19 Best WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Quotes About BIRTHDAY!

“To be, or not to be? That is the question!”

William Shakespeare was an English poet, playwright, and actor. Shakespeare was born in the 1500’s, but his plays are just as popular today as they were when he was alive!

Some of Shakespeare’s most famous plays include:

Romeo And Juliet
Hamlet
The Tempest
Twelfth Night
Macbeth

…And many more.

Shakespeare was one of the best English writers of all time, and it’s easy to see why. His plays feature timeless quotes about life, love, relationships, and more.

Whether you’re interested in deep philosophical quotes about life, funny Shakespeare quotes, or hot and heavy Shakespeare quotes about love and romance, we’ve got you covered!

Table of Contents

Best William Shakespeare Quotes About Birthday

“It is my birth-day: I had thought to have held it poor: but, since my lord Is Antony again, I will be Cleopatra.” -William Shakespeare
“Marry, sir, half a day’s journey: and I’ll tell you, he hath a fair daughter, and to-morrow is her birth-day; and there are princes and knights come from all parts of the world to just and tourney for her love.” -William Shakespeare
“There was a star danced, and under that was I born.” -William Shakespeare
“One man in his time plays many parts.” -William Shakespeare
“When thou art old and rich Thou hast neither heat, affection, limb, nor beauty, To make thy riches pleasant.” -William Shakespeare
“Beauty doth varnish age, as if new-born.” -William Shakespeare
“Do you think because you are virtuous, that there shall be no more cakes and ale?” -William Shakespeare
“Good wine is a good familiar creature, if it be well used.” -William Shakespeare
“Drink sir, is a great provoker of three things… nose-painting, sleep and urine.” -William Shakespeare
“My dancing soul doth celebrate.” -William Shakespeare
“To me, fair friend, you never can be old, For as you were when first your eye I ey’d, Such seems your beauty still.” -William Shakespeare
“To die, to sleep. To sleep, perchance to dream – ay, there’s the rub, For in that sleep of death what dreams may come When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause. There’s the respect That makes calamity of so long life…” -William Shakespeare
“With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come.” -William Shakespeare
“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” -William Shakespeare
“And send him many years of sunshine days!” -William Shakespeare
“Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more.” -William Shakespeare
“O sir, you are old.” -William Shakespeare
“With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come Let my liver rather heat with wine Than my heart cool with mortifying groans.” -William Shakespeare
“A man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age.” -William Shakespeare

Best William Shakespeare Quotes About Life

“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.” -William Shakespeare
“I cannot tell what you and other men Think of this life; but, for my single self, I had as lief not be as live to be In awe of such a thing as I myself.” -William Shakespeare
“Now is the winter of our discontent.” -William Shakespeare
“Is this a dagger which I see before me, the handle toward my hand?” -William Shakespeare
“Beware the Ides of March.” -William Shakespeare
“The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together.” -William Shakespeare
“O excellent! I love long life better than figs.” -William Shakespeare
“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.” -William Shakespeare
“Get thee to a nunnery.” -William Shakespeare
“There where my fortune lives, there my life dies.” -William Shakespeare
“Thy life’s a miracle.” -William Shakespeare

Best William Shakespeare Quotes About Love

“Parting is such sweet sorrow.” -William Shakespeare
“With love’s light wings did I o’erperch these walls, For stony limits cannot hold love out.” -William Shakespeare
“See how she leans her cheek upon her hand, O that I were a glove upon that hand that I might touch that cheek!” -William Shakespeare
“The course of true love never did run smooth.” -William Shakespeare
“Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, and therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.” -William Shakespeare
“I do love nothing in the world as well as you—is not that strange?” -William Shakespeare
“When you depart from me sorrow abides, and happiness takes his leave.” -William Shakespeare
“Silence is the perfectest herald of joy. I were but little happy if I could say how much.—Lady, as you are mine, I am yours. I give away myself for you and dote upon the exchange.” -William Shakespeare
“If music be the food of love, play on.” -William Shakespeare
“Love sought is good, but given unsought is better.” -William Shakespeare
“They do not love that do not show their love.” -William Shakespeare
“A heart to love, and in that heart, Courage, to make’s love known.” -William Shakespeare
“The sight of lovers feedeth those in love.” -William Shakespeare
“But love, first learned in a lady’s eyes, Lives not alone immured in the brain, / But, with the motion of all elements, Courses as swift as thought in every power, / And gives to every power a double power, Above their functions and their offices.” -William Shakespeare
“Never durst poet touch a pen to write Until his ink were tempered with Love’s sighs.” -William Shakespeare
“What’s mine is yours, and what is yours is mine.” -William Shakespeare
“Let’s go hand in hand, not one before another.” -William Shakespeare
“No sooner met but they looked, no sooner looked but they loved, no sooner loved, but they sighed, no sooner sighed but they asked one another the reason. No sooner knew the reason but they sought the remedy; And in these degrees have they made a pair of stairs to marriage.” -William Shakespeare
“Love comforteth like sunshine after rain.” -William Shakespeare
“And when love speaks, the voice of all the gods makes heaven drowsy with the harmony.” -William Shakespeare
“O heaven, O earth, bear witness to this sound And crown what I profess with kind event If I speak true! If hollowly, invert What best is boded me to mischief! I Beyond all limit of what else i’ th’ world Do love, prize, honor you.” -William Shakespeare
“I, Beyond all limit of what else i’ th’ world, Do love, prize, honour you.” -William Shakespeare
“There’s beggary in the love that can be reckoned.” -William Shakespeare
“Down on your knees, And thank Heaven, fasting, for a good man’s love.” -William Shakespeare
“In the spring time, the only pretty ring time, When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding: Sweet lovers love the spring.” -William Shakespeare

Best William Shakespeare Quotes From Plays

“Good night, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow, That I shall say good night till it be morrow.” -William Shakespeare
“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet.” -William Shakespeare
“Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more, Or close the wall up with our English dead!” -William Shakespeare
“I will wear my heart upon my sleeve; For daws to peck at.” -William Shakespeare
“Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears; I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.” -William Shakespeare
“When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept: Ambition should be made of sterner stuff.” -William Shakespeare
“The course of true love never did run smooth.” -William Shakespeare
“Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, and therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.” -William Shakespeare
“When you depart from me sorrow abides, and happiness takes his leave.” -William Shakespeare
“Everyone can master a grief but he that has it.” -William Shakespeare
“But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.” -William Shakespeare
“Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.” -William Shakespeare
“Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall.” -William Shakespeare
“The miserable have no other medicine but only hope.” -William Shakespeare
“What’s mine is yours, and what is yours is mine.” -William Shakespeare
“My Oberon! What visions have I seen! Methought I was enamoured of an ass.” -William Shakespeare
“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.” -William Shakespeare

Best William Shakespeare Quotes About Happiness

“Let’s go hand in hand, not one before another.” -William Shakespeare
“Here come the lovers, full of joy and mirth.- Joy, gentle friends! joy and fresh days of love Accompany your hearts!” -William Shakespeare
“It is that fery person for all the world, as just as you will desire; and seven hundred pounds of moneys, and gold, and silver, is her grandsire upon his death’s-bed-Got deliver to a joyful resurrections!” -William Shakespeare
“The treasury of everlasting joy!” -William Shakespeare
“Twixt two extremes of passion, joy and grief, Burst smilingly.” -William Shakespeare
“As little joy, my lord, as you suppose You should enjoy were you this country’s king, As little joy you may suppose in me That I enjoy, being the Queen thereof.” -William Shakespeare
“I wish you all the joy you can wish.” -William Shakespeare
“What win I, if I gain the thing I seek A dream, a breath, a froth of fleeting joy. Who buys a minute’s mirth to wail a week Or sells eternity to ‘get a toy For one sweet grape who will the vine destroy.” -William Shakespeare
“And now what rests but that we spend the time; With stately triumphs, mirthful comic shows, Such as befits the pleasure of the court; Sound drums and trumpets farewell sour annoy; For here, I hope, begins our lasting joy.” -William Shakespeare
“A goodly portly man, i’ faith, and a corpulent; of a cheerful look, a pleasing eye, and a most noble carriage; and, as I think, his age some fifty, or, by’r Lady, inclining to threescore; and now I remember me, his name is Falstaff.” -William Shakespeare
“Right joyous are we to behold your face, Most worthy brother England; fairly met!”
“My joy is death-Death, at whose name I oft have been afeard, Because I wish’d this world’s eternity.” -William Shakespeare
“O God that men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains that we should, with joy, pleasance, revel, and applause, transform ourselves into beasts.”
“There is tears for his love, joy for his fortune, honor for his valor, and death for his ambition.” -William Shakespeare
“How sweet is love itself possess’d, When but love’s shadows are so rich in joy!” -William Shakespeare
“Lay aside life-harming heaviness, And entertain a cheerful disposition.” -William Shakespeare
“Silence is the perfectest herald of joy I were but little happy, if I could say how much.” -William Shakespeare
“If this be so, the gods do mean to strike me To death with mortal joy.” -William Shakespeare
“I had rather have a fool to make me merry than experience to make me sad and to travel for it too!” -William Shakespeare
“Love is not love that alters when it alteration finds.” -William Shakespeare
“All places that the eye of heaven visits Are to a wise man ports and happy havens. Teach thy necessity to reason thus; There is no virtue like necessity.” -William Shakespeare

Best William Shakespeare Quotes About Friendship

“Keep thy friend, under thy own life’s key.” -William Shakespeare
“But where there is true friendship, there needs none.” -William Shakespeare
“Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more; Or close the wall with our English dead.” -William Shakespeare
“Love, friendship, charity, are subjects all, to envious and calumniating time.” -William Shakespeare
“In truth, sir, and she is pretty, and honest, and gentle; and one that is your friend, I can tell you that by the way; I praise heaven for it.” -William Shakespeare
“My good friends, I’ll leave you till night.” -William Shakespeare
“If thou wilt lend this money, lend it not / As to thy friends; for when did friendship take / A breed for barren metal of his friend?” -William Shakespeare
“Thy friendship makes us fresh.” -William Shakespeare
“I rais’d him, and I pawn’d / Mine honour for his truth; who being so heighten’d, / He watered his new plants with dews of flattery, / Seducing so my friends; and to this end / He bow’d his nature, never known before.” -William Shakespeare
“But to be rough, unswayable, and free.” -William Shakespeare
“Most friendship is faining, most loving mere folly: / Then, heigh-ho, the holly.
This life is most jolly.” -William Shakespeare
“Love, friendship, charity, are subjects all To envious and calumniating time.” -William Shakespeare
“There is a devil / haunts thee in the likeness of an old fat man; a tun of man is
thy companion.” -William Shakespeare
“My way of life / Is fall’n into the sear, the yellow leaf, / And that which should accompany old age, / As honor, love, obedience, troops of friends, / I must not look to have; but in their stead, / Curses, not loud but deep, mouth-honor, breath, / Which the poor heart would fain deny and dare not.” -William Shakespeare
“Friendship is constant in all other things / Save in the office and affairs of love.” -William Shakespeare
“He that is thy friend indeed, / He will help thee in thy need: / If thou sorrow, he will weep; / If thou wake, he cannot sleep: / Thus of every grief in heart.” -William Shakespeare
He with thee doth bear a part. / These are certain signs to know / Faithful friend from flattering foe.” -William Shakespeare
“Nature teaches beasts to know their friends.” -William Shakespeare

Best William Shakespeare Quotes On Life Lessons

“No legacy is so rich as honesty.” -William Shakespeare
“The robbed that smiles steals something from the thief.” -William Shakespeare
“In time we hate that which we often fear.” -William Shakespeare
“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.” -William Shakespeare
“Desire of having is the sin of covetousness.” -William Shakespeare
“How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child!” -William Shakespeare
“Virtue itself ‘scapes not calumnious strokes.” -William Shakespeare
“Love is not love, which alters when it alteration finds.” -William Shakespeare
“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” -William Shakespeare
“Thy overflow of good converts to bad.” -William Shakespeare
“We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep.” -William Shakespeare
“Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall. Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.” -William Shakespeare
“If money go before, all ways do lie open.” -William Shakespeare
“My words fly up, my thoughts remain below: Words without thoughts never to heaven go.” -William Shakespeare
“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
“Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt.” -William Shakespeare
“Love sought is good; but given unsought is better.” -William Shakespeare
“The very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream.” -William Shakespeare
“Life every man holds dear; but the dear man holds honor far more precious-dear than life.” -William Shakespeare
“Let life be short; else shame will be too long.” -William Shakespeare
“Reputation is an idle and most false imposition: oft got without merit, and lost without deserving.” -William Shakespeare
“Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind; And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.” -William Shakespeare
“It is a wise father that knows his own child.” -William Shakespeare
“There is no darkness, but ignorance.” -William Shakespeare

Best William Shakespeare Quotes About Time

“Reputation is an idle and most false imposition; oft got without merit, and lost without deserving.” -William Shakespeare
“What is past is prologue.” -William Shakespeare
“Time’s glory is to command contending kings, To unmask falsehood, and bring truth to light.” -William Shakespeare
“Time shall unfold what plaited cunning hides: Who cover faults, at last shame them derides.” -William Shakespeare
“Nothing ‘gainst Times scythe can make defense.” -William Shakespeare
“So many hours must I take my rest; So many hours must I contemplate.” -William Shakespeare
“Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth And delves the parallels in beauty’s brow.”
“And, looking on it with lack-lustre eye, Says very wisely, “It is ten o’clock: Thus we may see,” quoth he, “how the world wags.” -William Shakespeare
“If you can look into the seeds of time, and say which grain will grow and which will not, speak then unto me.” -William Shakespeare
“The weight of this sad time we must obey, Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say. The oldest hath borne most: we that are young Shall never see so much, nor live so long.” -William Shakespeare
“What else may hap, to time I will commit.” -William Shakespeare
“Thus we play the fool with the time and the spirits of the wise sit in the clouds and mock us.” -William Shakespeare
“Shorten my days thou canst with sullen sorrow, And pluck nights from me, but not lend a morrow; Thou canst help time to furrow me with age, But stop no wrinkle in his pilgrimage.” -William Shakespeare
“I have seen better faces in my time Than stands on any shoulder that I see Before me at this instant.” -William Shakespeare
“And oftentimes excusing of a fault Doth make the fault the worse by the excuse, As patches set upon a little breach, Discredit more in hiding of the fault Than did the fault before it was so patch’d.” -William Shakespeare
“See the minutes, how they run, How many make the hour full complete; How many hours bring about the day; How many days will finish up the year; How many years a mortal man may live.” -William Shakespeare
“Yet, do thy worst, old Time; despite thy wrong, My love shall in my verse ever live young.”
“Time be thine, And thy best graces spend it at thy will.” -William Shakespeare
“The time is out of joint : O cursed spite, that ever I was born to set it right!” -William Shakespeare
“The whirligig of time brings in his revenges.” -William Shakespeare

Best William Shakespeare Quotes From Romeo And Juliet

“Love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs; Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers’ eyes; Being vexed, a sea nourished with loving tears. What is it else? A madness most discreet, A choking gall, and a preserving sweet.” -William Shakespeare
“Don’t waste your love on somebody, who doesn’t value it.” -William Shakespeare
“Love moderately. Long love doth so. Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow.” -William Shakespeare
“This bud of love by summer’s ripening breath, May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet.” -William Shakespeare
“With love’s light wings did I o’erperch these walls, For stony limits cannot hold love out.” -William Shakespeare
“See how she leans her cheek upon her hand, O that I were a glove upon that hand that I might touch that cheek!” -William Shakespeare
“But soft, what light through yonder window breaks? It is the East, and Juliet is the sun.” -William Shakespeare
“One fairer than my love? the all-seeing sun Ne’er saw her match since first the world begun.” -William Shakespeare
“Go wisely and slow; they stumble that run fast.” -William Shakespeare
“I must be gone and live, or stay and die.” -William Shakespeare
“For never was a story of more woe than this of Juliet and her Romeo.” -William Shakespeare
“I defy you, stars[.]” -William Shakespeare
“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
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.” -William Shakespeare
“What, drawn, and talk of peace? I hate the word. As I hate hell, all Montagues, and thee.” -William Shakespeare
“A plague o’ both your houses!” -William Shakespeare
“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet.” -William Shakespeare
“Do thou but close our hands with holy words, Then love-devouring death do what he dare; It is enough I may but call her mine.” -William Shakespeare
“Two households, both alike in dignity In fair Verona, where we lay our scene.” -William Shakespeare
“These violent delights have violent ends And in their triumph die, like fire and powder, Which, as they kiss, consume.” -William Shakespeare
“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
“From forth the fatal loins of these two foes A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life.” -William Shakespeare
“I fear too early, for my mind misgives; Some consequence, yet hanging in the stars,
Shall bitterly begin.” -William Shakespeare