William Shakespeare

Let me embrace thee sour adversity, for wise men say it is the wisest course.

Life's 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.

They do not love that do not show their love.

When words are scarce they are seldom spent in vain.

But men are men, the best sometimes forget.

How far that little candle throws its beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world.

No legacy is so rich as honesty.

In time we hate that which we often fear.

My tongue will tell the anger of my heart, or else my heart concealing it will break.

You speak an infinite deal of nothing.

My love's more richer than my tongue.

Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under it.

Small things make base men proud.

Of all base passions, fear is the most accursed.

Delays have dangerous ends.

For you and I are past our dancing days.

Tempt not a desperate man.

Can one desire too much of a good thing?

A dish fit for the gods.

A dream itself is but a shadow.

Her passions are made of nothing but the finest part of pure love.

I pray you, do not fall in love with me, for I am falser than vows made in wine.

Doubt that the stars are fire, doubt that the sun doth move his aides, doubt truth to be a liar, but never doubt I love.

Love is blind, and lovers cannot see, the pretty follies that themselves commit.

The sight of lovers feedeth those in love.

Hear my soul speak. Of the very instant that I saw you, Did my heart fly at your service.

She’s beautiful, and therefore to be wooed; She is woman, and therefore to be won.

The worst is Death, and death will have his day.

Speak me fair in death.

Tired with all these, for restful death I cry.

What ugly sights of death within mine eyes!

I  am a man more sinned against than sinning.

We have seen better days.

Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps.

This is very midsummer madness.

Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments.

A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!

Beware the Ides of March.

Full fathom five thy father lies, of his bones are coral made. Those are pearls that were his eyes. Nothing of him that doth fade, but doth suffer a sea-change into something rich and strange.

Is this a dagger which I see before me, the handle toward my hand?

Time shall unfold what plighted cunning hides: Who cover faults, at last shame them derides.

Maids want nothing but husbands and when they have, them they want everything.

Is it not strange that desire should so many years outlive performance?

There's many a man has more hair than wit.

Men's vows are women's traitors!

Virtue is bold and goodness never fearful.

Many a good hanging prevents a bad marriage.

Expectation is the root of all heartache.

Things won are done, joy's soul lies in the doing.

It is not in the stars to hold our destiny, but in ourselves.

In a false quarrel there is no true valor.

Boldness be my friend.

Alas I am a woman, friendless, hopeless!

Children wish fathers looked but with their eyes, fathers that children with their judgment looked, and either may be wrong.

If you prick us do we not bleed? If you tickle us do we not laugh? If you poison us do we not die? And if you wrong us shall we not revenge?

Truly, I would not hang a dog by my will, much more a man who hath any honesty in him.

Suit the action to the word, the word to the action.

He that loves to be flattered is worthy o' the flatterer.

The fault, dear Brutus, lies not within the stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.

There have been many great men that have flattered the people who ne'er loved them.

Time and the hour run through the roughest day.

There is no darkness, but ignorance.

The attempt, and not the deed, confounds us.

Give me my robe, put on my crown, I have Immortal longings in me.

Well if Fortune be a woman, she's a good wench for this gear.

I will praise any man that will praise me.

Words without thoughts never to heaven go.

How poor are they that have not patience! What wound did ever heal but by degrees?

I say there is no darkness but ignorance.

To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.

Having nothing, nothing can he lose.

Most dangerous is that temptation that doth goad us on to sin in loving virtue.

Lawless are they that make their wills their law.

My crown is called content, a crown that seldom kings enjoy.

And this our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees books, in the running brooks sermons, in stones and good in everything.

The evil that men do lives after them, the good is oft interred with their bones.

As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods, they kill us for their sport.

Such as we are made of such we be.

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.

With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come.

The most peaceable way for you, if you do take a thief, is to let him show himself what he is, and steal out of your company.

O God, O God how weary stale flat and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of this world!

Where every something being blent together turns to a wild of nothing.

Let no such man be trusted.

Nature hath framed strange fellows in her time.

They say miracles are past.

How well he's read to reason against reading!

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.

When we are born, we cry that we are come to this great stage of fools.

Who could refrain that had a heart to love, and in that heart courage to make love known?

There's place and means for every man alive.

I hold the world but as the world Gratiano, A stage where every man must play a part, And mine is a sad one.

If you have tears prepare to shed them now.

God has given you one face and you make yourself another.

As he was valiant I honour him. But as he was ambitious I slew him.

O had I but followed the arts!

There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which taken at the flood leads on to fortune. Omitted all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat. And we must take the current when it serves or lose our ventures.

Reputation is an idle and most false imposition, oft got without merit and lost without deserving.

The lunatic, the lover, and the poet are of imagination all compact.

Talking isn't doing. It is a kind of good deed to say well, and yet words are not deeds.

I dote on his very absence.

I never see thy face but I think upon hell-fire.

A man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age.

What's done can't be undone.

Sweet are the uses of adversity, which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, wears yet a precious jewel in his head.

Now God be praised that to believing souls gives light in darkness, comfort in despair.

I wasted time and now doth time waste me.

And oftentimes excusing of a fault doth make the fault the worse by the excuse.

Let every eye negotiate for itself and trust no agent.

He does it with better grace, but I do it more natural.

Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot that it do singe yourself.

He that is giddy thinks the world turns round.

O thou invisible spirit of wine, if thou hast no name to be known by, let us call thee devil.

There's no art to find the mind's construction in the face.

So foul and fair a day I have not seen.

Women may fall when there's no strength in men.

Teach not thy lip such scorn, for it was made for kissing lady, not for such contempt.

Fishes live in the sea as men do a-land, the great ones eat up the little ones.

Love is too young to know what conscience is.

Farewell fair cruelty.

Death is a fearful thing.

O! Let me not be mad, not mad, sweet heaven! Keep me in temper, I would not be mad!

No I will be the pattern of all patience, I will say nothing.

I had rather have a fool to make me merry, than experience to make me sad and to travel for it too!

The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

If you can look into the seeds of time and say which grain will grow and which will not, speak then unto me.

The stroke of death is as a lover's pinch which hurts and is desired.

Use every man after his desert, and who should 'scape whipping?

Virtue itself scapes not calumnious strokes.

O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend. The brightest heaven of invention, A kingdom for a stage, princes to act.

The fashion of the world is to avoid cost, and you encounter it.

There was never yet fair woman, but she made mouths in a glass.

Things done well and with a care exempt themselves from fear.

Lord, Lord, how subject we old men are to this vice of lying!

Sweet mercy is nobility's true badge.

It is the stars, the stars above us, govern our conditions.

As soon go kindle fire with snow, as seek to quench the fire of love with words.

If it be a sin to covet honor I am the most offending soul.

I were better to be eaten to death with a rust, than to be scoured to nothing with perpetual motion.

What man defy the devil. Consider he's an enemy to mankind.

O' What may man within him hide, though angel on the outward side!

Go to you bosom: Knock there and ask your heart what it doth know.

It will have blood they say, blood will have blood.

I bear a charmed life.

For I can raise no money by vile means.

Men shut their doors against a setting sun.

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

Exceeds man's might: that dwells with the gods above.

I may neither choose whom I would nor refuse whom I dislike, so is the will of a living daughter curbed by the will of a dead father.

The undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns.

I see that the fashion wears out more apparel than the man.

Praise us as we are tasted, allow us as we prove.

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.

Our peace shall stand as firm as rocky mountains.

Wisely and slow. They stumble that run fast.

When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions.

How oft the sight of means to do ill deeds makes ill deeds done!

Love is not love that alters when it alteration finds.

Mind your speech a little lest you should mar your fortunes.

We are time's subjects, and time bids be gone.

The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.

He is winding the watch of his wit, by and by it will strike.

To do a great right, do a little wrong.

I shall the effect of this good lesson keeps as watchman to my heart.

O what a goodly outside falsehood hath!

Love to faults is always blind, always is to joy inclined. Lawless winged and unconfined and breaks all chains from every mind.

Poor and content is rich and rich enough.

My pride fell with my fortunes.