William Shakespeare (1564–1616), an English playwright and poet, is celebrated as one of the greatest figures in world literature. Born in Stratford-upon-Avon, his life remains somewhat enigmatic. Shakespeare’s extensive body of work encompasses tragedies like “Hamlet” and “Macbeth,” comedies such as “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” and historical plays like “Henry IV.” His writings, marked by poetic language and profound exploration of human nature, have left an indelible impact on literature and the arts. Shakespeare’s plays have been translated into numerous languages and continue to be adapted in various forms of media, attesting to the enduring and universal appeal of his storytelling and insights into the human condition.
William Shakespeare Quotes
1. “Listen to many, speak to a few.”
— William Shakespeare
2. “Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.”
— William Shakespeare
3. “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”
— William Shakespeare
4. “It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.”
— William Shakespeare
5. “Expectation is the root of all heartache.”
— William Shakespeare
6. “Some are born great, others achieve greatness.”
— William Shakespeare
7. “Don’t waste your love on somebody, who doesn’t value it.”
— William Shakespeare
8. “The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.”
— William Shakespeare
9. “I would challenge you to a battle of wits, but I see you are unarmed.”
— William Shakespeare
10. “The course of true love never did run smooth.”
— William Shakespeare
11. “All the world’s a stage.”
— William Shakespeare
12. “Go wisely and slowly. Those who rush stumble and fall.”
— William Shakespeare
13. “What’s done cannot be undone.”
— William Shakespeare
14. “Never play with the feelings of others. Because you may win the game but the risk is that you will surely lose the person for a life time.”
— William Shakespeare
15. “Et tu, Brute?”
— William Shakespeare
16. “My tongue will tell the anger of my heart, or else my heart concealing it will break.”
— William Shakespeare
17. “Hell is empty and all the devils are here.”
— William Shakespeare
18. “If music be the food of love, play on.”
— William Shakespeare
19. “These violent delights have violent ends.”
— William Shakespeare
20. “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.”
— William Shakespeare
21. “Be not afraid of greatness. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them.”
— William Shakespeare
22. “We know what we are, but not what we may be.”
— William Shakespeare
23. “I defy you, stars.”
— William Shakespeare
24. “Though she be but little, she is fierce!”
— William Shakespeare
25. “Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt.”
— William Shakespeare
26. “Who is it that can tell me who I am?”
— William Shakespeare
27. “To be or not to be that is the question.”
— William Shakespeare
28. “All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages.”
— William Shakespeare
29. “All’s well if all ends well.”
— William Shakespeare
30. “The golden age is before us, not behind us.”
— William Shakespeare
31. “This above all: to thine own self be true.”
— William Shakespeare
32. “The rest, is silence.”
— William Shakespeare
33. “Better three hours too soon than a minute too late.”
— William Shakespeare
34. “Better a witty fool, than a foolish wit.”
— William Shakespeare
35. “Words are easy, like the wind; Faithful friends are hard to find.”
— William Shakespeare
36. “When a father gives to his son, both laugh; when a son gives to his father, both cry.”
— William Shakespeare
37. “Good night, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say good night till it be morrow.”
— William Shakespeare
38. “Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind.”
— William Shakespeare
39. “There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
— William Shakespeare
40. “Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs.”
— William Shakespeare
41. “Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t.”
— William Shakespeare
42. “Presume not that I am the thing I was.”
— William Shakespeare
43. “Doubt thou the stars are fire; Doubt that the sun doth move; Doubt truth to be a liar; But never doubt I love.”
— William Shakespeare
44. “What’s in a name? that which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet.”
— William Shakespeare
45. “How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a weary world.”
— William Shakespeare
46. “Let me be that I am and seek not to alter me.”
— William Shakespeare
47. “With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come.”
— William Shakespeare
48. “When we are born, we cry that we are come to this great stage of fools.”
— William Shakespeare
49. “Stars, hide your fires; Let not light see my black and deep desires.”
— William Shakespeare
50. “Out, out, brief candle! Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
— William Shakespeare
51. “And this, our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything.”
— William Shakespeare
52. “There is a tide in the affairs of men which, taken at the floud, leads on to fortune ommitted, all the voyage of their lives are bound in shallows and in miseries.”
— William Shakespeare
53. “The prince of darkness is a gentleman!”
— William Shakespeare
54. “Words, words, words.”
— William Shakespeare
55. “Love is not love that alters when it alteration finds.”
— William Shakespeare
56. “Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.”
— William Shakespeare
57. “Come what come may, time and the hour run through the roughest day.”
— William Shakespeare
58. “Like madness is the glory of life.”
— William Shakespeare
59. “God hath given you one face, and you make yourself another.”
— William Shakespeare
60. “These violent delights have violent ends And in their triump die, like fire and powder Which, as they kiss, consume.”
— William Shakespeare
61. “Things without all remedy should be without regard: what’s done is done.”
— William Shakespeare
62. “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.”
— William Shakespeare
63. “In time we hate that which we often fear.”
— William Shakespeare
64. “I must be cruel only to be kind; Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind.”
— William Shakespeare
65. “As soon go kindle fire with snow, as seek to quench the fire of love with words.”
— William Shakespeare
66. “It is a wise father who knows his own child.”
— William Shakespeare
67. “All days are nights to see till I see thee, And nights bright days when dreams do show thee me.”
— William Shakespeare
68. “This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.”
— William Shakespeare
69. “O, when she’s angry, she is keen and shrewd! She was a vixen when she went to school; And though she be but little, she is fierce.”
— William Shakespeare
70. “The lunatic, the lover, and the poet, are of imagination all compact.”
— William Shakespeare
71. “Me, poor man, my library was dukedom large enough.”
— William Shakespeare
72. “I dare do all that may become a man; Who dares do more, is none.”
— William Shakespeare
73. “I wasted time, and now doth time waste me. Act V, Scene V.”
— William Shakespeare
74. “My words fly up, my thoughts remain below: Words without thoughts never to heaven go.”
— William Shakespeare
75. “O, wonder! How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world, That has such people in’t!”
— William Shakespeare
76. “Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak knits up the o-er wrought heart and bids it break.”
— William Shakespeare
77. “I do love nothing in the world so well as you. Is not that strange?”
— William Shakespeare
78. “If music be the food of love, play on, Give me excess of it; that surfeiting, The appetite may sicken, and so die.”
— William Shakespeare
79. “No legacy is so rich as honesty.”
— William Shakespeare
80. “Love comforteth like sunshine after rain.”
— William Shakespeare
81. “There was a star danced, and under that was I born.”
— William Shakespeare
82. “Do not swear by the moon, for she changes constantly. then your love would also change.”
— William Shakespeare
83. “For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds; Lillies that fester smell far worse than weeds.”
— William Shakespeare
84. “But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.”
— William Shakespeare
85. “Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?”
— William Shakespeare
86. “If we shadows have offended, Think but this, and all is mended, That you have but slumber’d here While these visions did appear.”
— William Shakespeare
87. “I despised my arrival on this earth and I despise my departure; it is a tragedy.”
— William Shakespeare
88. “I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow, than a man swear he loves me.”
— William Shakespeare
89. “What’s past is prologue.”
— William Shakespeare
90. “Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once.”
— William Shakespeare
91. “So full of artless jealousy is guilt, It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.”
— William Shakespeare
92. “Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more, Men were deceivers ever,- One foot in sea and one on shore, To one thing constant never.”
— William Shakespeare
93. “Women may fall when there’s no strength in men. Act II.”
— William Shakespeare
94. “I loved Ophelia. Forty thousand brothers could not, with all their quantity of love, make up my sum.”
— William Shakespeare
95. “I know a bank where the wild thyme blows, Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows, Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine, With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine.”
— William Shakespeare
96. “O, here Will I set up my everlasting rest, And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars From this world-wearied flesh. Eyes, look your last! Arms, take your last embrace! and, lips, O you The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss A dateless bargain to engrossing death!”
— William Shakespeare
97. “Lovers and madmen have such seething brains Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend More than cool reason ever comprehends.”
— William Shakespeare
98. “Absence from those we love is self from self – a deadly banishment.”
— William Shakespeare
99. “Sweets to the sweet.”
— William Shakespeare
100. “A glooming peace this morning with it brings; The sun, for sorrow, will not show his head: Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things; Some shall be pardoned, and some punished: For never was a story of more woe Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.”
— William Shakespeare
