108 Shakespeare Quotes - Love, Life & Wisdom
Love and Romance
- My bounty is as boundless as the sea, My love as deep. The more I give to thee, The more I have, for both are infinite.
- Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind; And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind.
- If music be the food of love, play on.
- The course of true love never did run smooth.
- There's beggary in love that can be reckoned.
- Thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
- Love all, trust a few, Do wrong to none.
- Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
- They do not love that do not show their love.
- Speak low if you speak love.
- There's no such man; it is impossible.
- Love comforteth like sunshine after rain.
- See also: Wisdom Quotes for Insight and Understanding
Life and Mortality
- To be, or not to be: that is the question.
- Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once.
- All that lives must die, Passing through nature to eternity.
- We are such stuff As dreams are made on, and our little life Is rounded with a sleep.
- The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together.
- I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.
- Out, out brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage.
- Thus conscience does make cowards of us all.
- Nothing will come of nothing.
- O gentlemen, the time of life is short.
- See also: Love Quotes for Romance and Devotion
Time and Fate
- There is a tide in the affairs of men Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.
- All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players.
- The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.
- O, call back yesterday, bid time return.
- Better three hours too soon than a minute too late.
- Defer no time, delays have dangerous ends.
- What's past is prologue.
- We are time's subjects, and time bids be gone.
- Time is the nurse and breeder of all good.
- There are many events in the womb of time, which will be delivered.
- Summer's lease hath all too short a date.
- Make use of time, let not advantage slip.
Courage and Honour
- Men at some time are masters of their fates.
- The better part of valour is discretion.
- The valiant never taste of death but once.
- Men of few words are the best men.
- He jests at scars that never felt a wound.
- Be absolute for death; either death or life Shall thereby be the sweeter.
- When valour preys on reason, it eats the sword it fights with.
- O, it is excellent to have a giant's strength, but it is tyrannous to use it like a giant.
- Conscience makes cowards of us all.
- Be not afraid of greatness.
Wisdom and Knowledge
- 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.
- The fool doth think he is wise but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.
- To wilful men, the injuries that they themselves procure must be their schoolmasters.
- How poor are they that have not patience! What wound did ever heal but by degrees?
- Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt.
- There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.
- The robbed that smiles steals something from the thief.
- Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice.
- Words are easy, like the wind; Faithful friends are hard to find.
Comedy and Wordplay
- Brevity is the soul of wit.
- Better a witty fool than a foolish wit.
- I do desire we may be better strangers.
- I am a great eater of beef, and I believe that does harm to my wit.
- Lord, what fools these mortals be!
- Though she be but little, she is fierce.
- Many a true word hath been spoken in jest.
- The fool thinks himself to be wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.
- I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me.
- Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps.
Friendship and Loyalty
- Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, Grapple them unto thy soul with hoops of steel.
- Keep thy friend Under thy own life's key.
- I count myself in nothing else so happy As in a soul remembering my good friends.
- A friend should bear his friend's infirmities.
- Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.
- Good friends, sweet friends, let me not stir you up.
- Friendship is constant in all other things Save in the office and affairs of love.
- When shall we three meet again?
Ambition and Power
- I have no spur to prick the sides of my intent but only vaulting ambition which o'erleaps itself and falls on the other.
- Ambition should be made of sterner stuff.
- Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.
- The abuse of greatness is when it disjoins remorse from power.
- My crown I am, but still my griefs are mine.
- Greatness knows itself.
- Let me have men about me that are fat; Sleek-headed men and such as sleep o' nights.
- Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper sprinkle cool patience.
- The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones.
- Conscience doth make cowards of us all.
- Men should be what they seem.
- Farewell the plumed troop and the big wars That make ambition virtue.
Jealousy and Envy
- O, beware, my lord, of jealousy! It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock The meat it feeds on.
- Trifles light as air are to the jealous confirmations strong as proofs of holy writ.
- Such men as he be never at heart's ease Whiles they behold a greater than themselves.
- And oft, my jealousy shapes faults that are not.
- Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind.
- The venom clamours of a jealous woman poison more deadly than a mad dog's tooth.
- Thou wilt never get such a secret from me but by a parable.
- Love is blind, and lovers cannot see The pretty follies that themselves commit.
Nature and Beauty
- And this, our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything.
- One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.
- I like this place and could willingly waste my time in it.
- April hath put a spirit of youth in everything.
- Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May.
- Virtue is beauty.
- Beauty is but a vain and doubtful good; a shining gloss that fadeth suddenly.
- The seasons alter; hoary-headed frosts fall in the fresh lap of the crimson rose.
- The earth has music for those who listen.
- The lunatic, the lover, and the poet Are of imagination all compact.