William Shakespeare/quotations

from William Shakespeare's Hamlet Act I, Scene 1

Frailty, thy name is woman!

from William Shakespeare's Hamlet Act I, Scene 2

Neither a borrower nor a lender be

from William Shakespeare's Hamlet Act I, Scene 3

This above all: to thine ownself be true

from William Shakespeare's Hamlet Act I, Scene 3

To be, or not to be: that is the question

from William Shakespeare's Hamlet Act III, Scene 1

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

from William Shakespeare's Hamlet Act IV, Scene 5

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

Macbeth

All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances.

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

Hamlet

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more.

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

As in a theatre, the eyes of men, after a well-graced actor leaves the stage, are idly bent on him that enters next.

Daffodils that come before the swallow dares, and takes the winds of March with beauty.

He that filches from me my good name robs me of that which enriches him and makes me poor indeed.

Be to yourself as you would to your friend.

The silence often of pure innocence persuades when speaking fails.

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

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

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.

Self-love, my liege, is not so vile a sin, as self-neglecting.

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

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

Ay me! for aught that ever I could read, could ever hear by tale or history, the course of true love never did run smooth.

All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances.

What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! how infinite in faculties! in form and moving, how express and admirable!

The weakest kind of fruit drops earliest to the ground.

Let me be ignorant, and in nothing good, but graciously to know I am no better.

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

Young men's love then lies not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes.

They say the tongues of dying men enforce attention, like deep harmony: Where words are scarce, they're seldom spent in vain.

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more.

Bid the dishonest man mend himself; if he mend, he is no longer dishonest.

What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

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

What: is the jay more precious than the lark because his feathers are more beautiful?

Lovers and madmen have such seething brains, such shaping fantasies, that apprehend more than cool reason ever comprehends.

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

As in a theatre, the eyes of men, after a well-graced actor leaves the stage, are idly bent on him that enters next.

We are gentlemen that neither in our hearts nor outward eyes envy the great nor shall the low despise.

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

And do as adversaries do in law, strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends.

A good heart is the sun and the moon; or, rather, the sun and not the moon, for it shines bright and never changes.

Great floods have flown from simple sources.

That man that hath a tongue, I say, is no man, if with his tongue he cannot win a woman.

We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep.

The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.

If thou remember'st not the slightest folly that ever love did make thee run into, thou hast not loved.

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.