In this post, we’ll read William Shakespeare quotes who was an English playwright, poet, and actor.
Shakespeare (1564–1616) had eight siblings and his father worked as a glover and leatherworker and mother was a local heiress.
He began his career as an actor and playwright in the 1580s and wrote many popular plays including “Hamlet”, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, “Henry V”, “Twelfth Night” and “The Tempest”.
His plays are known for their rich language, complex characters, and themes of love, power, jealousy, betrayal, and the human condition.
He is widely regarded as one of the greatest writers in the English language and is often called England’s national poet and the “Bard of Avon.”
Let’s read some of the best William Shakespeare quotes about life, love and more.
Best William Shakespeare Quotes
1. “To be, or not to be, that is the question.”
2. “There is no darkness but ignorance.”
3. “I am not bound to please thee with my answer.”
4. “I wish my horse had the speed of your tongue.”
5. “There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.”
6. “Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt.”
7. “Some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them.’’
8. “Listen to many, speak to a few.”
9. “When words are scarce they are seldom spent in vain.”
10. “Things without all remedy should be without regard: what’s done is done.”
11. “You can’t lose a game if you don’t play the game.”
William Shakespeare Quotes on Love
1. “Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.”
2. “Speak low, if you speak love.”
3. “Doubt thou the stars are fire, Doubt that the sun doth move. Doubt truth to be a liar, But never doubt I love.”
4. “The course of true love never did run smooth.”
5. “They do not love that do not show their love.”
6. “Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs.”
7. “As soon go kindle fire with snow, as seek to quench the fire of love with words.”
8. “He that loves to be flattered is worthy o’ the flatterer.”
9. “Love sought is good, but given unsought, is better.”
10. “The love of heaven makes one heavenly.”
11. “Don’t waste your love on somebody, who doesn’t value it.”
12. “Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps.”
13. “Do not swear by the moon, for she changes constantly. then your love would also change.”
Romantic William Shakespeare Quotes on Love
1. “‘What’s in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.’”
2. “For which of my bad parts didst thou first fall in love with me?”
3. “‘I do love nothing in the world so well as you: is not that strange?’
4. “Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.”
5. “Who could refrain that had a heart to love and in that heart courage to make love known?”
6. “Kindness in women, not their beauteous looks, shall win my love.”
7. “See how she leans her cheek upon her hand. O, that I were a glove upon that hand, That I might touch that cheek!”
8. “If love be rough with you, be rough with love; Prick love for pricking, and you beat love down.”
9. “‘I know no ways to mince it in love, but directly to say ‘I love you”.
10. “‘I am one who loved not wisely but too well.’”
11. “‘I pray you, do not fall in love with me, For I am falser than vows made in wine.’”
12. “‘Her passions are made of nothing but the finest part of pure love.’”
13. “‘She loved me for the dangers I had passed, And I loved her that she did pity them’
14. “‘A heart to love, and in that heart, Courage, to make’s love known.’
15. “‘Alas, that love, so gentle in his view, Should be so tyrannous and rough in proof’.”
16. “‘His unkindness may defeat my life, But never taint my love’.”
17. “‘I know a lady in Venice would have walked barefoot to Palestine for a touch of his nether lip’.”
18. “‘You have witchcraft in your lips’”
19. “I love you with so much of my heart that none is left to protest.”
20. “Parting is such sweet sorrow that I shall say goodnight till it be morrow.”
William Shakespeare Quotes on Life
1. “The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together.”
2. “I bear a charmed life.”
3. “And a man’s life’s no more than to say ‘One’”
4. “Let life be short: else shame will be too long.”
5. “The time of life is short; to spend that shortness basely were too long.”
6. “Mine honour is my life; both grow in one:”
7. “When we are born, we cry that we are come to this great stage of fools.”
8. “Take honour from me, and my life is done”
9. “You cannot, sir, take from me any thing that I will more willingly part withal: except my life, except my life, except my life.”
10. “Life every man holds dear; but the dear man holds honor far more precious dear than life.”
11. “We are such stuff as dreams are made on; and our little life is rounded with a sleep.
12. “Life is as tedious as twice-told tale, vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man.”
13. “All that glisters is not gold; Often have you heard that told: Many a man his life hath sold. But my outside to behold: Gilded tombs do worms enfold.”
14. “So wise so young, they say, never do live long.”
15. “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.
William Shakespeare Quotes on Time
1. “Time and the hour run through the roughest day.”
2. “Better three hours too soon than a minute too late.”
3. “There are many events in the womb of time, which will be delivered.”
4. “I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.”
5. “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 Quotes on Death
1. “By medicine life may be prolonged, yet death will seize the doctor too.”
2. “Death is a fearful thing.”
3. “Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once.”
4. “The stroke of death is as a lover’s pinch, which hurts and is desired.”
5. “When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married.”
William Shakespeare Quotes on Self
1. “Self-love, my liege, is not so vile a sin, as self-neglecting.”
2. “God has given you one face, and you make yourself another.”
3. “Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot that it do singe yourself.”
4. “A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool.”
5. “It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.”
6. “If we are true to ourselves, we can not be false to anyone.”
7. “Let me be that I am and seek not to alter me.”
8. “We know what we are, but know not what we may be.”
9. “Go to you bosom: Knock there, and ask your heart what it doth know.”
Short William Shakespeare Quotes
1. “All’s well that ends well.”
2. “What’s done can’t be undone.”
3. “False face must hide what the false heart doth know.”
4. “Having nothing, nothing can he lose.”
5. “Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice.”
6. “Give thy thoughts no tongue.”
7. “No, I will be the pattern of all patience; I will say nothing.”
8. “Go wisely and slowly. Those who rush stumble and fall.”
9. “Where every something, being blent together turns to a wild of nothing.”
10. “Be great in act, as you have been in thought.”
11. “Boldness be my friend.”
12. “Neither a borrower nor a lender be.”
13. “Nothing can come of nothing.”
14. “’Tis one thing to be tempted, another thing to fall.”
15. “Suit the action to the word, the word to the action.”
16. “Better a witty fool than a foolish wit.”
17. “Ambition should be made of sterner stuff.”
18. ‘To be, or not to be: that is the question’”
19. “Lawless are they that make their wills their law.”
20. “Expectation is the root of all heartache.”
21. “Hell is empty and all the devils are here.”
22. “Mind your speech a little lest you should mar your fortunes.”
23. “You speak an infinite deal of nothing.”
24. “Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t.”
25. “Words are easy, like the wind; faithful friends are hard to find.”
26. “Things done well and with a care, exempt themselves from fear.”
27. “Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind.”
28. “Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under it.”
29. “All things are ready, if our mind be so.”
30. “Many a good hanging prevents a bad marriage.”
William Shakespeare Quotes on Women
1. “Women may fall when there’s no strength in men.”
2. “Though she be but little, she is fierce.”
3. “Teach not thy lip such scorn, for it was made For kissing, lady, not for such contempt.”
4. “Most dangerous is that temptation that doth goad us on to sin in loving virtue.”
5. “If I were to kiss you then go to hell, I would. So then I can brag with the devils I saw heaven without ever entering it.”
6. “For she had eyes and chose me.”
7. “‘Do you not know I am a woman? When I think, I must speak.’
8. “Maids want nothing but husbands, and when they have them, they want everything.”
9. “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.”
10. “My tongue will tell the anger of my heart, or else my heart concealing it will break.”
William Shakespeare Quotes on Man
1. “Men in rage strike those that wish them best.”
2. “Faith, there hath been many great men that have flattered the people who ne’er loved them.”
3. “I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow, than a man swear he loves me.”
4. “A man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age.”
5. “Let me embrace thee, sour adversity, for wise men say it is the wisest course.”
6. “But men are men; the best sometimes forget.”
7. “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.”
8. “Come, gentlemen, I hope we shall drink down all unkindness.”
9. “Men’s vows are women’s traitors!”
10. “If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men’s cottage princes’ palaces.”
11. “What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god.”
William Shakespeare Quotes on Happiness & Sadness
1. “My crown is called content, a crown that seldom kings enjoy.”
2. “How bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man’s eyes.”
3. “With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come.”
4. “Things won are done, joy’s soul lies in the doing.”
5. “Poor and content is rich, and rich enough.”
6. “Lay aside life-harming heaviness, And entertain a cheerful disposition.”
7. “When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions.”
William Shakespeare Quotes on Character
1. “No legacy is so rich as honesty.”
2. “I like not fair terms and a villain’s mind.”
3. “How poor are they that have not patience! What wound did ever heal but by degrees?”
4. “For I can raise no money by vile means.”
5. “Our peace shall stand as firm as rocky mountains.”
6. “My pride fell with my fortunes.”
7. “Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall.”
8. “Sweet mercy is nobility’s true badge.”
9. “The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.”
10. “Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful.”
11. “I must be cruel, only to be kind.”
12. “The very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream.”
13. “To do a great right do a little wrong.”
14. “In a false quarrel there is no true valor.”
These William Shakespeare quotes reflect his enduring legacy as a literary genius and cultural icon. His poetry, particularly his sonnets, is admired for its beauty, depth, and emotional resonance.
Shakespeare’s influence on literature, theater, and language is immense and his works have been translated into every major language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright.
Which of these William Shakespeare quotes is your most favorite?
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