Quotes & anectdotes from
the wise,
the foolish,
the courageous &
the drunk

William Shakespeare Playwright

  • Gender: Male
  • Citizenship: England
  • Born: Apr 26, 1564
  • Died: Apr 23, 1616

William Shakespeare was an English poet, playwright, and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon". His extant works, including some collaborations, consist of about 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and a few other verses, the authorship of some of which is uncertain. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright.

Shakespeare was born and brought up in Stratford-upon-Avon. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part-owner of a playing company called the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later known as the King's Men. He appears to have retired to Stratford around 1613 at age 49, where he died three years later.

Lord, Lord, how subject we old men are to this vice of lying!

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

If music be the food of love, play on.

Talking isn't doing. It is a kind of good deed to say well and yet words are not deeds.

Life is as tedious as twice-told tale, vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man.

Let every eye negotiate for itself and trust no agent.

In time we hate that which we often fear.

Love to faults is always blind, always is to joy inclined. Lawless, winged, and unconfined, and breaks all chains from every mind.

And this, our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything.

One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.

The golden age is before us, not behind us.

Nature hath framed strange fellows in her time.

For I can raise no money by vile means.

Speak low, if you speak love.

Men shut their doors against a setting sun.

Well, if Fortune be a woman, she's a good wench for this gear.

Come, gentlemen, I hope we shall drink down all unkindness.

Ignorance is the curse of God knowledge is the wing wherewith we fly to heaven.

Fishes live in the sea, as men do a-land the great ones eat up the little ones.

Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs.

Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.

Faith, there hath been many great men that have flattered the people who ne'er loved them.

Time and the hour run through the roughest day.

Things done well and with a care, exempt themselves from fear.

God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another.

Love sought is good, but given unsought, is better.

I had rather have a fool to make me merry than experience to make me sad and to travel for it too!

They do not love that do not show their love.

The love of heaven makes one heavenly.

No, I will be the pattern of all patience I will say nothing.

The evil that men do lives after them the good is oft interred with their bones.

Many a good hanging prevents a bad marriage.

Who could refrain that had a heart to love and in that heart courage to make love known?

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.

Love is not love that alters when it alteration finds.

The man that hath no music in himself, Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils.

Absence from those we love is self from self - a deadly banishment.

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

An overflow of good converts to bad.

When a father gives to his son, both laugh when a son gives to his father, both cry.

There's no art to find the mind's construction in the face.

How poor are they that have not patience! What wound did ever heal but by degrees?

The lunatic, the lover, and the poet, are of imagination all compact.

To do a great right do a little wrong.

Love is too young to know what conscience is.

But men are men the best sometimes forget.

Now, God be praised, that to believing souls gives light in darkness, comfort in despair.

O God, O God, how weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of this world!

I bear a charmed life.

A peace is of the nature of a conquest for then both parties nobly are subdued, and neither party loser.

Let me embrace thee, sour adversity, for wise men say it is the wisest course.

The stroke of death is as a lover's pinch, which hurts and is desired.

I were better to be eaten to death with a rust than to be scoured to nothing with perpetual motion.

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.

I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.

When we are born we cry that we are come to this great stage of fools.

Men's vows are women's traitors!

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

We are time's subjects, and time bids be gone.

But O, how bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man's eyes.

The valiant never taste of death but once.

Life every man holds dear but the dear man holds honor far more precious dear than life.

Good night, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say good night till it be morrow.

Women may fall when there's no strength in men.

A man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age.

It is a wise father that knows his own child.

If we are marked to die, we are enough to do our country loss and if to live, the fewer men, the greater share of honor.

'Tis best to weigh the enemy more mighty than he seems.

Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt.

Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.

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

The course of true love never did run smooth.

God has given you one face, and you make yourself another.

If you can look into the seeds of time, and say which grain will grow and which will not, speak then unto me.

I shall the effect of this good lesson keeps as watchman to my heart.

Death is a fearful thing.

Our peace shall stand as firm as rocky mountains.

As soon go kindle fire with snow, as seek to quench the fire of love with words.

How far that little candle throws its beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world.

I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano A stage where every man must play a part, And mine is a sad one.

There have been many great men that have flattered the people who ne'er loved them.