William Shakespeare

(26 April 1564 - 23 April 1616 / Warwickshire)

poet William Shakespeare
#2 on top 500 poets

William Shakespeare Quotes

  • ''The west yet glimmers with some streaks of day.
    Now spurs the lated traveller apace
    To gain the timely inn.''
    William Shakespeare (1564-1616), British dramatist, poet. 1st Murderer, in Macbeth, act 3, sc. 3, l. 5-7.
    3697 person liked.
    		2366 person did not like.
  • ''O, what a world of vile ill-favoured faults,
    Looks handsome in three hundred pounds a year!''
    William Shakespeare (1564-1616), British dramatist, poet. Anne, in The Merry Wives of Windsor, act 3, sc. 4, l. 31-2 (1602).
    2822 person liked.
    		2152 person did not like.
  • ''Keep this man safe;
    Give him all kindness. I had rather have
    Such men my friends than enemies.''
    William Shakespeare (1564-1616), British dramatist, poet. Antony, in Julius Caesar, act 5, sc. 4, l. 27-9. On the capture of Lucilius.
    2772 person liked.
    		1878 person did not like.
  • ''Beatrice. I am stuffed, cousin, I cannot smell.
    Margaret. A maid, and stuffed! There's goodly catching of cold.''
    William Shakespeare (1564-1616), British dramatist, poet. Beatrice and Margaret, in Much Ado About Nothing, act 3, sc. 4, l. 64-6. Beatrice is "stuffed" with a cold in the head, but Margaret takes the word in a bawdy sense.
    2169 person liked.
    		1925 person did not like.
  • ''Bottom. What is Pyramus? A lover or a tyrant?
    Quince. A lover that kills himself, most gallant, for love.
    Bottom. That will ask some tears in the true performing of it. If I do it, let the audience look to their eyes.''
    William Shakespeare (1564-1616), British dramatist, poet. Bottom and Quince, in A Midsummer Night's Dream, act 1, sc. 2, l. 22-6.
    892 person liked.
    		907 person did not like.
  • ''I as free forgive you
    As I would be forgiven: I forgive all.''
    William Shakespeare (1564-1616), British dramatist, poet. Buckingham, in Henry VIII, act 2, sc. 1, l. 82-3. Speaking on his way to be executed.
    357 person liked.
    		107 person did not like.
  • ''O God, that men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains! That we should with joy, pleasance, revel, and applause transform ourselves into beasts!''
    William Shakespeare (1564-1616), British dramatist, poet. Cassio, in Othello, act 2, sc. 3, l. 283-6 (1623).
    253 person liked.
    		99 person did not like.
  • ''Ay, but to die, and go we know not where;
    To lie in cold obstruction, and to rot;
    This sensible warm motion to become
    A kneaded clod, and the dilated spirit
    To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside
    In thrilling region of thick-ribbèd ice;
    To be imprisoned in the viewless winds,
    And blown with restless violence round about
    The pendent world; or to be worse than worst
    Of those that lawless and incertain thought
    Imagine howling—'tis too horrible!
    The weariest and most loathèd worldly life
    That age, ache, penury, and imprisonment
    Can lay on nature is a paradise
    To what we fear of death.''
    William Shakespeare (1564-1616), British dramatist, poet. Claudio, in Measure for Measure, act 3, sc.1, l. 118-32 (1623).
    268 person liked.
    		104 person did not like.
  • ''I am glad I was up so late, for that's the reason I was up
    so early.''
    William Shakespeare (1564-1616), British dramatist, poet. Cloten, in Cymbeline, act 2, sc. 3, l. 33-4. He has been gaming all night, and so was early enough to pay musicians to sing at sunrise to wake Imogen.
    1507 person liked.
    		634 person did not like.
  • ''Foul whisp'rings are abroad. Unnatural deeds
    Do breed unnatural troubles. Infected minds
    To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets.
    More needs she the divine than the physician.''
    William Shakespeare (1564-1616), British dramatist, poet. Doctor, in Macbeth, act 5, sc. 1, l. 71-4. Unable to cure Lady Macbeth's disease of the mind, the guilt confessed in her sleep-walking.
    212 person liked.
    		86 person did not like.

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Best Poem of William Shakespeare

A Fairy Song

Over hill, over dale,
Thorough bush, thorough brier,
Over park, over pale,
Thorough flood, thorough fire!
I do wander everywhere,
Swifter than the moon's sphere;
And I serve the Fairy Queen,
To dew her orbs upon the green;
The cowslips tall her pensioners be;
In their gold coats spots you see;
Those be rubies, fairy favours;
In those freckles live their savours;
I must go seek some dewdrops here,
And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear.

Read the full of A Fairy Song

Sonnet Li

Thus can my love excuse the slow offence
Of my dull bearer when from thee I speed:
From where thou art why should I haste me thence?
Till I return, of posting is no need.
O, what excuse will my poor beast then find,
When swift extremity can seem but slow?
Then should I spur, though mounted on the wind;
In winged speed no motion shall I know:
Then can no horse with my desire keep pace;

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