Quotes from William Shakespeare

No sooner met but they looked; no sooner looked but they loved; no sooner loved but they sighed; no sooner sighed but they asked one another the reason; no sooner knew the reason but they sought the remedy; and in these degrees have they made a pair of stairs to marriage...

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

One half of me is yours, the other half is yours, Mine own, I would say; but if mine, then yours, And so all yours.

How art thou out of breath when thou hast breath To say to me that thou art out of breath?

Your tale, sir, would cure deafness.

If I be waspish, best beware my sting.

Is love a tender thing? It is too rough, too rude, too boisterous, and it pricks like thorn.

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

I have no spur To prick the sides of my intent, but only Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself And falls on the other.

Banish'd from [those we love] Is self from self: a deadly banishment!

For it falls out That what we have we prize not to the worth Whiles we enjoy it, but being lacked and lost, Why, then we rack the value, then we find The virtue that possession would not show us While it was ours.

Men of few words are the best men. (3.2.41)

Though I am not naturally honest, I am sometimes so by chance.

Things base and vile, holding no quantity, Love can transpose to form and dignity. Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind. Nor hath Love's mind of any judgment taste; Wings and no eyes figure unheedy haste.

Then is courtesy a turncoat. But it is certain I am loved of all ladies, only you excepted: and I would I could find in my heart that I had not a hard heart; for, truly, I love none. A dear happiness to women: they would else have been troubled with a pernicious suitor. I thank God and my cold blood, I am of your humour for that: I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me.

Angels are bright still, though the brightest fell. Though all things foul would wear the brows of grace, Yet Grace must still look so.

You have witchcraft in your lips, there is more eloquence in a sugar touch of them than in the tongues of the French council; and they should sooner persuade Harry of England than a general petition of monarchs.

It's easy for someone to joke about scars if they've never been cut.

Do you see yonder cloud that's almost in shape of a camel? Polonius: By the mass, and 'tis like a camel, indeed. Hamlet: Methinks it is like a weasel. Polonius: It is backed like a weasel. Hamlet: Or like a whale? Polonius: Very like a whale.

How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is To have a thankless child!

Summer's lease hath all too short a date.

Out of her favour, where I am in love.

But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue.

Get thee to a nunnery.