Quotes by William Shakespeare

Northumberland, thou ladder wherewithal the mounting Bolingbroke ascends my throne.

Middle Tennessee? Really? My bracket is more busted than Screechs face during puberty.

His beauty shall in these black lines be seen, and they shall live, and he in them still green.

Things bad begun make strong themselves by ill.

Within the infant rind of this small flowerPoison hath residence and medicine power.For this, being smelt, with that part cheers each part;Being tasted, stays all senses with the heart.Two such opposèd kings encamp them still,In man as well as herbs—grace and rude will. And where the worser is predominant,Full soon the canker death eats up that plant.(Inside the little rind of this weak flower, there is both poison and powerful medicine. If you smell it, you feel good all over your body. But if you taste it, you die. There are two opposite elements in everything, in men as well as in herbs—good and evil. When evil is dominant, death soon kills the body like cancer.)

You see we do, yet see you but our handsAnd this the bleeding business they have done:Our hearts you see not; they are pitiful

In emerald tufts, flowers purple, blue and white;Like sapphire, pearl, and rich embroidery,Buckled below fair knighthoods bending knee;Fairies use flower for their charactery.

it provokes the desire, but it takes away the performance

And thus I clothe my naked villainyWith odd old ends stoln out of holy writ;And seem a saint, when most I play the devil.

See you now your bait of falsehood take this carp of truth; and thus do we of wisdom and of reach, with windlasses and with assays of bias, by indirections find directions out.

Disguise, I see thou art a wickedness,/ Wherein the...enemy does much.

Smooth runs the water where the brook is deep.

Come, gentlemen, I hope we shall drink down all unkindness.

A good sherris-sack hath a twofold operation in it. It ascends me into the brain, dries me there all the foolish and dull and crudy vapors which environ it, makes it apprehensive, quick, forgetive, full of nimble, fiery, and delectable shapes, which, delivered oer to the voice, the tongue, which is the birth, becomes excellent wit.

When we our betters see bearing our woes,We scarcely think our miseries our foes.

Summers lease hath all too short a date.

O! how shall summers honey breath hold out, / Against the wrackful siege of battering days?

Then is courtesy a turncoat. But it is certain I am loved of all ladies, only you excepted: and I would I could find in my heart that I had not a hard heart; for, truly, I love none. Beatrice: A dear happiness to women: they would else have been troubled with a pernicious suitor. I thank God and my cold blood, I am of your humour for that: I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me. -Much Ado About Nothing

Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind.

Macbeth does murder sleep - the innocent sleep,Sleep that knits up the ravelld sleave of care,The death of each days life, sore labors bath, Balm of hurt minds, great natures second course, chief nourisher in lifes feast.