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William Shakespeare Quotes (1564-)
Actor, Writer, Poet
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About William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare (26 April 1564 (baptised) – 23 April 1616) was an English poet, playwright, and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist.
Best William Shakespeare Quotes
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Explore our curated collection of the most famous and impactful William Shakespeare quotes.
“Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.”
- William Shakespeare, The Tempest
“Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments.”
Admit impediments.”
- William Shakespeare, Sonnets
William Shakespeare Quotes by Topic
Find exactly what you are looking for by browsing this categorized list of William Shakespeare quotes by topic.
William Shakespeare on Time 31 quotes
View all 31 quotes on Time →William Shakespeare on Fear 26 quotes
View all 26 quotes on Fear →William Shakespeare on Marriage 25 quotes
“A world-without-end bargain.”
- William Shakespeare, S)
William Shakespeare on Character 24 quotes
View all 24 quotes on Character →William Shakespeare on Law 24 quotes
View all 24 quotes on Law →William Shakespeare on Grief 24 quotes
“For grief is crowned with consolation.”
William Shakespeare on Words 23 quotes
View all 23 quotes on Words →William Shakespeare on Sleep 22 quotes
View all 22 quotes on Sleep →William Shakespeare on Music 22 quotes
View all 22 quotes on Music →William Shakespeare on Eating 21 quotes
“Unquiet meals make ill digestions.”
William Shakespeare on Cowardice 20 quotes
View all 20 quotes on Cowardice →What William Shakespeare Said About Others
Discover personal opinions William Shakespeare shared regarding contemporaries.
William Shakespeare on Women 55 quotes
View all 55 quotes on Women →William Shakespeare on Wives 7 quotes
View all 7 quotes on Wives →William Shakespeare on Mother Nature 2 quotes
“One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.”
- William Shakespeare, Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations)
William Shakespeare on Mothers 2 quotes
“And all my mother came into mine eyes And gave me up to tears.”
- William Shakespeare, S)
William Shakespeare on Cleopatra 2 quotes
View all 2 quotes on Cleopatra →William Shakespeare on Physician 2 quotes
“As testy sick men when their deaths be near, No news but health from their physicians know.”
William Shakespeare on Maiden 2 quotes
“The rude sea grew civil at her song, And certain stars shot madly from their spheres To hear the sea-maid's music.”
William Shakespeare on Anatole France
William Shakespeare on Marcus Junius Brutus
William Shakespeare on Jesus
William Shakespeare on Ovid
“Here are only numbers ratified; but, for the elegancy, facility, and golden cadence of poesy, caret. Ovidius Naso was the man: and why, indeed, Naso, but for smelling out the odoriferous flowers of fancy, the jerks of invention?”
William Shakespeare on Women in war
“And you degenerate, you ingrate revolts, You bloody Neroes, ripping up the womb Of your dear mother England, blush for shame! For your own ladies and pale-visag’d maids Like Amazons come tripping after drums, Their thimbles into armed gauntlets change, Their needles to lances, and their gentle hearts To fierce and bloody inclination.”
William Shakespeare on Neil Gaiman
Haunted by a detached perspective, Shakespeare, at the close of his career within the Sandman universe, confesses to exploiting his own life's joys and tragedies for the sake of his art.
“Whatever happened to me in my life, happened to me as a writer of plays. I'd fall in love, or fall in lust. And at the height of my passion, I would think, "So this is how it feels," and I would tie it up in pretty words. I watched my life as if it were happening to someone else. My son died. And I was hurt, but I watched my hurt, and even relished it, a little, for now I could write a real death, a true loss. My heart was broken by my dark lady, and I wept, in my room, alone; but while I wept, somewhere inside I smiled. For I knew I could take my broken heart and place it on the stage of The Globe, and make the pit cry tears of their own.”
- William Shakespeare, 1996)
William Shakespeare on Pompey
“O you hard hearts, you cruel men of Rome, Knew you not Pompey? Many a time and oft Have you climb'd up to walls and battlements, To towers and windows, yea, to chimney-tops, Your infants in your arms, and there have sat The livelong day, with patient expectation, To see great Pompey pass the streets of Rome: And when you saw his chariot but appear, Have you not made an universal shout, That Tiber trembled underneath her banks, To hear the replication of your sounds Made in her concave shores? And do you now put on your best attire? And do you now cull out a holiday? And do you now strew flowers in his way That comes in triumph over Pompey's blood? Be gone! Run to your houses, fall upon your knees, Pray to the gods to intermit the plague That needs must light on this ingratitude.”
William Shakespeare on Elizabeth I of England
“This royal infant—heaven still move about her— Though in her cradle, yet now promises Upon this land a thousand thousand blessings, Which time shall bring to ripeness: she shall be... A pattern to all princes living with her, And all that shall succeed... She shall be loved and feared. Her own shall bless her; Her foes shake like a field of beaten corn, And hang their heads with sorrow... In her days every man shall eat in safety Under his own vine, what he plants, and sing The merry songs of peace to all his neighbours... She shall be, to the happiness of England, An aged princess. Many days shall see her, And yet no day without a deed to crown it. Would I had known no more. But she must die— She must, the saints must have her—yet a virgin, A most unspotted lily shall she pass To th' ground, and all the world shall mourn her.”
Quotes About William Shakespeare
Gain deeper perspective through quotes about William Shakespeare from others.
Beatrice on William Shakespeare
Balthazar, on William Shakespeare
Hero, on William Shakespeare
Paula Gunn Allen on William Shakespeare
“The vision that impels feminists to action was the vision of the Grandmothers' society, the society that was captured in the words of the sixteenth-century explorer Peter Martyr nearly five hundred years ago. It is the same vision repeated over and over by radical thinkers of Europe and America, from François Villon to John Locke, from William Shakespeare to Thomas Jefferson, from Karl Marx to Friedrich Engels, from Benito Juarez to Martin Luther King, from Elizabeth Cady Stanton to Judy Grahn, from Harriet Tubman to Audre Lorde, from Emma Goldman to Bella Abzug, from Malinalli to Cherrie Moraga, and from Iyatiku to me. That vision as Martyr told it is of a country where there are "no soldiers, no gendarmes or police, no nobles, kings, regents, prefects, or judges, no prisons, no lawsuits... All are equal and free."”
Matthew Arnold on William Shakespeare 2 quotes
“I keep saying, Shakspeare, Shakspeare, you are as obscure as life is.”
Jane Austen on William Shakespeare
“Shakespeare one gets acquainted with without knowing how. It is a part of an Englishman's constitution. His thoughts and beauties are so spread abroad that one touches them every where, one is intimate with him by instinct.”
Stanley Baldwin on William Shakespeare 2 quotes
“Even if you do not realise it now, the time will come when you will be thankful that you were steeped in Shakespeare as boys. In him we not only have, as Sir Gerald Du Maurier said here not long ago, perhaps the greatest man the world has ever seen, but one who had a profound knowledge of human nature and of the world. Shakespeare was one of those few poets in whom we find the magic which comes straight from heaven, and which is the prerogative of the very greatest: such magic as we find in the poetry of Keats, in the first scene of the last act of The Merchant of Venice and throughout the sonnets.”
Harold Bloom on William Shakespeare 2 quotes
“Shakespeare will not make us better, and he will not make us worse, but he may teach us how to overhear ourselves when we talk to ourselves. Subsequently, he may teach us how to accept change, in ourselves as in others, and perhaps even the final form of change. Hamlet is death's ambassador to us, perhaps one of the few ambassadors ever sent out by death who does not lie to us about our inevitable relationship with that undiscovered country. The relationship is altogether solitary, despite all of tradition's obscene attempts to socialize it.”
Jorge Luis Borges on William Shakespeare
“History adds that before or after dying he found himself in the presence of God and told Him: "I who have been so many men in vain want to be one and myself." The voice of the Lord answered from a whirlwind: "Neither am I anyone; I have dreamt the world as you dreamt your work, my Shakespeare, and among the forms in my dream are you, who like myself are many and no one."”
Giannina Braschi on William Shakespeare
“Shakespeare is a bard of mass destruction.”
Robert Bridges on William Shakespeare
“Shakespeare's drama, where ideal women walk in worship, and the baser sort find sympathy.”
Elizabeth Barrett Browning on William Shakespeare
“There, Shakespeare, on whose forehead climb The crowns o' the world. Oh, eyes sublime With tears and laughter for all time.”
Misattributed Quotes
Quotes mistakenly credited to William Shakespeare
“Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. The saying goes you live by the sword you shall die by the sword...It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind. And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader and gladly so. How do I know? For this is what I have done. And I am Caesar.”
“Nothing is more common than the wish to be remarkable.”
“However wickedness outstrips men, it has no wings to fly from God.”
About William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare (26 April 1564 (baptised) – 23 April 1616) was an English poet, playwright, and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist.