Top 300 William Shakespeare Quotes (2025 Update)
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201. “When I bestride him, I soar, I am a hawk: he trots the air; the earth sings when he touches it; the basest horn of his hoof is more musical than the pipe of Hermes.”

— William Shakespeare

202. “Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth, And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings.”

— William Shakespeare

203. “O sleep, O gentle sleep, Nature’s soft nurse, how have I frightened thee, 1710. That thou no more will weigh my eyelids down, And steep my senses in forgetfulness?”

— William Shakespeare

204. “Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania.”

— William Shakespeare

205. “I am but mad north-north-west. When the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw.”

— William Shakespeare

206. “Dispute not with her: she is lunatic.”

— William Shakespeare

207. “We burn daylight.”

— William Shakespeare

208. “There’s small choice in rotten apples.”

— William Shakespeare

209. “I wish my horse had the speed of your tongue.”

— William Shakespeare

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

— William Shakespeare

211. “Up and down, up and down I will lead them up and down I am feared in field in town Goblin, lead them up and down.”

— William Shakespeare

212. “Under loves heavy burden do I sink. – Romeo.”

— William Shakespeare

213. “Thus I die. Thus, thus, thus. Now I am dead, Now I am fled, My soul is in the sky. Tongue, lose thy light. Moon take thy flight. Now die, die, die, die.”

— William Shakespeare

214. “How art thou out of breath when thou hast breath To say to me that thou art out of breath?”

— William Shakespeare

215. “Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied, And vice sometime by action dignified.”

— William Shakespeare

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

— William Shakespeare

217. “You speak an infinite deal of nothing.”

— William Shakespeare

218. “And sleep, that sometime shuts up sorrow’s eye, Steal me awhile from mine own company.”

— William Shakespeare

219. “You cannot, sir, take from me any thing that I will more willingly part withal: except my life, except my life, except my life.”

— William Shakespeare

220. “The weight of this sad time we must obey, Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say. The oldest hath borne most: we that are young Shall never see so much, nor live so long.”

— William Shakespeare

221. “Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.”

— William Shakespeare

222. “Out of my sight! Thou dost infect mine eyes.”

— William Shakespeare

223. “For which of my bad parts didst thou first fall in love with me?”

— William Shakespeare

224. “The tempter or the tempted, who sins most?”

— William Shakespeare

225. “And therefore, – since I cannot prove a lover, To entertain these fair well-spoken days, – I am determined to prove a villain, And hate the idle pleasures of these days.”

— William Shakespeare

226. “Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more.”

— William Shakespeare

227. “I’ll follow thee and make a heaven of hell, To die upon the hand I love so well.”

— William Shakespeare

228. “I will live in thy heart, die in thy lap, and be buried in thy eyes – and moreover, I will go with thee to thy uncle’s.”

— William Shakespeare

229. “Is it not strange that sheep’s guts could hail souls out of men’s bodies?”

— William Shakespeare

230. “Death, that hath suck’d the honey of thy breath hath had no power yet upon thy beauty.”

— William Shakespeare

231. “So we grew together like to a double cherry, seeming parted, but yet an union in partition, two lovely berries molded on one stem.”

— William Shakespeare

232. “What, my dear Lady Disdain! are you yet living? Beatrice: Is it possible disdain should die while she hath such meet food to feed it as Signior Benedick?”

— William Shakespeare

233. “When you depart from me sorrow abides and happiness takes his leave.”

— William Shakespeare

234. “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...”

— William Shakespeare

235. “It is not, nor it cannot, come to good, But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue.”

— William Shakespeare

236. “Your face, my thane, is as a book where men May read strange matters. To beguile the time, Look like the time; bear welcome in your eye, Your hand, your tongue: look like the innocent flower, But be the serpent under’t.”

— William Shakespeare

237. “So wise so young, they say, do never live long.”

— William Shakespeare

238. “Thou and I are too wise to woo peaceably.”

— William Shakespeare

239. “Out, damned spot! out, I say!”

— William Shakespeare

240. “The small amount of foolery wise men have makes a great show.”

— William Shakespeare

241. “He who has injured thee was either stronger or weaker than thee. If weaker, spare him; if stronger, spare thyself.”

— William Shakespeare

242. “Yet but three come one more. Two of both kinds make up four. Ere she comes curst and sad. Cupid is a knavish lad. Thus to make poor females mad.”

— William Shakespeare

243. “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.”

— William Shakespeare

244. “And to be merry best becomes you; for, out of question, you were born in a merry hour. BEATRICE No, sure, my lord, my mother cried; but then there was a star danced, and under that was I born.”

— William Shakespeare

245. “Tell me where is fancy bred, Or in the heart, or in the head?”

— William Shakespeare

246. “A wretched soul, bruised with adversity, We bid be quiet when we hear it cry; But were we burdened with light weight of pain, As much or more we should ourselves complain.”

— William Shakespeare

247. “No matter where; of comfort no man speak: Let’s talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs; Make dust our paper and with rainy eyes Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth.”

— William Shakespeare

248. “From women’s eyes this doctrine I derive: They sparkle still the right Promethean fire; They are the books, the arts, the academes, That show, contain and nourish all the world.”

— William Shakespeare

249. “If love be rough with you, be rough with love. Prick love for pricking and you beat love down.”

— William Shakespeare

250. “I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious, with more offences at my beck than I have thoughts to put them in, imagination to give them shape, or time to act them in.”

— William Shakespeare