Top 15 SHAKESPEARE Quotes About EXPECTATIONS!

“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 expectations!

Table of Contents

Best William Shakespeare Quotes About Expectations!

“Expectation is the root of all heartache.” -William Shakespeare
“Oft expectation fails, and most oft there where most it promises; and oft it hits where hope is coldest, and despair most fits.” -William Shakespeare
“The miserable have no other medicine But only hope.” -William Shakespeare
“I am giddy, expectation whirls me round. The imaginary relish is so sweet That it enchants my sense.” -William Shakespeare
“Oft expectation fails, and most oft there where most it promises; and oft it hits where hope is coldest, and despair most fits.” -William Shakespeare
“Promising is the very air o’ the time; it opens the eyes of expectation.” -William Shakespeare
“The miserable have no other medicine But only hope.” -William Shakespeare
“I am giddy, expectation whirls me round. The imaginary relish is so sweet That it enchants my sense.” -William Shakespeare
“Promising is the very air o’ th’ time; it opens the eyes of expectation. Performance is ever duller for his act; and, but in the plainer and simpler kind of people, the deed of saying is quite out of use. To promise is most courtly and fashionable; performance is a kind of will or testament which argues a great sickness in his judgment that makes it.” -William Shakespeare
“Promising is the very air o’ the time; it opens the eyes of expectation.” -William Shakespeare

Best William Shakespeare Quotes On Life Lessons

“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
“My words fly up, my thoughts remain below: Words without thoughts never to heaven go.” -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
“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
“It is a wise father that knows his own child.” -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
“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
“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
“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
“A peace is of the nature of a conquest; for then both parties nobly are subdued, and neither party loser.” -William Shakespeare
“Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once.” -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 Time

“Things without all remedy should be without regard: what’s done is done.” -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
“In time we hate that which we often fear.” -William Shakespeare
“O, call back yesterday, bid time return.” -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
“Let’s take the instant by the forward top; For we are old, and on our quick’st decrees The inaudible and noiseless foot of Time Steals ere we can effect them.” -William Shakespeare
“Have you not a moist eye, a dry hand, a yellow cheek, a white beard, a decreasing leg, an increasing belly? Is not your voice broken, your wind short, your chin double, your wit single, and every part about you blasted with antiquity?” -William Shakespeare
“The whirligig of time brings in his revenges.” -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
“My age is as a lusty winter, frosty but kindly.” -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
“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
“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
“Time goes on crutches till love have all his rites.” -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
“Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth And delves the parallels in beauty’s brow.” -William Shakespeare
“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
“Minutes, hours, days, months, and years, Pass’d over to the end they were created, Would bring white hairs unto a quiet grave. Ah, what a life were this!” -William Shakespeare
“Time travels in divers paces with divers persons. I’ll tell you who Time ambles withal, who Time trots withal, who Time gallops withal, and who he stands still withal.” -William Shakespeare
“We should hold day with the Antipodes, If you would walk in absence of the sun.” -William Shakespeare
“Time is the old justice that examines all such offenders, and let Time try.” -William Shakespeare
“Your lordship, though not clean past your youth, have yet some smack of age in you, some relish of the saltiness of time.” -William Shakespeare
“We have seen better days.” -William Shakespeare
“Much rain wears the marble.” -William Shakespeare
“Out, damned spot! out, I say! One: two: why, then ’tis time to do’t. Hell is murky!” -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
“Ruin has taught me to ruminate, That Time will come and take my love away. This thought is as a death, which cannot choose But weep to have that which it fears to lose.” -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

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
“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
“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
“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
“With love’s light wings did I o’erperch these walls, For stony limits cannot hold love out.” -William Shakespeare
“This bud of love, by summer’s ripening breath, May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet.” -William Shakespeare
“If love be blind, love cannot hit the mark.” -William Shakespeare
“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
“Mercy but murders, pardoning those that kill.” -William Shakespeare
“All are punished.” -William Shakespeare
“These violent delights have violent ends, And in their triumph die.” -William Shakespeare
“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
“Give me my Romeo; and, when he shall die, Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine That all the world will be in love with night And pay no worship to the garish sun.” -William Shakespeare
“O, here Will I set up my everlasting rest, And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars.” -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.”
“Thus with a kiss I die.” -William Shakespeare
“I defy you, stars.” -William Shakespeare
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
“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
“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

Best William Shakespeare Quotes About Love

“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
“One fairer than my love? the all-seeing sun Ne’er saw her match since first the world begun.” -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
“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
“Doubt thou the stars are fire, Doubt the sun doth move, Doubt truth to be a liar but never doubt thy love.” -William Shakespeare
“I loved Ophelia: Forty thousand brothers Could not, with all their quantity of love, Make up my sum.” -William Shakespeare
“Love is begun by time, And time qualifies the spark and fire of it.” -William Shakespeare
“This is the very ecstasy of love.” -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
“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
“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
“Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear; when little fears grow great, great love grows there.” -William Shakespeare
“The course of true love never did run smooth.” -William Shakespeare
“Love can transpose to form and dignity.” -William Shakespeare
“I love you with so much of my heart that none is left to protest.” -William Shakespeare
“Speak low if you speak love.” -William Shakespeare
“Under love’s heavy burden do I sink.” -William Shakespeare
“You are a lover. Borrow Cupid’s wings And soar with them above a common bound.” -William Shakespeare
“Love goes toward love as schoolboys from their books, But love from love, toward school with heavy looks.” -William Shakespeare
“Therefore all hearts in love use their own tongues.” -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
“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
“But soft, what light through yonder window breaks? It is the East, and Juliet is the sun.”
“If love be blind, love cannot hit the mark.” -William Shakespeare
“Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, and therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.” -William Shakespeare
“Cupid is a knavish lad, thus to make females mad.” -William Shakespeare
“Love goes by haps; Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps.” -William Shakespeare
“I will not be sworn but love may transform me to an oyster.” -William Shakespeare
“She will die if you love her not, And she will die ere she might make her love known.” -William Shakespeare
“I do love nothing in the world so well as you—is not that strange?” -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
“If music be the food of love, play on.” -William Shakespeare
“A lover’s eyes will gaze an eagle blind; A lover’s ears will hear the lowest sound.” -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.”
“But are you so much in love as your rhymes speak? Neither rhyme nor reason can express how much.” -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
“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
“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 From Plays

“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
“But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.”
“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
“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
“All that glisters is not gold.” -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
“By the pricking of my thumbs, Something wicked this way comes. Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.” -William Shakespeare
“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
“When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept: Ambition should be made of sterner stuff.” -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
“Everyone can master a grief but he that has it.” -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
“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

Best William Shakespeare Quotes About Life

“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
The sands are number’d that make up my life; Here must I stay, and here my life must end.” -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
“Thy life’s a miracle.” -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
“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
“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
“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
“Beware the Ides of March.” -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 Happiness

“I wish you all the joy that you can wish.” -William Shakespeare
“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
“Prepare for mirth, for mirth becomes a feast.” -William Shakespeare
“How much better is it to weep at joy than to joy at weeping?” -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
“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
“Heaven, 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
“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
“Where joy most revels, grief doth most lament; Grief joys, joy grieves, on slender accident.” -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
“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
“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
“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

Best William Shakespeare Quotes About Friendship

“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
“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
“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
“To Milan let me hear from thee by letters / Of thy success in love, and what news else / Betideth here in absence of thy friend; / And I likewise will visit thee with mine.” -William Shakespeare
“Madam, you wrong the King’s love with these fears; / Your hopes and friends are infinite.” -William Shakespeare
“To me, fair friend, you never can be old.” -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
“Good my friends, consider / You are my guests.” -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
“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
“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 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
“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.” -William Shakespeare
“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
“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
“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
“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