William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare Quotes
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''Danger knows full well
William Shakespeare (1564-1616), British dramatist, poet. Caesar, in Julius Caesar, act 2, sc. 2, l. 44-8. He feels he has to live up to his name.
That Caesar is more dangerous than he.
We are two lions littered in one day,
And I the elder and more terrible,
And Caesar shall go forth.'' -
''A friend should bear his friend's infirmities,
William Shakespeare (1564-1616), British dramatist, poet. Cassius, in Julius Caesar, act 4, sc. 3, l. 86-7.
But Brutus makes mine greater than they are.'' -
''And where th'offence is, let the great axe fall.''
William Shakespeare (1564-1616), British dramatist, poet. Claudius, in Hamlet, act 4, sc. 5, l. 216 (1604). -
''I'll mountebank their loves,
William Shakespeare (1564-1616), British dramatist, poet. Coriolanus, in Coriolanus, act 3, sc. 2, l. 132-4. Promising his mother he will dissemble like a quack medicine-man ("mountebank") and beguile ("Cog") the citizens into voting for him.
Cog their hearts from them, and come home beloved
Of all the trades in Rome.'' -
''Don Pedro. But when shall we set the savage bull's horns on the sensible Benedick's head?
William Shakespeare (1564-1616), British dramatist, poet. Don Pedro and Claudio, in Much Ado About Nothing, act 5, sc. 1, l. 181-4. Benedick had boasted earlier that he would never submit to the yoke of marriage; the "horns" as usual suggest cuckoldry.
Claudio. Yes, and text underneath, "Here dwells Benedick, the married man?"'' -
''You told a lie, an odious, damned lie;
William Shakespeare (1564-1616), British dramatist, poet. Emilia, in Othello, act 5, sc. 2, l. 180-1. On learning of Iago's lies about Desdemona.
Upon my soul, a lie, a wicked lie.'' -
''But it was alway yet the trick of our English nation, if they
William Shakespeare (1564-1616), British dramatist, poet. Falstaff, in Henry IV, Part 2, act 1, sc. 2, l. 214-6. "Alway yet" means ever till now.
have a good thing, to make it too common.'' -
''We have the receipt of fern-seed, we walk invisible.''
William Shakespeare (1564-1616), British dramatist, poet. Gadshill, in Henry IV, Part 1, act 2, sc. 1, l. 86-7. "Receipt" means recipe; fern-seed was thought to make whoever carried it invisible. -
''I am thy father's spirit,
William Shakespeare (1564-1616), British poet. Hamlet (I, v). . . The Unabridged William Shakespeare, William George Clark and William Aldis Wright, eds. (1989) Running Press.
Doomed for a certain term to walk the night,
And for the day confined to fast in fires,
Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature
Are burnt and purged away. But that I am forbid
To tell the secrets of my prison house,
I could a tale unfold whose lightest word
Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood,
Make thy two eyes like stars start from their spheres,
Thy knotted and combined locks to part,
And each particular hair to stand on end
Like quills upon the fretful porpentine.
But this eternal blazon must not be
To ears of flesh and blood.'' -
''The spirit that I have seen
William Shakespeare (1564-1616), British dramatist, poet. Hamlet, in Hamlet, act 2, sc. 2, l. 598-600. Reflecting on his father's ghost.
May be the devil, and the devil hath power
T'assume a pleasing shape.''
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All The World's A Stage
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. At first, the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in ...
Sonnet Ci
O truant Muse, what shall be thy amends
For thy neglect of truth in beauty dyed?
Both truth and beauty on my love depends;
So dost thou too, and therein dignified.
Make answer, Muse: wilt thou not haply say
'Truth needs no colour, with his colour fix'd;
Beauty no pencil, beauty's truth to lay;
But best is best, if never intermix'd?'
Because he needs no praise, wilt thou be dumb?