William Shakespeare Quotes
William Shakespeare was a playwright and poet who lived during the late 16th and early 17th centuries. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest writers in the English language, and his work has been translated into dozens of languages. Over the years, Shakespeare’s quotes have become famous for their wisdom and insightfulness. Here are some of the best quotes from William Shakespeare that are sure to inspire and enlighten you.
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We cannot conceive of matter being formed of nothing, since things require a seed to start from… Therefore there is not anything which returns to nothing, but all things return dissolved into their elements.
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God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another.
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A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool.
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Many a good hanging prevents a bad marriage.
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Kindness in women, not their beauteous looks, shall win my love.
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What’s done can’t be undone.
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Such as we are made of, such we be.
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Let me embrace thee, sour adversity, for wise men say it is the wisest course.
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Nature hath framed strange fellows in her time.
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Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
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False face must hide what the false heart doth know.
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The valiant never taste of death but once.
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It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.
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I say there is no darkness but ignorance.
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The lady doth protest too much, methinks.
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Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice.
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I must be cruel, only to be kind.
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I was adored once too.
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How far that little candle throws its beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world.
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He that is giddy thinks the world turns round.
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Lord, Lord, how subject we old men are to this vice of lying!
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Boldness be my friend.
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As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods; they kill us for their sport.
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Neither a borrower nor a lender be.
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Doubt thou the stars are fire, Doubt that the sun doth move. Doubt truth to be a liar, But never doubt I love.
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Give thy thoughts no tongue.
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Virtue itself scapes not calumnious strokes.
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I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.
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Better a witty fool than a foolish wit.
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O! for a muse of fire, that would ascend the brightest heaven of invention.
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Words without thoughts never to heaven go.
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Things done well and with a care, exempt themselves from fear.
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Now, God be praised, that to believing souls gives light in darkness, comfort in despair.
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Thou know’st the first time that we smell the air we wawl and cry. When we are born we cry, that we are come to this great state of fools.
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God has given you one face, and you make yourself another.
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If you have tears, prepare to shed them now.
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The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.
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A man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age.
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Speak low, if you speak love.
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Like as the waves make towards the pebbl’d shore, so do our minutes, hasten to their end.
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Sweet are the uses of adversity which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, wears yet a precious jewel in his head.
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Love sought is good, but given unsought, is better.
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O’ What may man within him hide, though angel on the outward side!
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We know what we are, but know not what we may be.
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Modest doubt is called the beacon of the wise.
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Better three hours too soon than a minute too late.
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The fashion of the world is to avoid cost, and you encounter it.
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When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions.
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Life is as tedious as twice-told tale, vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man.
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Listen to many, speak to a few.
William Shakespeare
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The fashion of the world is to avoid cost, and you encounter it.
William Shakespeare -
When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions.
William Shakespeare -
Life is as tedious as twice-told tale, vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man.
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Listen to many, speak to a few.
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Use every man after his desert, and who should scape whipping?
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If we are marked to die, we are enough to do our country loss; and if to live, the fewer men, the greater share of honor.
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Death is a fearful thing.
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My crown is called content, a crown that seldom kings enjoy.
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There have been many great men that have flattered the people who ne’er loved them.
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I see that the fashion wears out more apparel than the man.
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How well he’s read, to reason against reading!
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Having nothing, nothing can he lose.
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He is winding the watch of his wit; by and by it will strike.
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Where every something, being blent together turns to a wild of nothing.
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The man that hath no music in himself, Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils.
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In time we hate that which we often fear.
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Faith, there hath been many great men that have flattered the people who ne’er loved them.
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Wisely, and slow. They stumble that run fast.
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Tis one thing to be tempted, another thing to fall.
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Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once.
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The very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream.
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Lawless are they that make their wills their law.
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Men are April when they woo, December when they wed. Maids are May when they are maids, but the sky changes when they are wives.
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For I can raise no money by vile means.
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Is it not strange that desire should so many years outlive performance?
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Now is the winter of our discontent.
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One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.
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Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall.
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We are time’s subjects, and time bids be gone.
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Farewell, fair cruelty.
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I may neither choose who I would, nor refuse who I dislike; so is the will of a living daughter curbed by the will of a dead father.
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What is past is prologue.
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Maids want nothing but husbands, and when they have them, they want everything.
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Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful.
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Reputation is an idle and most false imposition; oft got without merit, and lost without deserving.
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So foul and fair a day I have not seen.
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Men’s vows are women’s traitors!
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I give unto my wife my second best bed with the furniture.
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How oft the sight of means to do ill deeds makes ill deeds done!
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Ignorance is the curse of God; knowledge is the wing wherewith we fly to heaven.
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There was never yet fair woman but she made mouths in a glass.
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Things won are done, joy’s soul lies in the doing.
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And why not death rather than living torment? To die is to be banish’d from myself; And Silvia is myself: banish’d from her Is self from self: a deadly banishment!
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I had rather have a fool to make me merry than experience to make me sad and to travel for it too!
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What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god.
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Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.
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Truly, I would not hang a dog by my will, much more a man who hath any honesty in him.
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Men shut their doors against a setting sun.
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It is a wise father that knows his own child.
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There’s not a note of mine that’s worth the noting.
William Shakespeare
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The attempt and not the deed confounds us.
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O thou invisible spirit of wine, if thou hast no name to be known by, let us call thee devil.
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I bear a charmed life.
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Life every man holds dear; but the dear man holds honor far more precious dear than life.
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Let every eye negotiate for itself and trust no agent.
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With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come.
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O! Let me not be mad, not mad, sweet heaven; keep me in temper; I would not be mad!
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If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men’s cottage princes’ palaces.
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When we are born we cry that we are come to this great stage of fools.
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If music be the food of love, play on.
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The wheel is come full circle.
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The robbed that smiles, steals something from the thief.
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Brevity is the soul of wit.
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A peace is of the nature of a conquest; for then both parties nobly are subdued, and neither party loser.
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There is no darkness but ignorance.
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Pleasure and action make the hours seem short.
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I dote on his very absence.
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I were better to be eaten to death with a rust than to be scoured to nothing with perpetual motion.
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Suit the action to the word, the word to the action.
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Desire of having is the sin of covetousness.
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Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind.
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Love is too young to know what conscience is.
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If you can look into the seeds of time, and say which grain will grow and which will not, speak then unto me.
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It will have blood, they say; blood will have blood.
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Tis best to weigh the enemy more mighty than he seems.
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This above all; to thine own self be true.
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Women may fall when there’s no strength in men.
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To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.
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Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.
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The lunatic, the lover, and the poet, are of imagination all compact.
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And this, our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything.
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And oftentimes excusing of a fault doth make the fault the worse by the excuse.
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Nothing can come of nothing.
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Exceeds man’s might: that dwells with the gods above.
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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.
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O God, O God, how weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of this world!
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Well, if Fortune be a woman, she’s a good wench for this gear.
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But O, how bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man’s eyes.
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An overflow of good converts to bad.
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Though she be but little, she is fierce.
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This life, which had been the tomb of his virtue and of his honour, is but a walking shadow; a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
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Go to you bosom: Knock there, and ask your heart what it doth know.
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The undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns.
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Fortune brings in some boats that are not steered.
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Words, words, mere words, no matter from the heart.
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Poor and content is rich, and rich enough.
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As he was valiant, I honour him. But as he was ambitious, I slew him.
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No, I will be the pattern of all patience; I will say nothing.
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Sweet mercy is nobility’s true badge.
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If it be a sin to covet honor, I am the most offending soul.
William Shakespeare
