81 Best William Shakespeare Quotes About Time

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

William Shakespeare was an English poet, playwright, and actor.

Shakespeare was born in 1564 in England, and today he is widely regarded as one of the best writers and playwrights of all time.

Here is a short list of some of his most iconic plays:

Romeo And Juliet
Much Ado About Nothing
Twelfth Knight
The Tempest
Macbeth
King Lear
Julius Caesar
Othello
The Merchant Of The Venice
Henry V

As you can see, Shakespeare was a prolific writer!

Of course, Shakespeare was most famous for his iconic quotes about time. Through his characters he provides commentary on the passing of time, including man’s inevitable struggle against time itself.

Without further ado, here are 81 of Shakespeare’s best quotes about time!

Table of Contents

Best William Shakespeare Quotes About Time

“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.”
“Yet, do thy worst, old Time; despite thy wrong, My love shall in my verse ever live young.”
“So many hours must I take my rest; So many hours must I contemplate.”
“Beauty, wit, High birth, vigour of bone, desert in service, Love, friendship, charity, are subjects all To envious and calumniating time.”
“The end crowns all, And that old common arbitrator, Time, Will one day end it.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“O time, thou must untangle this, not I. It is too hard a knot for me t’untie.”
“Time goes on crutches till love have all his rites.”
“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.”
“No, Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change.”
“What e’er you are That in this desert inaccessible, Under the shade of melancholy boughs, Lose and neglect the creeping hours of time.”
“Lord, Lord, how subject we old men are to this vice of lying!”
“Come now, what masques, what dances shall we have To wear away this long age of three hours Between our after-supper and bedtime?”
“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.””
“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!”
“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.”
“Old Time the clock-setter.”
“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?”
“We have seen better days.”
“Much rain wears the marble.”
“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.”
“Short time seems long in sorrow’s sharp sustaining.”
“The extreme parts of time extremely forms all causes to the purpose of his speed.”
“Many strokes, though with a little axe, hew down and fell the hardest-timber’d oak.”
“Pleasure and action make the hours seem short.”
“In time we hate that which we often fear.”
“O, call back yesterday, bid time return.”
“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.”
“Make use of time, let not advantage slip.”
“What is past is prologue.”
“A man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age.”
“Defer no time, delays have dangerous ends.”
“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.”
“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.”
“We are time’s subjects, and time bids be gone.”
“Time … thou ceaseless lackey to eternity.”
“Your lordship, though not clean past your youth, have yet some smack of age in you, some relish of the saltiness of time.”
“Time’s glory is to command contending kings, To unmask falsehood, and bring truth to light.”
“Time shall unfold what plaited cunning hides: Who cover faults, at last shame them derides.”
“Nothing ‘gainst Times scythe can make defense.”
“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.”
“There are many events in the womb of time which will be delivered.”
“Though I look old, yet I am strong and lusty; for in my youth I never did apply hot and rebellious liquors in my blood; and did not, with unbashful forehead, woo the means of weakness and debility: therefore my age is as a lusty winter, frosty but kindly.”
“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.”
“I am now of all humors that have showed themselves humors since the old days of goodman Adam to the pupil age of this present twelve o’clock at midnight.”
“This is no time to lend money, especially upon bare friendship without security.”
“What else may hap, to time I will commit.”
“Thus we play the fool with the time and the spirits of the wise sit in the clouds and mock us.”
“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.”
“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.”
“If you can look into the seeds of time, and say which grain will grow and which will not, speak then unto me.”
“Time travels in divers paces with divers persons.”
“Time be thine, And thy best graces spend it at thy will.”
“The time is out of joint : O cursed spite, that ever I was born to set it right!”
“The whirligig of time brings in his revenges.”
“Time, that takes survey of all the world, Must have a stop.”
“My age is as a lusty winter, frosty but kindly.”
“Do you set down your name in the scroll of youth, that are written down old with all the characters of age?”
“Better three hours too soon than a minute too late.”
“Let every man be master of his time.”
“Things without all remedy should be without regard: what’s done is done.”
“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.”
“There’s a time for all things.”
“At Christmas I no more desire a rose Than wish a snow in May’s new-fangled mirth; But like of each thing that in season grows.”
“Reputation is an idle and most false imposition; oft got without merit, and lost without deserving.”
“To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, To the last syllable of recorded time; And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. 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.”
“What, keep a week away? Seven days and nights, Eightscore-eight hours, and lovers’ absent hours More tedious than the dial eightscore times! O weary reckoning!”
“My glass shall not persuade me I am old, So long as youth and thou are of one date; But when in thee time’s furrows I behold, Then look I death my days should expiate.”
“I have seen better faces in my time Than stands on any shoulder that I see Before me at this instant.”
“Out, damned spot! out, I say! One: two: why, then ’tis time to do’t. Hell is murky!”
“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.”
“We should hold day with the Antipodes, If you would walk in absence of the sun.”
“Time is the old justice that examines all such offenders, and let Time try.”
“We see which way the stream of time doth run.”
“I that please some, try all, both joy and terror Of good and bad, that makes and unfolds error.”
“I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.”
“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.”
“The time is out of joint.”

Best William Shakespeare Quotes About Happiness

“I wish you all the joy that you can wish.”
“My crown is called content, a crown that seldom kings enjoy.”
“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.”
“How much better is it to weep at joy than to joy at weeping?”
“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.”
“Let’s go hand in hand, not one before another.”
“Here come the lovers, full of joy and mirth.- Joy, gentle friends! joy and fresh days of love Accompany your hearts!”
“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.”
“I wish you all the joy you can wish.”
“Joy absent, grief is present for that time.”
“All days of glory, joy, and happiness.”
“Be cheerful; wipe thine eyes.”
“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.”
“How sweet is love itself possess’d, When but love’s shadows are so rich in joy!”
“My life, my joy, my food, my ail the world!”
“How much better is it to weep at joy than to joy at weeping.”
“This told, I joy; but then no longer glad, I send them back again and straight grow sad.”
“The treasury of everlasting joy!”
“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.”
“Right joyous are we to behold your face, Most worthy brother England; fairly met!”
“Love is not love that alters when it alteration finds.”
“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.”
“It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.”
“Love sought is good, but given unsought, is better.”
“O Lord that lends me life, Lend me a heart replete with thankfulness!”
“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.”
“There’s nothing in this world can make me joy.”
“Where joy most revels, grief doth most lament; Grief joys, joy grieves, on slender accident.”
“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.”
“My joy is death-Death, at whose name I oft have been afeard, Because I wish’d this world’s eternity.”
“For here, I hope, begins our lasting joy.”
“If this be so, the gods do mean to strike me To death with mortal joy.”
“Twixt two extremes of passion, joy and grief, Burst smilingly.”
“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.”
“Heaven, the treasury of everlasting joy.”
“Than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy.”
“Prepare for mirth, for mirth becomes a feast.”
“But here’s the joy: my friend and I are one, Sweet flattery!”
“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!”
“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.”
“Lay aside life-harming heaviness, And entertain a cheerful disposition.”
“Silence is the perfectest herald of joy I were but little happy, if I could say how much.”
“With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come.”
“There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.”
“But O, how bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man’s eyes.”
“I had rather have a fool to make me merry than experience to make me sad and to travel for it too!”
“O love, be moderate, allay thy ecstasy, In measure rain thy joy, scant this excess!”
“But here’s the joy my friend and I are one… Then she loves but me alone.”

Best William Shakespeare Quotes About Love

“Down on your knees, And thank Heaven, fasting, for a good man’s love.”
“In the spring time, the only pretty ring time, When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding: Sweet lovers love the spring.”
“A lover’s eyes will gaze an eagle blind; A lover’s ears will hear the lowest sound.”
“A heart to love, and in that heart, Courage, to make’s love known.”
“The sight of lovers feedeth those in love.”
“She loved me for the dangers I had passed, And I loved her that she did pity them.”
“I, Beyond all limit of what else i’ th’ world, Do love, prize, honour you.”
“He is the half part of a blessed man, Left to be finished by such as she: And she a fair divided excellence, Whose fullness of perfection lies in him.”
“Now join hands, and with your hands your hearts.”
“If love be blind, love cannot hit the mark.”
“Don’t waste your love on somebody, who doesn’t value it.”
“Love moderately. Long love doth so. Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow.”
“She will die if you love her not, And she will die ere she might make her love known.”
“I do love nothing in the world so well as you—is not that strange?”
“When you depart from me sorrow abides, and happiness takes his leave.”
“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.”
“Oh, love’s best habit is in seeming trust, And age in love loves not to have years told.”
“O! how thy worth with manners may I sing, When thou art all the better part of me?”
“Love comforteth like sunshine after rain.”
“And when love speaks, the voice of all the gods makes heaven drowsy with the harmony.”
“To be wise, and love, Exceeds man’s might.”
“Love comforteth like sunshine after rain, But lust’s effect is tempest after sun; Love’s gentle spring doth always fresh remain, Lust’s winter comes ere summer half be done. Love surfeits not; lust like a glutton dies; Love is all truth; lust full of forged lies.”
“They do not love that do not show their love.”
“Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.”
“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.”
“So are you to my thoughts as food to life, Or as sweet-seasoned showers are to the ground.”
“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…”
“Love goes by haps; Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps.”
“I will not be sworn but love may transform me to an oyster.”
“In my opinion, love and quiet simplicity if they speak less, they say more.”
“I love thee. By my life, I do.”
“Love is begun by time, And time qualifies the spark and fire of it.”
“This is the very ecstasy of love.”
“Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear; when little fears grow great, great love grows there.”
“Love is heavy and light, bright and dark, hot and cold, sick and healthy, asleep and awake- its everything except what it is!”
“Parting is such sweet sorrow.”
“With love’s light wings did I o’erperch these walls, For stony limits cannot hold love out.”
“See how she leans her cheek upon her hand, O that I were a glove upon that hand that I might touch that cheek!”
“This bud of love by summer’s ripening breath, May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet.”
“Alas, that love, so gentle in his view, Should be so tyrannous and rough in proof.”
“Lovers can do their amorous rites by their own beauties.”
“Young men’s love then lies Not truly in their hearts but in their eyes.”
“I loved Ophelia: Forty thousand brothers Could not, with all their quantity of love, Make up my sum.”
“The course of true love never did run smooth.”
“Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, and therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.”
“Beshrew your eyes, They have o’erlooked me and divided me. One half of me is yours, the other half yours— Mine own, I would say. But if mine, then yours, And so all yours.”
“O love, be moderate. Allay thy ecstasy. In measure rein thy joy.”
“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate.”
“Hear my soul speak. Of the very instant that I saw you, Did my heart fly at your service.”
“I would not wish Any companion in the world but you: Nor can imagination form a shape Besides yourself to like of.”
“I know no ways to mince it in love, but directly to say ‘I love you.’”
“What’s mine is yours, and what is yours is mine.”
“Let’s go hand in hand, not one before another.”
“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!”
“Love is a spirit all compact of fire.”
“I can express no kinder sign of love, than this kind kiss.”
“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.”
“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.”
“Thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings That then I scorn to change my state with kings.”
“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.”
“I love you with so much of my heart that none is left to protest.”
“Speak low if you speak love.”
“Suffer love,–a good epithet! I do suffer love indeed, for I love thee against my will.”
“O, swear not by the moon, th’ inconstant moon, That monthly changes in her circled orb, Lest that thy love prove likewise variable.”
“Under love’s heavy burden do I sink.”
“For stony limits cannot hold love out, And what love can do that dares love attempt.”
“Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight! For I ne’er saw true beauty till this night.”
“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.”
“You are a lover. Borrow Cupid’s wings And soar with them above a common bound.”
“Love goes toward love as schoolboys from their books, But love from love, toward school with heavy looks.”
“Doubt thou the stars are fire, Doubt the sun doth move, Doubt truth to be a liar but never doubt thy love.”
“Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove: O no! it is an ever-fixed mark That looks on tempests and is never shaken.”
“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.”
“They are in the very wrath of love, and they will go together. Clubs cannot part them.”
“What is love? ‘Tis not hereafter: Present mirth hath present laughter.”
“A heaven on earth I have won by wooing thee.”
“But are you so much in love as your rhymes speak? Neither rhyme nor reason can express how much.”
“If thou remember’st not the slightest folly That ever love did make thee run into, Thou hast not loved.”
“There’s beggary in the love that can be reckoned.”
“Excellent wetch! Perdition catch my soul, but I do love thee, and when I love thee not, chaos is come again.”
“For ever and a day.”
“In thy face I see the map of honour, truth and loyalty.”
“Her passions are made of nothing but the finest part of pure love.”
“I humbly do beseech of your pardon, For too much of loving you.”
“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.”
“One fairer than my love? the all-seeing sun Ne’er saw her match since first the world begun.”
“Cupid is a knavish lad, thus to make females mad.”
“So we grew together, Like to a double cherry, seeming parted, But yet an union in partition, Two lovely berries moulded on one stem.”
“Love can transpose to form and dignity.”
“Therefore all hearts in love use their own tongues.”
“Love me! Why, it must be requited.”
“Tell me for which of my bad parts didst thou first fall in love with me?”
“For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings, That then I scorn to change my state with kings.”
“If music be the food of love, play on.”
“Love sought is good, but given unsought is better.”
“Love is like a child, That longs for everything it can come by.”
“But soft, what light through yonder window breaks? It is the East, and Juliet is the sun.”
“I’ll follow thee and make a heaven of hell, To die upon the hand I love so well.”
“To say the truth, reason and love keep little company together nowadays.”
“Love’s stories written in love’s richest books. To fan the moonbeams from his sleeping eyes.”
“For where thou art, there is the world itself, and where though art not, desolation.”
“I love you more than words can wield the matter, Dearer than eyesight, space, and liberty.”
“Never durst poet touch a pen to write Until his ink were tempered with Love’s sighs.”
“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.”
“But love is blind, and lovers cannot see The pretty follies that themselves commit.”
“Lovers ever run before the clock.”
“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.”
“One half of me is yours, the other half yours—Mine own, I would say; but if mine, then yours, And so all yours.”
“Sweet, above thought I love thee.
“Love hath made thee a tame snake.”
“So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, so long lives this, and this gives life to thee.”
“Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?”

Best William Shakespeare Quotes From Plays

“My Oberon! What visions have I seen! Methought I was enamoured of an ass.”
“If music be the food of love, play on.”
“Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them.”
“I will wear my heart upon my sleeve; For daws to peck at.”
“Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears; I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him”
“When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept: Ambition should be made of sterner stuff”
“By the pricking of my thumbs, Something wicked this way comes. Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.”
“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.”
“The course of true love never did run smooth.”
“Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, and therefore is winged Cupid painted blind”
“Love sought is good, but given unsought is better.”
“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet”
“Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more, Or close the wall up with our English dead!”
“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.”
“Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown”
“The worst is not, So long as we can say, ‘This is the worst.’”
“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”
“They have been at a great feast of languages, and stolen the scraps.”
“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.”
“Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?“
“The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.”
“Neither a borrower nor a lender be; for loan oft loses both itself and friend.”
“The play ‘s the thing wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king”
“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”
“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”
“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.”
“Love is blind, and lovers cannot see, The pretty follies that themselves commit.”
“All that glisters is not gold.”
“When you depart from me sorrow abides, and happiness takes his leave.”
“Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.”
“Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall”
“Everyone can master a grief but he that has it”
“But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.”
“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..”
“Good night, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow, That I shall say good night till it be morrow.”
“The miserable have no other medicine but only hope”
“What’s mine is yours, and what is yours is mine.”

Best William Shakespeare Quotes From Romeo And Juliet

“Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight, For I ne’er saw true beauty till this night.”
“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.”
“Alas, that love, so gentle in his view, Should be so tyrannous and rough in proof.”
“Lovers can do their amorous rites by their own beauties.”
“Young men’s love then lies Not truly in their hearts but in their eyes.”
“Mercy but murders, pardoning those that kill.”
“All are punished.”
“These violent delights have violent ends, And in their triumph die.”
“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!”
“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.”
“What must be shall be.”
“If he be married my grave is like to be my wedding bed.”
“O, I am Fortune’s fool!”
“For stony limits cannot hold love out, And what love can do that dares love attempt.”
“Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight! For I ne’er saw true beauty till this night.”
“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.”
“But soft, what light through yonder window breaks? It is the East, and Juliet is the sun.”
“One fairer than my love? the all-seeing sun Ne’er saw her match since first the world begun.”
“This bud of love, by summer’s ripening breath, May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet.”
“My bounty is as boundless as the sea, my love as deep. The more I give to thee, the more I have, for both are infinite.”
“Love 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.”
“See how she leans her cheek upon her hand, O that I were a glove upon that hand that I might touch that cheek!”
“O, swear not by the moon, th’ inconstant moon, That monthly changes in her circled orb, Lest that thy love prove likewise variable.”
O heavy lightness, serious vanity, Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms,
Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health, Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is! This love feel I, that feel no love in this.”
“Go wisely and slow; they stumble that run fast.”
“I must be gone and live, or stay and die.”
“These violent delights have violent ends And in their triumph die, like fire and powder, Which, as they kiss, consume.”
“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!”
“From forth the fatal loins of these two foes A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life.”
“I fear too early, for my mind misgives; Some consequence, yet hanging in the stars,
Shall bitterly begin.”
“I defy you, stars.”
“Some grief shows much of love, But much of grief shows still some want of wit.”
“Death lies on her like an untimely frost Upon the sweetest flower of all the field.”
“Thus with a kiss I die.”
“With love’s light wings did I o’erperch these walls, For stony limits cannot hold love out.”
“Under love’s heavy burden do I sink.”
“You are a lover. Borrow Cupid’s wings And soar with them above a common bound.”
“Love goes toward love as schoolboys from their books, But love from love, toward school with heavy looks.”
“Love moderately. Long love doth so. Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow.”
“This bud of love by summer’s ripening breath, May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet.”
“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.”
“Why then, O brawling love! O loving hate! O any thing, of nothing first create!
“For never was a story of more woe than this of Juliet and her Romeo.”
“I defy you, stars[.]”
“Love is heavy and light, bright and dark, hot and cold, sick and healthy, asleep and awake- its everything except what it is!”
“Parting is such sweet sorrow.”
“If love be blind, love cannot hit the mark.”
“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.”
“Death, that hath sucked the honey of thy breath, Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty.”
“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.”
“Don’t waste your love on somebody, who doesn’t value it.”
“A plague o’ both your houses!”
“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet.”
“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.”
“What, drawn, and talk of peace? I hate the word. As I hate hell, all Montagues, and thee.”

Best William Shakespeare Quotes About Life

“Get thee to a nunnery.”
“As merry as the day is long.”
“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.”
“It is silliness to live when to live is torment; and then have we a prescription to die when death is our physician.”
“We are such stuff as dreams are made on and our little life is rounded with a sleep.”
“Now is the winter of our discontent.”
“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?”
“To do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men’s cottage princes’ palaces.”
“Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears: I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“Let me be that I am and seek not to alter me.”
“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.”
“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.”
“The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together.”
“O excellent! I love long life better than figs.”
“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.”
“Is this a dagger which I see before me, the handle toward my hand?”
“Beware the Ides of March.”
“How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child!”
“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.”
“Let life be short: else shame will be too long.”
The sands are number’d that make up my life; Here must I stay, and here my life must end.”
“There where my fortune lives, there my life dies.”
“Thy life’s a miracle.”

Best William Shakespeare Quotes About Friendship

“Nature teaches beasts to know their friends.”
“That which I would discover / The law of friendship bids me to conceal.”
“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.”
“My friends were poor but honest.”
“The band that seems to tie their friendship together will be the very strangler of their amity.”
“Thy friendship makes us fresh.”
“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.”
“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.”
“The presence of a king engenders love / Amongst his subjects and his loyal friends, / As it disanimates his enemies.”
“To set a gloss on faint deeds, hollow welcomes, / Recanting goodness, sorry ere ’tis shown; / But where there is true friendship, there needs none.”
“Love, friendship, charity, are subjects all
“To envious and calumniating time.”
“There is a devil / haunts thee in the likeness of an old fat man; a tun of man is
thy companion.”
“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.”
“Most friendship is faining, most loving mere folly: / Then, heigh-ho, the holly.
This life is most jolly.”
“I desire you in friendship, and I will one way or other make you amends.”
“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.”
“Love, friendship, charity, are subjects all, to envious and calumniating time.”
“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.”
“Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, / Grapple them unto thy soul with hoops of steel.”
“Keep thy friend, under thy own life’s key.”
“But where there is true friendship, there needs none.”
“Joy, gentle friends! joy and fresh days of love Accompany your hearts!”
“A friend should bear his friend’s infirmities.”
“All friends shall taste / The wages of their virtue, and all foes / The cup of their deservings.”
“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.”
“Good company, good wine, good welcome, can make good people.”
“There is flattery in friendship.”
“To me, fair friend, you never can be old.”
“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.”
“Words are easy, like the wind; faithful friends are hard to find.”
“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.”
“But if the while I think on thee, dear friend, all losses are restored and sorrows end.”
“Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more; Or close the wall with our English dead.”
“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
He with thee doth bear a part. / These are certain signs to know / Faithful friend from flattering foe.”
“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?”
“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.”
“Madam, you wrong the King’s love with these fears; / Your hopes and friends are infinite.”
“For when no friends are by, men praise themselves.”
“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.”
“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.”
“Good my friends, consider / You are my guests.”
“Away, boy, from the troops, and save thyself; / For friends kill friends, and the disorder’s such / As war were hoodwink’d.”
“To mingle friendship far is mingling bloods.”
“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.”
“Madam, you wrong the King’s love with these fears; / Your hopes and friends are infinite.”
“Friendship is constant in all other things / Save in the office and affairs of love.”
“My good friends, I’ll leave you till night.”

Best William Shakespeare Quotes On Life Lessons

“The robbed that smiles steals something from the thief.”
“In time we hate that which we often fear.”
“When we are born, we cry that we are come to this great stage of fools.”
“Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt.”
“Love sought is good; but given unsought is better.”
“One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.”
“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.”
“Desire of having is the sin of covetousness.”
“How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child!”
“Many a good hanging prevents a bad marriage.”
“We know what we are, but know not what we may be.”
“Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful.”
“Let life be short; else shame will be too long.”
“Virtue itself ‘scapes not calumnious strokes.”
“Love is not love, which alters when it alteration finds.”
“The miserable have no other medicine, but only hope.”
“Love is too young to know what conscience is.”
“And this our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything.”
“When sorrows come, they come not single spies but in battalions.”
“Pleasure and action make the hours seem short.”
“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.”
“To do a great right, do a little wrong.”
“To be, or not to be, that is the question.”
“Life is as tedious as a twice-told tale, vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man.”
“Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once.”
“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.”
“The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.”
“Love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs.”
“The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.”
“Brevity is the soul of wit.”
“Ignorance is the curse of God, Knowledge the wing wherewith we fly to heaven.”
“We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep.”
“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.”
“Thy overflow of good converts to bad.”
“Reputation is an idle and most false imposition: oft got without merit, and lost without deserving.”
“Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind; And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.”
“No legacy is so rich as honesty.”
“False face must hide what the false heart doth know.”
“God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another.”
“If money go before, all ways do lie open.”
“My words fly up, my thoughts remain below: Words without thoughts never to heaven go.”
“A peace is of the nature of a conquest; for then both parties nobly are subdued, and neither party loser.”
“The very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream.”
“Life every man holds dear; but the dear man holds honor far more precious-dear than life.”
“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”
“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.”
“It is a wise father that knows his own child.”
“There is no darkness, but ignorance.”