Quotes by William Shakespeare

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!
"Twelfth Night", Act 1 scene 1

If this were played upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction.
"Twelfth Night", Act 3 scene 4

Costly thy habit [dress] as thy purse can buy; But not expressed in fancy - rich, not gaudy. For the apparel oft proclaims the man.
'Hamlet,' Act I, Scene iii

Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice.
'Hamlet,' Act I, Scene iii

Neither a borrower nor a lender be; For loan oft loses both itself and friend; And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry [economy].
'Hamlet,' Act I, Scene iii

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.
'Hamlet,' Act I, Scene iii

The better part of valor is discretion, in the which better part I have saved my life.
'King Henry IV part I'

Have more than thou showest; Speak less than thou knowest.
'King Lear,' Act I, Scene iv

Go to your bosom; Knock there, and ask your heart what it doth know.
'Measure for Measure'

If all the year were playing holidays; To sport would be as tedious as to work.
'The First Part of King Henry the IV'

Do not, for one repulse, forego the purpose that you resolved to effect.
'The Tempest'

Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently. For in the very torrent, tempest, and as I may say, whirlwind of passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness.
'The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark,' Act III, scene ii

Be not afraid of greatness: some men are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them. 'Twelfth Night'

Cursed be he that moves my bones.
Epitaph on his gravestone
Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind.
Hamlet, 1600

We know what we are, but know not what we may be.
Hamlet, 1600

O that a man might know the end of this day's business ere it come!
Julius Caesar, 1599-1600

O, it is excellent to have a giant's strength; but it is tyrannous to use it like a giant.
Measure for Measure, 1604-1605

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments: love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds.
Sonnet cxvi

Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing.
Sonnet lxxxvii

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste.
Sonnet xxx

Exit, pursued by a bear.
Stage direction in "The Winter's Tale"

My tongue will tell the anger of mine heart, Or else my heart, concealing it, will break.
Taming of the Shrew