Top 125+ William Shakespeare Quotes About Books!

“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!

Without further ado, here are the 125+ best William Shakespeare quotes about books!

Table of Contents

Best William Shakespeare Quotes About Books

“And this, our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything.” – William Shakespeare
“A beggar’s book outworths a noble’s blood.” – William Shakespeare
“Abate the edge of traitors, gracious Lord, That would reduce these bloody days again And make poor England weep in streams of blood! Let them not live to taste this land’s increase That would with treason wound this fair land’s peace! Now civil wounds are stopped, peace lives again: That she may long live here, God say amen!” – William Shakespeare
“I can see he’s not in your good books,’ said the messenger. ‘No, and if he were I would burn my library.” – William Shakespeare
“Lords, I protest my soul is full of woe That blood should sprinkle me to make me grow. Come, mourn with me for what I do lament, And put sullen black incontinent. I’ll make a voyage to the Holy Land To wash this blood off from my guilty hand. March sadly after. Grace my mournings here In weeping after this untimely bier.” – William Shakespeare
“Your face is a book, where men may read strange matters.” – William Shakespeare
“I’ll note you in my book of memory.” – William Shakespeare
“Knowing I lov’d my books, he furnish’d me From mine own library with volumes that I prize above my dukedom.” – William Shakespeare
“O heaven! that one might read the book of fate, and see the revolution of the times.” – William Shakespeare
“Love’s stories written in love’s richest books. To fan the moonbeams from his sleeping eyes.” – William Shakespeare
“From women’s eyes this doctrine I derive: They sparkle still the right Promethean fire; They are the books, the arts, the academes, That show, contain and nourish all the world.” – William Shakespeare
“I have unclasp’d to thee the book even of my secret soul.” – William Shakespeare
“O, let my books be then the eloquence and dumb presages of my speaking breast.
“Love goes toward love as schoolboys from their books, But love from love, toward school with heavy looks.” – William Shakespeare
“In nature’s infinite book of secrecy A little I can read.” – William Shakespeare
“Within the book and volume of thy brain.” – William Shakespeare
“Oh God! that one might read the book of fate, And see the revolution of the times Make mountains level, and the continent, Weary of solid firmness, melt itself Into the sea.
“You kiss by th’ book.” – William Shakespeare
“Keep thy foot out of brothels, thy hand out of plackets, thy pen from lender’s books, and defy the foul fiend.” – William Shakespeare
“Bell, book and candle shall not drive me back, When gold and silver becks me to come on.” – William Shakespeare
“Your face, my thane, is as a book where men May read strange matters. To beguile the time, Look like the time; bear welcome in your eye, Your hand, your tongue: look like the innocent flower, But be the serpent under’t.” – William Shakespeare
“A lover goes toward his beloved as enthusiastically as a schoolboy leaving his books, but when he leaves his girlfriend, he feels as miserable as the schoolboy on his way to school. (Act 2, scene 2).” – William Shakespeare
“This rough magic I here abjure and when I have required some heavenly music, which even now I do, to work mine end upon their senses that this airy charm is for, I’ll break my staff, bury it certain fathoms in the earth, and deeper than did ever plummet sound, I’ll drown my book.” – William Shakespeare
“I’ll break my staff, bury it certain fathoms in the earth, and deeper than did ever plummet sound, I’ll drown my book!” – William Shakespeare
“I’ll be supposed upon a book, his face is the worst thing about him.” – William Shakespeare
“My rage is gone, And I am struck with sorrow. Take him up. Help, three o’ th’ chiefest soldiers; I’ll be one. Beat thou the drum, that it speaks mournfully, Trail your steel spikes. Though in this city he Hath widowed and unchilded many a one, Which to this hour bewail the injury, Yet he shall have a noble memory. Assist.” – William Shakespeare
“Why, all delights are vain, but that most vain Which, with pain purchased, doth inherit pain: As, painfully to pore upon a book, To seek the light of truth, which truth the while Doth falsely blind the eyesight of his look.” – William Shakespeare
“Set we forward; let A Roman and a British ensign wave Friendly together. So through Lud’s town march, And in the temple of the great Jupiter Our peace we’ll ratify, seal it with feasts. Set on there! Never was a war did cease, Ere bloody hands were washed, with such a peace.” – William Shakespeare
“A book? O, rare one, Be not, as is our fangled world, a garment Nobler than that it covers.” – William Shakespeare
“Trust not my reading, nor my observations, Which with experimental seal do warrant The tenor of my book.” – William Shakespeare
“Though men can cover crimes with bold, stern looks, poor women’s faces are their own faults’ books.” – William Shakespeare
“Myself will straight aboard, and to the state This heavy act with heavy heart relate.”
“O, let my books be then the eloquence And dumb presagers of my speaking breast, Who plead for love, and look for recompense, More than that tongue that more hath more expressed.” – William Shakespeare
“Now the good gods forbid That our renowned Rome, whose gratitude Towards her deserved children is enrolled In Jove’s own book, like an unnatural dam Should now eat up her own!” – William Shakespeare
“Well, while I live I’ll fear no other thing So sore as keeping safe Nerissa’s ring.” – William Shakespeare
“Knowing I lov’d my books, he furnish’d me From mine own library with volumes that I prize above my dukedom.” – William Shakespeare
“O, let my books be then the eloquence and dumb presages of my speaking breast.”
“T’is true: there’s magic in the web of it. How well he’s read, to reason against reading!”
“Trust not my reading, nor my observations, Which with experimental seal do warrant The tenor of my book.” – William Shakespeare
“I’ll read enough When I do see the very book indeed Where all my sins are writ, and that’s myself.” – William Shakespeare

Best William Shakespeare Quotes About Time

“Better three hours too soon than a minute too late.” – William Shakespeare
“Let every man be master of his time.” – William Shakespeare
“Things without all remedy should be without regard: what’s done is done.” – William Shakespeare
“Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore, So do our minutes hasten to their end; Each changing place with that which goes before, In sequent toil all forwards do contend.” – William Shakespeare
“We are time’s subjects, and time bids be gone.” – William Shakespeare
“The extreme parts of time extremely forms all causes to the purpose of his speed.” – William Shakespeare
“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
“Youth is full of sport, age’s breath is short; youth is nimble, age is lame; Youth is hot and bold, age is weak and cold; Youth is wild, and age is tame.” – William Shakespeare
“I have lived long enough. My way of life is to fall into the sere, the yellow leaf, and that which should accompany old age, as honor, love, obedience, troops of friends I must not look to have.” – 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
“The end crowns all, And that old common arbitrator, Time, Will one day end it.” – William Shakespeare
“The time is out of joint.” – William Shakespeare
“Time is the nurse and breeder of all good.” – William Shakespeare
“I wasted time, and now doth time waste me; For now hath time made me his numbering clock: My thoughts are minutes; and with sighs they jar Their watches on unto mine eyes, the outward watch, Whereto my finger, like a dial’s point, Is pointing still, in cleansing them from tears. Now sir, the sound that tells what hour it is Are clamorous goans, which strike upon my heart, Which is the bell: so sighs and tears and groans Show minutes, times, and hours.” – William Shakespeare
“O time, thou must untangle this, not I. It is too hard a knot for me t’untie.” – William Shakespeare

Best William Shakespeare Quotes About Happiness

“There’s little of the melancholy element in her, my lord: she is never sad but when she sleeps; and not ever sad then; for I have heard my daughter say, she hath often dreamt of unhappiness, and waked herself with laughing.” – William Shakespeare
“Prepare for mirth, for mirth becomes a feast.” – William Shakespeare
“There’s nothing in this world can make me joy.” – William Shakespeare
“For here, I hope, begins our lasting 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
“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!” – William Shakespeare
“My joy is death-Death, at whose name I oft have been afeard, Because I wish’d this world’s eternity.” – William Shakespeare
“It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.” – William Shakespeare
“Love sought is good, but given unsought, is better.” – William Shakespeare
“O Lord that lends me life, Lend me a heart replete with thankfulness!” – 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
“How much better is it to weep at joy than to joy at weeping?” – William Shakespeare
“But here’s the joy my friend and I are one… Then she loves but me alone.” – William Shakespeare
“My life, my joy, my food, my ail the world!” – William Shakespeare
“How much better is it to weep at joy than to joy at weeping.” – 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
“By the pricking of my thumbs, Something wicked this way comes. Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.” – 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
“Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?“ – William Shakespeare
“The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.” – William Shakespeare
“Love is blind, and lovers cannot see, The pretty follies that themselves commit.” – William Shakespeare
“To be, or not to be; that is the question; Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer; The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles.” – 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
“Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.” – William Shakespeare
“Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall.” – William Shakespeare

Best William Shakespeare Quotes About Friendship

“Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more; Or close the wall with our English dead.” – 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
“Warwick, these words have turn’d my hate to love; / And I forgive and quite forget old faults, And joy that thou becom’st King Henry’s friend.” – William Shakespeare
“To me, fair friend, you never can be old.” – William Shakespeare
“That I will here dismiss my loving friends, / And to my fortunes and the people’s favour / Commit my cause in balance to be weigh’d.” – 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 But to be rough, unswayable, and free.” – William Shakespeare
“Most friendship is faining, most loving mere folly: / Then, heigh-ho, the holly.
“I count myself in nothing else so happy / As in a soul remembering my good friends.”
“A noble shalt thou have, and present pay; / And liquor likewise will I give to thee, / And friendship shall combine, and brotherhood.” – William Shakespeare
“Words are easy, like the wind; faithful friends are hard to find.” – William Shakespeare
“Joy, gentle friends! joy and fresh days of love Accompany your hearts!” – William Shakespeare
“A friend should bear his friend’s infirmities.” – William Shakespeare
“All friends shall taste / The wages of their virtue, and all foes / The cup of their deservings.” – William Shakespeare
“I thank thee, gentle Percy; and be sure / I count myself in nothing else so happy / As in a soul rememb’ring my good friends; / And as my fortune ripens with thy love, / It shall be still thy true love’s recompense.” – William Shakespeare
“Away, boy, from the troops, and save thyself; / For friends kill friends, and the disorder’s such / As war were hoodwink’d.” – 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

Best William Shakespeare Quotes About Life

“O gentlemen, the time of life is short! To spend that shortness basely were too long, If life did ride upon a dial’s point, Still ending at the arrival of an hour.” – William Shakespeare
“Thy life’s a miracle.” – 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: It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” – William Shakespeare
“By heaven, methinks it were an easy leap to pluck bright honor from the pale-faced moon, or dive into the bottom of the deep, where fathom-line could never touch the ground, and pluck up drowned honor by the locks.” – William Shakespeare
“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?” – 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
“To be, or not to be—that is the question. Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take Arms against a Sea of troubles, And by opposing end them: to die, to sleep.” – 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
“There where my fortune lives, there my life dies.” – William Shakespeare
“How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child!” – 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; it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” – 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
“Love moderately. Long love doth so. Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow.” – William Shakespeare
“Doubt thou the stars are fire, Doubt the sun doth move, Doubt truth to be a liar but never doubt thy love.” – 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
“Tell me for which of my bad parts didst thou first fall in love with me?” – William Shakespeare
“But love is blind, and lovers cannot see The pretty follies that themselves commit.”
“Lovers ever run before the clock.” – William Shakespeare
“One half of me is yours, the other half yours—Mine own, I would say; but if mine, then yours, And so all yours.” – William Shakespeare
“I know no ways to mince it in love, but directly to say ‘I love you.’” – William Shakespeare
“Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.” – 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
“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
“O, how this spring of love resembleth The uncertain glory of an April day, / Which now shows all the beauty of the sun, And by and by a cloud takes all away!” – William Shakespeare
“Excellent wetch! Perdition catch my soul, but I do love thee, and when I love thee not, chaos is come again.” – William Shakespeare
“For ever and a day.” – William Shakespeare
“In thy face I see the map of honour, truth and loyalty.” – William Shakespeare

Best William Shakespeare Quotes On Life Lessons

“To be, or not to be, that is the question.” – 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
Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful.” – William Shakespeare
“It is a wise father that knows his own child.” – William Shakespeare
“There is no darkness, but ignorance.” – William Shakespeare
“Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind; And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.” – 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
“We know what we are, but know not what we may be.” – 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
“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
“No legacy is so rich as honesty.” – 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, his acts being seven ages.” – William Shakespeare
“If money go before, all ways do lie open.” – William Shakespeare
“Many a good hanging prevents a bad marriage.” – William Shakespeare

Best William Shakespeare Quotes From Romeo And Juliet

“Love is heavy and light, bright and dark, hot and cold, sick and healthy, asleep and awake- its everything except what it is!” – William Shakespeare
“Parting is such sweet sorrow.” – William Shakespeare
“If love be blind, love cannot hit the mark.” – 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
“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
“I defy you, stars.” – William Shakespeare
“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet.” – William Shakespeare
“My only love sprung from my only hate! Too early seen unknown, and known too late! Prodigious birth of love it is to me, That I must love a loathed enemy.” – William Shakespeare
“Why then, O brawling love! O loving hate! O any thing, of nothing first create!
“Alas, that love, so gentle in his view, Should be so tyrannous and rough in proof.” – William Shakespeare
“Lovers can do their amorous rites by their own beauties.” – William Shakespeare
“Young men’s love then lies Not truly in their hearts but in their eyes.” – William Shakespeare
“Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight, For I ne’er saw true beauty till this night.” – William Shakespeare
“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