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125 Best SHAKESPEARE Quotes About DESTINY!

“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 best William Shakespeare quotes about destiny!

Best William Shakespeare Quotes About Destiny

  • “It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.” -William Shakespeare
  • “And by that destiny to perform an act Whereof what’s past is prologue, what to come In yours and my discharge.” -William Shakespeare
  • “Are you up to your destiny?” -William Shakespeare
  • “I have a bone to pick with Fate Fairies, black, grey, green, and white, You moonshine revellers, and shades of night, You orphan heirs of fixed destiny, Attend your office and your quality.” -William Shakespeare
  • “Sweet are the uses of adversity.” -William Shakespeare
  • “O thou invisible spirit of wine, if thou hast no name to be known by, let us call thee devil.” -William Shakespeare
  • “Haply for I am black, And have not those soft parts of conversation That chamberers have; or for I am declined Into the vale of years—yet that’s not much— She’s gone. I am abused, and my relief Must be to loathe her. O curse of marriage, That we can call these delicate creatures ours And not their appetites! I had rather be a toad And live upon the vapor of a dungeon Than keep a corner in the thing I love For others’ uses. Yet ’tis the plague of great ones; Prerogatived are they less than the base. ’Tis destiny unshunnable, like death.” -William Shakespeare
  • “Our wills and fates do so contrary run, That our devices still are overthrown; Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own.” -William Shakespeare
  • “Who can control his fate?” -William Shakespeare
  • “But yet I’ll make assurance double sure, and take a bond of fate: thou shalt not live.” -William Shakespeare
  • “Hanging and wiving goes by destiny.” -William Shakespeare
  • “Such as we are made of, such we be.” -William Shakespeare

Best William Shakespeare Quotes About Fate

  • “O heaven! that one might read the book of fate, and see the revolution of the times.” -William Shakespeare
  • “What fates impose, that men must needs abide; it boots not to resist both wind and tide.” -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.” -William Shakespeare
  • “Crowns have their compass-length of days their date- Triumphs their tomb-felicity, her fate- Of nought but earth can earth make us partaker, But knowledge makes a king most like his Maker.” -William Shakespeare
  • “Antonio: Will you stay no longer? nor will you not that I go with you? Sebastian: By your patience, no. My stars shine darkly over me; the malignancy of my fate might, perhaps, distemper yours; therefore I shall crave of you your leave that I may bear my evils alone. It were a bad recompense for your love to lay any of them on you.” -William Shakespeare
  • “He shall spurn fate, scorn death, and bear His hopes ‘bove wisdom, grace and fear: And you all know, security Is mortals’ chiefest enemy.” -William Shakespeare
  • “Men at some time are masters of their fates.” -William Shakespeare
  • “Death, a necessary end, will come when it will come.” -William Shakespeare
  • “What cannot be saved when fate takes, patience her injury a mockery makes.” -William Shakespeare
  • “Our wills and fates do so contrary run.” -William Shakespeare
  • “This day’s black fate on more days doth depend; This but begins the woe, others must end.” -William Shakespeare
  • “In love the heavens themselves do guide the state; Money buys lands, and wives are sold by fate.” -William Shakespeare
  • “Our wills and fates do so contrary run, That our devices still are overthrown; Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own.” -William Shakespeare
  • “I do I know not what, and fear to find Mine eye too great a flatterer for my mind. Fate, show thy force. Ourselves we do not owe. What is decreed must be; and be this so.” -William Shakespeare
  • “The happiest youth, viewing his progress through, What perils past, what crosses to ensue, Would shut the book, and sit him down and die.” -William Shakespeare
  • “But yet I’ll make assurance double sure, and take a bond of fate: thou shalt not live.” -William Shakespeare
  • “I have a bone to pick with Fate.” -William Shakespeare
  • “O sir, you are old; nature in you stands on the very verge of her confine; you should be ruled and led by some discretion, that discerns your fate better than you yourself.” -William Shakespeare
  • “He must needs go that the devil drives.” -William Shakespeare
  • “Men at sometime are the masters of their fate.” -William Shakespeare
  • “Men at some time are masters of their fates. The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.” -William Shakespeare
  • “What can be avoided Whose end is purposed by the mighty gods?” -William Shakespeare
  • “Who can control his fate?” -William Shakespeare

Best William Shakespeare Quotes From Romeo And Juliet

  • “From forth the fatal loins of these two foes A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life Whose misadventured piteous overthrows Do with their death bury their parents’ strife.” -William Shakespeare
  • “What must be shall be.” -William Shakespeare
  • “Death, that hath sucked the honey of thy breath, Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty.” -William Shakespeare
  • “Some grief shows much of love, But much of grief shows still some want of wit.” -William Shakespeare
  • “Death lies on her like an untimely frost Upon the sweetest flower of all the field.” -William Shakespeare
  • “Thus with a kiss I die.” -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
  • “Two households, both alike in dignity In fair Verona, where we lay our scene From ancient grudge break to new mutiny Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.” -William Shakespeare
  • “This bud of love, by summer’s ripening breath, May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet.” -William Shakespeare
  • “O, swear not by the moon, th’ inconstant moon, That monthly changes in her circled orb, Lest that thy love prove likewise variable.” -William Shakespeare
  • “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.” -William Shakespeare
  • “Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight, For I ne’er saw true beauty till this night.” -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

Best William Shakespeare Quotes About Life

  • “We are such stuff as dreams are made on and our little life is rounded with a sleep.” -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
  • “To do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men’s cottage princes’ palaces.” -William Shakespeare
  • “Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears: I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.” -William Shakespeare
  • “As merry as the day is long.” -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
  • “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
  • “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
  • “There where my fortune lives, there my life dies.” -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
  • “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

Best William Shakespeare Quotes About Love

  • “For stony limits cannot hold love out, And what love can do that dares love attempt.” -William Shakespeare
  • “Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight! For I ne’er saw true beauty till this night.” -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
  • “O, swear not by the moon, th’ inconstant moon, That monthly changes in her circled orb, Lest that thy love prove likewise variable.” -William Shakespeare
  • “Under love’s heavy burden do I sink.” -William Shakespeare
  • “I’ll follow thee and make a heaven of hell, To die upon the hand I love so well.” -William Shakespeare
  • “To say the truth, reason and love keep little company together nowadays.” -William Shakespeare
  • “Love’s stories written in love’s richest books. To fan the moonbeams from his sleeping eyes.” -William Shakespeare
  • “Love me! Why, it must be requited.” -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.” -William Shakespeare
  • “Lovers ever run before the clock.” -William Shakespeare
  • “So are you to my thoughts as food to life, Or as sweet-seasoned showers are to the ground.” -William Shakespeare
  • “Nor did I wonder at the lily’s white, Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose; They were but sweet, but figures of delight Drawn after you…” -William Shakespeare
  • “Her passions are made of nothing but the finest part of pure love.” -William Shakespeare
  • “I humbly do beseech of your pardon, For too much of loving you.” -William Shakespeare
  • “If thou remember’st not the slightest folly That ever love did make thee run into, Thou hast not loved.” -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
  • “Sweet, above thought I love thee.” -William Shakespeare
  • “Love is a spirit all compact of fire.” -William Shakespeare
  • “I can express no kinder sign of love, than this kind kiss.” -William Shakespeare
  • “Now join hands, and with your hands your hearts.” -William Shakespeare
  • “Love hath made thee a tame snake.” -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
  • “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
  • “She loved me for the dangers I had passed, And I loved her that she did pity them.” -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
  • “To be wise, and love, Exceeds man’s might.” -William Shakespeare
  • “O mistress mine, where are you roaming? O, stay and hear; your true love’s coming,
  • That can sing both high and low: Trip no further, pretty sweeting; Journeys end in lovers meeting, Every wise man’s son doth know.” -William Shakespeare
  • “Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?” -William Shakespeare
  • “For where thou art, there is the world itself, and where though art not, desolation.” -William Shakespeare
  • “I love you more than words can wield the matter, Dearer than eyesight, space, and liberty.” -William Shakespeare
  • “Love sought is good, but given unsought is better.” -William Shakespeare
  • “Love is like a child, That longs for everything it can come by.” -William Shakespeare
  • “Hear my soul speak. Of the very instant that I saw you, Did my heart fly at your service.” -William Shakespeare
  • “I would not wish Any companion in the world but you: Nor can imagination form a shape Besides yourself to like of.” -William Shakespeare
  • “Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom. If this be error and upon me proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved.” -William Shakespeare
  • “Those lines that I before have writ do lie, Ev’n those that said I could not love you dearer. Yet then my judgment knew no reason why My most full flame should afterwards burn clearer.” -William Shakespeare
  • “O love, be moderate. Allay thy ecstasy. In measure rein thy joy.” -William Shakespeare
  • “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate.” -William Shakespeare
  • “So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, so long lives this, and this gives life to thee.” -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
  • “A man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age.” -William Shakespeare
  • “Defer no time, delays have dangerous ends.” -William Shakespeare
  • “Time’s the king of men; he’s both their parent, and he is their grave, and gives them what he will, not what they crave.” -William Shakespeare
  • “Time is like a fashionable host That slightly shakes his parting guest by the hand, And with his arm outstretch’d, as he would fly, Grasps in the comer.” -William Shakespeare
  • “There’s a time for all things.” -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
  • “Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back Wherein he puts alms for oblivion, A great-sized monster of ingratitudes. Those scraps are good deeds past, which are devour’d As fast as they are made, forgot as soon as done.” -William Shakespeare
  • “Old Time the clock-setter.” -William Shakespeare
  • “Lord, Lord, how subject we old men are to this vice of lying!” -William Shakespeare
  • “Come now, what masques, what dances shall we have To wear away this long age of three hours Between our after-supper and bedtime?” -William Shakespeare
  • “O time, thou must untangle this, not I. It is too hard a knot for me t’untie.” -William Shakespeare
  • “Time goes on crutches till love have all his rites.” -William Shakespeare
  • “Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,Creeps in this petty pace from day to dayWhat’s past and what’s to come is strew’d with husks And formless ruin of oblivion.” -William Shakespeare
  • “No, Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change.” -William Shakespeare
  • “What e’er you are That in this desert inaccessible, Under the shade of melancholy boughs, Lose and neglect the creeping hours of time.” -William Shakespeare
  • “This is no time to lend money, especially upon bare friendship without security.” -William Shakespeare
  • “Time travels in divers paces with divers persons.” -William Shakespeare
  • “We see which way the stream of time doth run.” -William Shakespeare
  • “I that please some, try all, both joy and terror Of good and bad, that makes and unfolds error.” -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
  • “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
  • “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
  • “Do you set down your name in the scroll of youth, that are written down old with all the characters of age?” -William Shakespeare
  • “Time, that takes survey of all the world, Must have a stop.” -William Shakespeare
  • “Make use of time, let not advantage slip; Beauty within itself should not be wasted: Fair flowers that are not gather’d in their prime Rot and consume themselves in little time.” -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
  • “Short time seems long in sorrow’s sharp sustaining.” -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

Best William Shakespeare Quotes From Plays

  • “Out, out, brief candle! 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
  • “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.” -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
  • “Good night, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow, That I shall say good night till it be morrow.” -William Shakespeare
  • “Love sought is good, but given unsought is better.” -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
  • “Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, and therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.” -William Shakespeare
  • “My Oberon! What visions have I seen! Methought I was enamoured of an ass.” -William Shakespeare
  • “If music be the food of love, play on.” -William Shakespeare
  • “This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle, This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, This other Eden, demi-paradise, This fortress built by Nature for herself Against infection and the hand of war.’ -William Shakespeare
  • “My salad days, When I was green in judgment: cold in blood, To say as I said then! But, come, away; Get me ink and paper: He shall have every day a several greeting, Or I’ll unpeople Egypt.” -William Shakespeare
  • “Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.” -William Shakespeare
  • “The worst is not, So long as we can say, ‘This is the worst.’” -William Shakespeare
  • “What’s mine is yours, and what is yours is mine.” -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
  • “Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more, Or close the wall up with our English dead!” -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
  • “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
  • “All that glisters is not gold.” -William Shakespeare
  • “When you depart from me sorrow abides, and happiness takes his leave.” -William Shakespeare
  • “Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them.” -William Shakespeare
  • “The course of true love never did run smooth.” -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
  • “Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio, a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy. He hath bore me on his back a thousand times, and now how abhorr’d in my imagination it is! My gorge rises at it..” -William Shakespeare
  • “They have been at a great feast of languages, and stolen the scraps.” -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

Best William Shakespeare Quotes About Happiness

  • “My crown is called content, a crown that seldom kings enjoy.” -William Shakespeare
  • “I am a true laborer: I earn that I eat, get that I wear, owe no man hate, envy no man’s happiness, glad of other men’s good, content with my harm.” -William Shakespeare
  • “The treasury of everlasting 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
  • “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
  • “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
  • “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.” -William Shakespeare
  • “There is tears for his love, joy for his fortune, honor for his valor, and death for his ambition.” -William Shakespeare
  • “Heaven, the treasury of everlasting joy.” -William Shakespeare
  • “Than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy.” -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
  • “Think with thyself How more unfortunate than all living women Are we come hither; since that thy sight, which should Make our eyes flow with joy, hearts dance with comforts, Constrains them weep and shake with fear and sorrow, Making the mother, wife, and child, to see The son, the husband, and the father, tearing His country’s bowels out.” -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
  • “Joy absent, grief is present for that time.” -William Shakespeare
  • “All days of glory, joy, and happiness.” -William Shakespeare
  • “Be cheerful; wipe thine eyes.” -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
  • “Bring me a constant woman to her husband, One that ne’er dream’d a joy beyond his pleasure, And to that woman, when she has done most, Yet will I add an honour-a great patience.” -William Shakespeare
  • “There’s nothing in this world can make me joy.” -William Shakespeare
  • “For here, I hope, begins our lasting joy.” -William Shakespeare
  • “O love, be moderate, allay thy ecstasy, In measure rain thy joy, scant this excess!” -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

Best William Shakespeare Quotes About Friendship

  • “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
  • “Away, boy, from the troops, and save thyself; / For friends kill friends, and the disorder’s such / As war were hoodwink’d.” -William Shakespeare
  • “To mingle friendship far is mingling bloods.” -William Shakespeare
  • “Madam, you wrong the King’s love with these fears; / Your hopes and friends are infinite.” -William Shakespeare
  • “Friendship is constant in all other things / Save in the office and affairs of love.” -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
  • “That which I would discover / The law of friendship bids me to conceal.” -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
  • “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 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
  • “I desire you in friendship, and I will one way or other make you amends.” -William Shakespeare
  • “Thou common friend, that’s without faith or love- / For such is a friend now; treacherous man, / Thou hast beguil’d my hopes; nought but mine eye Could have persuaded me.” -William Shakespeare
  • “For when no friends are by, men praise themselves.” -William Shakespeare 
  • “Love, friendship, charity, are subjects all, to envious and calumniating time.” -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
  • “Nature teaches beasts to know their friends.” -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
  • “By the Lord, our plot is a good plot as ever was laid; our friends true and constant: a good plot, good friends, and full of expectation; an excellent plot, very good friends.” -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
  • “I count myself in nothing else so happy / As in a soul remembering my good friends.” -William Shakespeare
  • “Good company, good wine, good welcome, can make good people.” -William Shakespeare
  • “There is flattery in friendship.” -William Shakespeare
  • “Good my friends, consider / You are my guests.” -William Shakespeare
  • “The great man down, you mark his favourite flies, / The poor advanc’d makes friends of enemies; / And hitherto doth love on fortune tend, / For who not needs shall never lack a friend, / And who in want a hollow friend doth try, Directly seasons him his enemy.” -William Shakespeare 
  • “But if the while I think on thee, dear friend, all losses are restored and sorrows end.” -William Shakespeare
  • But to be rough, unswayable, and free.” -William Shakespeare
  • “Most friendship is faining, most loving mere folly: / Then, heigh-ho, the holly.” -William Shakespeare
  • “”This life is most jolly.” -William Shakespeare
  • “If any man challenge this, he / is a friend to Alencon and an enemy to our person; if thou / encounter any such, apprehend him, an thou dost me love.” -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
  • “The presence of a king engenders love / Amongst his subjects and his loyal friends, / As it disanimates his enemies.” -William Shakespeare
  • “To set a gloss on faint deeds, hollow welcomes, / Recanting goodness, sorry ere ’tis shown; / But where there is true friendship, there needs none.” -William Shakespeare

Best William Shakespeare Quotes On Life Lessons

  • “My words fly up, my thoughts remain below: Words without thoughts never to heaven go.” -William Shakespeare
  • “A peace is of the nature of a conquest; for then both parties nobly are subdued, and neither party loser.” -William Shakespeare
  • “Love sought is good; but given unsought is better.” -William Shakespeare
  • “One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.” -William Shakespeare
  • “Life is as tedious as a twice-told tale, vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man.” -William Shakespeare
  • “God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another.” -William Shakespeare
  • “Pleasure and action make the hours seem short.” -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
  • “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” -William Shakespeare
  • “Thy overflow of good converts to bad.” -William Shakespeare
  • “Reputation is an idle and most false imposition: oft got without merit, and lost without deserving.” -William Shakespeare
  • “The miserable have no other medicine, but only hope.” -William Shakespeare
  • “Love is too young to know what conscience is.” -William Shakespeare
  • “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
  • “There is no darkness, but ignorance.” -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
  • “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
  • “When sorrows come, they come not single spies but in battalions.” -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
  • “The robbed that smiles steals something from the thief.” -William Shakespeare
  • “In time we hate that which we often fear.” -William Shakespeare
  • “To do a great right, do a little wrong.” -William Shakespeare
  • “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 is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs.” -William Shakespeare
  • The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.” -William Shakespeare
  • “Brevity is the soul of wit.” -William Shakespeare
  • “We know what we are, but know not what we may be.” -William Shakespeare
  • “Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful.” -William Shakespeare
  • “It is a wise father that knows his own child.” -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
  • “Let life be short; else shame will be too long.” -William Shakespeare
  • “Virtue itself ‘scapes not calumnious strokes.” -William Shakespeare
  • “Love is not love, which alters when it alteration finds.” -William Shakespeare