William Shakespeare
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"William Shakespeare" – 23 April 1616) was an English :poet, :playwright, and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's List of national poets/national poet and the "Bard of Avon". His extant works, including some Shakespeare's collaborations/collaborations, consist of about Shakespeare's plays/38 plays, Shakespeare's sonnets/154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and a few other verses, of which the authorship of some is uncertain. His plays have been translated into every major modern language/living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright.

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Action is eloquence.

He is winding the watch of his wit; by and by it will strike.

Strong reasons make strong actions.

Love all, trust a few. Do wrong to none.

We have some salt of our youth in us.

Our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything.

He that dies pays all debts.

What seest thou elseIn the dark backward and abysm of time?

All the world's a stage, and all the men and women are merely players.

When he is best, he is a little worse than a man; and when he is worst, he is little better than a beast.

Blow, blow, thou winter wind Thou art not so unkind, As man's ingratitude.

A kind Of excellent dumb discourse.

Though this be madness, yet there is method in 't.

The love of heaven makes one heavenly.

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: No more; and by a sleep to say we end The heartache and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to,--'t is a consummation Devoutly to be wish'd.

Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice.

Fill all thy bones with aches.

Here will be an old abusing of God's patience and the king's English.

Not Hercules could have knock'd out his brains, for he had none.

Leave her to heaven And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge, To prick and sting her.

The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.

My salad days,When I was green in judgment.

And thus I clothe my naked villainy With old odd ends, stol'n forth of holy writ; And seem a saint, when most I play the devil.

I, thus neglecting worldly ends, all dedicated To closeness and the bettering of my mind.

No profit grows where is no pleasure ta'en; In brief, sir, study what you most affect.

False face must hide what the false heart doth know.

He hath eaten me out of house and home.

Since Cleopatra died, I have liv'd in such dishonour that the gods Detest my baseness.

What's mine is yours, and what is yours is mine.

For aught that I could ever read,Could ever hear by tale or history,The course of true love never did run smooth.

In peace there's nothing so becomes a man As modest stillness and humility; But when the blast of war blows in our ears, Then imitate the action of the tiger: Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood.

It is a familiar beast to man, and signifies love.

Brevity is the soul of wit.

Every man has business and desire, Such as it is.

From the still-vexed Bermoothes.

Merrily, merrily shall I live now, Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.

O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?

Glory is like a circle in the water, Which never ceaseth to enlarge itself, Till by broad spreading it disperses to naught.

Conversation should be pleasant without scurrility, witty without affectation, free without indecency, learned without conceitedness, novel without falsehood.

This England never did, nor never shall, Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror.

This bud of love, by summer's ripening breath, May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet.

I have heard of your paintings too, well enough; God has given you one face, and you make yourselves another.

Thou art all the comfort, The Gods will diet me with.

I would there were no age between sixteen and three-and-twenty, or that youth would sleep out the rest, for there is nothing in the between but getting wenches with child, wronging the ancientry, stealing, fighting.

I am not bound to please thee with my answers.

O, now, for ever Farewell the tranquil mind! farewell content! Farewell the plumed troop and the big wars That make ambition virtue! O, farewell! Farewell the neighing steed and the shrill trump, The spirit-stirring drum, the ear-piercing fife, The royal banner, and all quality, Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war! And, O you mortal engines, whose rude thr.

The play's the thingWherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.

Pray you now, forget and forgive.

Praising what is lost makes the remembrance dear.

My library Was dukedom large enough.

I understand a fury in your words, but not the words.

I wish you well and so I take my leave, I Pray you know me when we meet again.

He that commends me to mine own content Commends me to the thing I cannot get.

The course of true love was never easy.

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.

Come not within the measure of my wrath.

Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind; the thief doth fear each bush an officer.

Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently. For in the very torrent, tempest, and as I may say, whirlwind of passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness.

Things won are done; joy's soul lies in the doing.

There is a history in all men's lives.

Nothing will come of nothing.

The game is up.

Cry 'Havoc,' and let slip the dogs of war.

The attempt and not the deed Confounds us.

Speak to me as to thy thinkings, As thou dost ruminate, and give thy worst of thoughts The worst of words.

Life 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 tall Tale, Told by an Idiot, full of Sound and Fury, Signifying nothing.'

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

A hit, a very palpable hit.

We burn daylight.

I pray thee cease thy counsel, Which falls into mine ears as profitless as water in a sieve.

They have been at a great feast of languages, and stolen the scraps.

Beware Of entrance to a quarrel; but being in, Bear't that the opposed may beware of thee. Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice; Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment. Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy, But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy; For the apparel oft proclaims the man.

Good name in man and woman, dear my lord, Is the immediate jewel of their souls: Who steals my purse steals trash; 'tis something, nothing; 'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands; But he that filches from me my good name Robs me of that which not enriches him And makes me poor indeed.

'Tis neither here nor there.

Things are neither good nor bad but thinking makes it so.

O, it is excellent to have a giant's strength; but it is tyrannous to use it like a giant.

A man in all the world's new fashion planted, That hath a mint of phrases in his brain.

Let the coming hour overflow with joy, and let pleasure drown the brim.

I had rather have a fool make me merry, than experience make me sad.

What the great ones do, the less will prattle of.

But love is blind and lovers cannot see The pretty follies that themselves commit; For if they could, Cupid himself would blush To see me thus transformed to a boy.

Nothing emboldens sin so much as mercy.

Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.

Life is as tedious as a twice-told tale Vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man.

I have not slept one wink.

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.

I dote on his very absence.

There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.

See first that the design is wise and just: that ascertained, pursue it resolutely; do not for one repulse forego the purpose that you resolved to effect.

God bless thee; and put meekness in thy mind, love, charity, obedience, and true duty!

I shall despair. There is no creature loves me; And if I die no soul will pity me: And wherefore should they, since that I myself Find in myself no pity to myself?

Life is a tale told by an idiot - full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Knowing I lov'd my books, he furnish'd me From mine own library with volumes that I prize above my dukedom.

A plague o' both your houses!

Although the last, not least.

Those that are good manners at the court are as ridiculous in the country, as the behavior of the country is most mockable at the court.

I will make a Star-chamber matter of it.

I will wear my heart upon my sleeveFor daws to peck at.

No legacy is so rich as honesty.

A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!

How use doth breed a habit in a man.

A very ancient and fish-like smell.

They say, best men are moulded out of faults, And, for the most, become much more the better For being a little bad.

Let me have men about me that are fat, Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o' nights: Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look; He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.

Hamlet: Do you see yonder cloud that's almost in shape of a camel?Polonius: By the mass, and 'tis like a camel, indeed.Hamlet: Methinks it is like a weasel. Polonius: It is backed like a weasel. Hamlet: Or like a whale? Polonius: Very like a whale.

I have Immortal longings in me.

Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind.

Teach not thy lip such scorn, for it was made For kissing, lady, not for such contempt.

Now would I give a thousand furlongs of sea for an acre of barren ground.

It is a wise father that knows his own child.

The gaudy, blabbing, and remorseful day Is crept into the bosom of the sea.

I am not merry; but I do beguileThe thing I am, by seeming otherwise.

Virtue and genuine graces in themselves speak what no words can utter.

Love goes toward love as schoolboys from their books; but love from look, toward school with heavy looks.

My tongue will tell the anger of mine heart, Or else my heart, concealing it, will break.

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.

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

Your face, my thane, is as a book where men May read strange matters...

You cram these words into mine ears against the stomach of my sense.

This is the third time; I hope good luck lies in odd numbers.... There is divinity in odd numbers, either in nativity, chance, or death.

But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.

Now cracks a noble heart. Good night sweet prince:And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!

'Tis better to be lowly born, And range with humble livers in content, Than to be perked up in a glistering grief, And wear a golden sorrow.

When griping grief the heart doth wound, and doleful dumps the mind opresses, then music, with her silver sound, with speedy help doth lend redress.

I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.

The law hath not been dead, though it hath slept.

Hereafter, in a better world than this, I shall desire more love and knowledge of you.

Now is the winter of our discontent Made glorious summer by this sun of York, And all the clouds that loured upon our house In the deep bosom of the ocean buried. Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths, Our bruised arms hung up for monuments, Our stern alarums changed to merry meetings, Our dreadful marches to delightful measures. Grim-visaged war hath smoo.

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears; I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones.

For Brutus is an honourable man; So are they all, all honourable men.

Every man has his fault, and honesty is his.

Oh God, that men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains!

O, how this spring of love resembleth The uncertain glory of an April day!

My words fly up, my thoughts remain below:Words without thoughts never to heaven go.

Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing.

Free from gross passion or of mirth or anger constant in spirit, not swerving with the blood, garnish'd and deck'd in modest compliment, not working with the eye without the ear, and but in purged judgement trusting neither? Such and so finely bolted didst thou seem.

Neither a borrower nor a lender be; For loan oft loses both itself and friend; And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry [economy].

Beware the ides of March.

Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once. Of all the wonders that I yet have heard, It seems to me most strange that men should fear; Seeing that death, a necessary end, Will come when it will come.

O, I am slain!

I feel within me a peace above all earthly dignities, a still and quiet conscience.

Sweet are the uses of adversity, which, like a toad, though ugly and venomous, wears yet a precious jewel in its head.

'Tis best to weigh The enemy more mighty than he seems.

If there be no great love in the beginning, yet heaven may decrease it upon better acquaintance, when we are married and have more occasion to know one another: I hope, upon familiarity will grow more contempt.

The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.

Yet do I fear thy nature; It is too full o' the milk of human kindness.

Your hearts are mighty, your skins are whole.

My meaning in saying he is a good man, is to have you understand me that he is sufficient.

While thou livest keep a good tongue in thy head.

Love is a gross exaggeration of the difference between one person and everyone else.

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

Our doubts are traitors, And make us lose the good we oft might win By fearing to attempt.

A little more than kin, and less than kind.

There was a star danced, and under that was I born.

From this day forward until the end of the world...we in it shall be remembered...we band of brothers.

Have more than thou showest; Speak less than thou knowest.

Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind.

We know what we are, but know not what we may be.

The devil hath power To assume a pleasing shape.

The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

I must be cruel only to be kind; Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind.

I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano; A stage where every man must play a part, And mine is a sad one.

Age cannot wither her, nor custom staleHer infinite variety.

He that is giddy thinks the world turns round.

Our revels now are ended. These our actors, As I foretold you, were all spirits, and Are melted into air, into thin air: And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, Leave not a rack behind.

The quality of mercy is not strain'd, It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest: It blesseth him that gives and him that takes. 'T is mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes The throned monarch better than his crown; His sceptre shows the force of temporal power, The attribute to awe and majesty, Wherein doth sit the dread a.

If music be the food of love, play on; Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting, The appetite may sicken, and so die. That strain again! it had a dying fall: O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound That breathes upon a bank of violets, Stealing and giving odour!

Out, damned spot! out, I say!

Lay on, Macduff, And damn'd be him that first cries, 'Hold, enough!'

He who has injured thee was either stronger or weaker than thee. If weaker, spare him; if stronger, spare thyself.

And oftentimes excusing of a fault doth make the fault the worse by the excuse.

He is not great who is not greatly good.

True is it that we have seen better days.

No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity, but I know none, therefore am no beast.

My words fly up, my thoughts remain below.Words without thoughts never to heaven go.

All's well that ends well....

He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his argument.

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.

Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds.

If rough be love with you, be rough with love.

We are advertis'd by our loving friends.

Is this a dagger which I see before me, The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee. I have thee not, and yet I see thee still. Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible To feeling as to sight? or art thou but A dagger of the mind, a false creation, Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?

When my love swears that she is made of truth, I do believe her, though I know she lies.

When we are born, we cry, that we are come To this great stage of fools.

What seest thou else In the dark backward and abysm of time?

Love sought is good, but giv'n unsought is better.

The gods are just, and of our pleasant vicesMake instruments to plague us.

No, 'tis slander, Whose edge is sharper than the sword, whose tongue Outvenoms all the worms of Nile, whose breath Rides on the posting winds, and doth belie All corners of the world.

But, for my own part, it was Greek to me.

Cursed be he that moves my bones.

I do begin to have bloody thoughts.

Wisely, and slow. They stumble that run fast.

Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie.

But to my mind, though I am native here And to the manner born, it is a custom More honoured in the breach than the observance.

Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once.

And since you know you cannot see yourself, so well as by reflection, I, your glass, will modestly discover to yourself, that of yourself which you yet know not of.

Lord, what fools these mortals be!

What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god!

Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments: love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds.

It is not enough to help the feeble up, but to support him after.

The sands are number'd that make up my life.

Oft expectation fails, and most oft where most it promises; and oft it hits where hope is coldest; and despair most sits.

I will be correspondent to command, And do my spiriting gently.

How use doth breed a habit in a man!

Where the bee sucks, there suck I; In a cowslip's bell I lie.

If all the year were playing holidays, To sport would be as tedious as to work.

So may he rest, his faults lie gently on him!

His life was gentle; and the elements So mixed in him, that Nature might stand up, And say to all the world, THIS WAS A MAN!

Be great in act, as you have been in thought.

I have no other but a woman's reason: I think him so, because I think him so.

O, beware, my lord, of jealousy!It is the green-eyed monster which doth mockThe meat it feeds on.

Their understanding Begins to swell and the approaching tide Will shortly fill the reasonable shores That now lie foul and muddy.

How my achievements mock me!

Do not, for one repulse, forego the purpose that you resolved to effect.

Why, then the world's mine oyster, Which I with sword will open.

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 taleTold by an idiot, full of so.

Excellent wretch! Perdition catch my soul,But I do love thee! and when I love thee not, Chaos is come again.

When words are scarce they are seldom spent in vain.

Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall.

And many strokes, though with a little axe, Hew down and fell the hardest-timbered oak.

I like this place, and willingly would waste my time in it.

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.

True hope is swift, and flies with swallow's wings; Kings it makes gods, and meaner creatures kings.

Lady you bereft me of all words, Only my blood speaks to you in my veins, And there is such confusion in my powers.

The sweetest honey Is loathsome in his own deliciousness And in the taste confounds the appetite.

It is meant that noble minds keep ever with their likes; for who so firm that cannot be seduced.

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought I summon up remembrance of things past, I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought, And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste.

Gold is worse poison to a man's soul, doing more murders in this loathsome world, than any mortal drug.

Pity is the virtue of the law, and none but tyrants use it cruelly.

Our bodies are our gardens to which our wills are gardeners.

The little foolery that wise men have makes a great show.

I must be cruel, only to be kind.

There's nothing ill can dwell in such a temple: If the ill spirit have so fair a house, Good things will strive to dwell with 't.

O that a man might know the end of this day's business ere it come!

O, woe is me,To have seen what I have seen, see what I see!

I must be cruel, only to be kind:Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind.

Thou art the Mars of malcontents.

He was a man, take him for all in all, I shall not look upon his like again.

Assume a virtue, if you have it not.

The hand that hath made you fair hath made you good.

The end crowns all, And that old common arbitrator, Time, Will one day end it.

It is a kind of good deed to say well; and yet words are not deeds.

Friendship is constant in all other things Save in the office and affairs of love: Therefore all hearts in love use their own tongues; Let every eye negotiate for itself And trust no agent.

An honest tale speeds best, being plainly told.

When sorrows come, they come not single spies, But in battalions.

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.

Each present joy or sorrow seems the chief.

Home-keeping youth have ever homely wits.

The rest is silence.

I am wealthy in my friends.

Thy words, I grant are bigger, for I wear not, my dagger in my mouth.

I pray you bear me henceforth from the noise and rumour of the field, where I may think the remnant of my thoughts in peace, and part of this body and my soul with contemplation and devout desires.

Thou shalt be both the plaintiff and the judge of thine own cause.

The better part of valor is discretion, in the which better part I have saved my life.

Neither a borrower nor a lender be; For loan oft loses both itself and friend, And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry. 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.

O jest unseen, inscrutable, invisible, As a nose on a man's face, or a weathercock on a steeple.

Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs, Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers’ eyes, Being vexed, a sea nourished with lovers’ tears. What is it else? A madness most discreet, A choking gall and a preserving sweet.

In time we hate that which we often fear.

In false quarrels there is no true valor.

Et tu, Brute!

Small to greater matters must give way.

Though inclination be as sharp as will, My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent, And, like a man to double business bound, I stand in pause where I shall first begin, And both neglect.

If all the year were playing holidays; To sport would be as tedious as to work.

I would fain die a dry death.

A jest's prosperity lies in the ear. Of him that hears it, never in the tongue. Of him that makes it.

And oftentimes, to win us to our harm, The instruments of darkness tell us truths, Win us with honest trifles, to betray's In deepest consequence.

This is the short and the long of it.

What's gone and what's past help Should be past grief.

O, my offence is rank, it smells to heaven;It hath the primal eldest curse upon 't, A brother's murder.

To thine own self be true -; And it must follow as the night the day; Thou canst not be false to any man.

I cannot tell what the dickens his name is.

Simply the thing that I am shall make me live.

Small cheer and great welcome makes a merry feast.

If Love be rough with you, be rough with Love, prick Love for pricking, and you beat Love down.

Exit, pursued by a bear.

He that is robb'd, not wanting what is stolen,Let him not know 't, and he's not robb'd at all.

Sweet mercy is nobility's true badge.

The worst is notSo long as we can say, 'This is the worst.'

Love looks not with thine eyes, but with thine mind, Therefore is win'd Cupid painted blind.

What a deformed thief this fashion is.

A wretched soul, bruised with adversity, We bid be quiet when we hear it cry; But were we burdened with like weight of pain, As much or more we should ourselves complain.

The peace of heaven is theirs that lift their swords, in such a just and charitable war.

But no perfection is so absolute, That some impurity doth not pollute.

By the pricking of my thumbs,Something wicked this way comes. Open, locks, Whoever knocks!

Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny. Get thee to a nunnery, go.

To be a well-flavored man is the gift of fortune, but to write or read comes by nature.

The soul of this man is in his clothes.

Costly thy habit [dress] as thy purse can buy; But not expressed in fancy - rich, not gaudy. For the apparel oft proclaims the man.

The fringed curtains of thine eye advance.

I met a fool i' the forest, A motley fool.

How many ages hence Shall this our lofty scene be acted over In states unborn and accents yet unknown!

Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind.

I did never know so full a voice issue from so empty a heart: but the saying is true 'The empty vessel makes the greatest sound'.

He wears his faith but as the fashion of his hat.

There's a divinity that shapes our ends, Rough-hew them how we will.

Mine honour is my life; both grow in one; take honour from me and my life is done.

I wasted time, now time doth waste me.

Come what come may, Time and the hour runs through the roughest day.

How sharper than a serpent's tooth it isTo have a thankless child!

Oh, that way madness lies; let me shun that.