometimes by action dignified.

My love is as a fever, longing stillFor that which longer nurseth the disease;Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,The uncertain sickly appetite to please.My reason, the physician to my love,Angry that his prescriptions are not kept,Hath left me, and I desperate now approve,Desire his death, which physic did except.Past cure I am, now reason is past care,And frantic-mad with evermore unrest;My thoughts and my discourse as madmens are,At random from the truth vainly expressd;For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright,Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.

n sooth, I know not why I am so sad:It wearies me; you say it wearies you;But how I caught it, found it, or came by it,What stuff tis made of, whereof it is born,I am to learn;And such a want-wit sadness makes of me,That I have much ado to know myself.

Ram. My lord constable, the armor that I saw in your tent to-night, are those stars or suns upon it?Con. Stars, my lord.Dau. Some of them will fall to-morrow, I hope.Con. And yet my sky shall not want.Dau. That may be, for you bear a many superfluously, and ’twere more honor some were away.Con. Even as your horse bears your praises; who would trot as well, were some of your brags dismounted.Henry V, 3.7.69-78

Lucentio: I read that I profess, the Art of Love.Bianca: And may you prove, sir, master of your art!Lucentio: While you, sweet dear, prove mistress of my heart!

I think hell be to Rome as is the osprey to the fish, who takes it by sovereignty of nature.

O ill-starred wench! Pale as your smock!

We will meet; and there we may rehearse mostobscenely and courageously.Shakespeare, Midsummer Nights Dream. Spoken by Bottom, Act I Sc. 2

This story shall the good man teach his son;And Crispin Crispian shall neer go by,From this day to the ending of the world,But we in it shall be remembered-We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;For he to-day that sheds his blood with meShall be my brother; be he neer so vile,This day shall gentle his condition;And gentlemen in England now-a-bedShall think themselves accursd they were not here,And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaksThat fought with us upon Saint Crispins day

More grief to hide than hate to utter love. Polonius, Hamlet.

In the corrupted currents of this worldOffences gilded hand may shove by justice,And oft tis seen the wicked prize itselfBuys out the law. . . (Claudius, from Hamlet, Act 3, scene 3)

When icicles hang by the wall, And Dick the shepherd blows his nail,And Tom bears logs into the hall, And milk comes frozen home in pail, When blood is nippd, and ways be foul,Then nightly sings the staring owl, To-whit! To-who!—a merry note, While greasy Joan doth keel the pot. When all aloud the wind doe blow,And coughing drowns the parsons saw, And birds sit brooding in the snow, And Marians nose looks red and raw, When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl, Then nightly sings the staring owl,To-whit! To-who!—a merry note, While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.