“Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind; And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind. Nor hath love's mind of any judgment taste; Wings and no eyes figure unheedy haste: And therefore is love said to be a child, Because in choice he is so oft beguil'd.”
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# William ShakespeareWilliam Shakespeare  >  Quotes

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

―

“Love all, trust a few,

Do wrong to none: be able for thine enemy

Rather in power than use; and keep thy friend

Under thy own life's key: be check'd for silence,

But never tax'd for speech.”

―

“Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind; And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind. Nor hath love's mind of any judgment taste; Wings and no eyes figure unheedy haste: And therefore is love said to be a child, Because in choice he is so oft beguil'd.”

―

“Be not afraid of greatness. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them.”

―

“Doubt thou the stars are fire;

Doubt that the sun doth move;

Doubt truth to be a liar;

But never doubt I love.”

―

William Shakespeare,
Hamlet

“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.”

―

“Hell is empty and all the devils are here.”

―

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

―

William Shakespear,
Hamlet

“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.”

―

William Shakespeare,
Hamlet

“It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.”

―

William Shakespeare

“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.”

―

“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! Enough; no more:

'Tis not so sweet now as it was before.

O spirit of love! how quick and fresh art thou,

That, notwithstanding thy capacity

Receiveth as the sea, nought enters there,

Of what validity and pitch soe'er,

But falls into abatement and low price,

Even in a minute: so full of shapes is fancy

That it alone is high fantastical.”

―

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

―

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.”

―

“You speak an infinite deal of nothing.”

―

“These violent delights have violent ends

And in their triumph die, like fire and powder,

Which as they kiss consume. The sweetest honey

Is loathsome in his own deliciousness

And in the taste confounds the appetite.

Therefore love moderately; long love doth so;

Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow.”

―

“Words are easy, like the wind; faithful friends are hard to find.”

―

“Though she be but little, she is fierce!”

―

“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 heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks

That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;

To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause: there's the respect

That makes calamity of so long life;

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,

The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,

The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,

The insolence of office and the spurns

That patient merit of the unworthy takes,

When he himself might his quietus make

With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

But that the dread of something after death,

The undiscover'd country from whose bourn

No traveller returns, puzzles the will

And makes us rather bear those ills we have

Than fly to others that we know not of?

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;

And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,

And enterprises of great pith and moment

With this regard their currents turn awry,

And lose the name of action.--Soft you now!

The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons

Be all my sins remember'd!”

―

William Shakespeare,
Hamlet

“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.”

―

“My tongue will tell the anger of my heart, or else my heart concealing it will break.”

―

“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.”

―

“By the pricking of my thumbs,

Something wicked this way comes.”

―

“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.”

―

“Stars, hide your fires; Let not light see my black and deep desires.”

―

“The course of true love never did run smooth; But, either it was different in blood,

O cross! too high to be enthrall’d to low.

Or else misgraffed in respect of years,

O spite! too old to be engag’d to young.

Or else it stood upon the choice of friends,

O hell! to choose love by another’s eye.”

―

“I like this place and could willingly waste my time in it.”

―

William Shakespeare

“Lord, what fools these mortals be!”

―

“Don't waste your love on somebody, who doesn't value it.”

―

“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.”

―

William Shakespeare

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