Top 4037 Quotes & Sayings by William Shakespeare

Explore popular quotes and sayings by an English playwright William Shakespeare.
Last updated on April 13, 2025.
William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's greatest dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon". His extant works, including collaborations, consist of some 39 plays, 154 sonnets, three long narrative poems, and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. He remains arguably the most influential writer in the English language, and his works continue to be studied and reinterpreted.

The robbed that smiles, steals something from the thief.
The undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns.
God has given you one face, and you make yourself another. — © William Shakespeare
God has given you one face, and you make yourself another.
Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot that it do singe yourself.
Ignorance is the curse of God; knowledge is the wing wherewith we fly to heaven.
There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.
Doubt thou the stars are fire, Doubt that the sun doth move. Doubt truth to be a liar, But never doubt I love.
Hell is empty and all the devils are here.
What's done can't be undone.
My pride fell with my fortunes.
How far that little candle throws its beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world.
Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.
If you can look into the seeds of time, and say which grain will grow and which will not, speak then unto me. — © William Shakespeare
If you can look into the seeds of time, and say which grain will grow and which will not, speak then unto me.
Who could refrain that had a heart to love and in that heart courage to make love known?
I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano; A stage where every man must play a part, And mine is a sad one.
Better three hours too soon than a minute too late.
There's no art to find the mind's construction in the face.
The man that hath no music in himself, Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils.
The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.
One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.
Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt.
Sweet mercy is nobility's true badge.
The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.
There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat. And we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures.
It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.
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.
Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs.
What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.
Good night, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say good night till it be morrow.
Sweet are the uses of adversity which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, wears yet a precious jewel in his head.
It is a wise father that knows his own child.
When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions.
Boldness be my friend.
Though she be but little, she is fierce.
The course of true love never did run smooth.
Kindness in women, not their beauteous looks, shall win my love.
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.
So foul and fair a day I have not seen. — © William Shakespeare
So foul and fair a day I have not seen.
Poor and content is rich, and rich enough.
We are such stuff as dreams are made on; and our little life is rounded with a sleep.
O' What may man within him hide, though angel on the outward side!
Life is as tedious as twice-told tale, vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man.
And this, our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything.
We know what we are, but know not what we may be.
A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool.
No legacy is so rich as honesty.
This life, which had been the tomb of his virtue and of his honour, is 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.
To do a great right do a little wrong. — © William Shakespeare
To do a great right do a little wrong.
Our peace shall stand as firm as rocky mountains.
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?
Speak low, if you speak love.
Listen to many, speak to a few.
Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind.
To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.
As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods; they kill us for their sport.
Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.
Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall.
It is the stars, The stars above us, govern our conditions.
Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once.
Brevity is the soul of wit.
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