50 Famous Quotes from Shakespeare Play & Poems
This collection of 50 famous William Shakespeare quotes provides a glimpse into his most iconic plays and poetry that the world still references to today. Widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English Language, William Shakespeare was an English poet, playwright and actor from Stratford-upon-Avon.
Between about 1590 and 1613, Shakespeare wrote at least 37 plays and collaborated on several more. From comedy and tragedy plays to historic plays and poetry, some of his most famous plays include Hamlet, Othello, King Lear and Macbeth.
Whether you’re in education, languages, theatre, history, poetry or simply looking for some inspiration, check out Shakespeare’s complete works in the form of quotes below and take your pick from 50 of them…
COMEDY PLAY QUOTES
1.
“Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them” – Twelfth Night
“The miserable have no other medicine but only hope” – Measure for Measure
2.
“But love is blind, and lovers cannot see” – The Merchant of Venice
3.
“No legacy is so rich as honesty” – All’s Well That Ends Well
4.
“Live a little; comfort a little; cheer thyself a little” – As You Like It
5.
6.
“My tongue will tell the anger of my heart, or else my heart concealing it will break” – Taming of the Shrew
“Fortune brings in some boats that are not steer’d” – Cymbeline
7.
“Better three hours too soon than a minute too late” – The Merry Wives of Windsor
8.
“If music be the food of love, play on” – Twelfth Night
9.
“The course of true love never did run smooth” – A Midsummer Night’s Dream
10.
11.
“We are such stuff as dreams are made on; and our little life is rounded with a sleep” – The Tempest
“Everyone can master a grief but he that has it” – Much Ado About Nothing
12.
“What’s gone and what’s past help should be past grief”- Winter’s Tale
13.
“Come not within the measure of my wrath” – Two Gentlemen of Verona
14.
“What’s mine is yours and what is yours is mine” – Measure for Measure
15.
16.
“Love like a shadow flies when substance love pursues
Pursuing that that flies, and flying what pursues” – The Merry Wives of Windsor
“The common curse of mankind, folly and ignorance, be thine in great revenue” – Troilis and Cressida
17.
“’Tis time, I think, to trudge, pack and be gone” – The Comedy of Errors
18.
“But to have divinity preach’d there! Did you ever dream of such a thing?” – Pericles, Prince of Tyre
19.
“Love is a familiar; love is a devil. There is no evil angel but love” – Love’s Labours Lost
20.
TRAGEDY PLAY QUOTES
21.
“Men at some time are masters of their fates: The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings” – Julius Caesar
“Be patient, for the world is broad and wide”- Romeo and Juliet
22.
“To be, or not to be: that is the question” – Hamlet
23.
“I will wear my heart upon my sleeve for daws to peck at” – Othello
24.
“These words are razors to my wounded heart” – Titus Andronicus
25.
26.
“Have more than thou showest, speak less than thou knowest, lend less than thou owest” – King Lear
“Nature teaches beasts to know their friends” – Coriolanus
27.
“If love be blind, it best agrees with night” – Romeo and Juliet
28.
“My salad days, when I was green in judgement” – Antony and Cleopatra
29.
“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so” – Hamlet
30.
31.
“Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears; I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him” – Julius Caesar
“Every man has his fault, and honesty is his” – Timon of Athens
32.
“Is this a dagger which I see before me, The handle toward my hand?” – Macbeth
33.
“To mourn a mischief that is past and gone is the next way to draw new mischief on” – Othello
34.
“Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice” – Hamlet
35.
HISTORY PLAY QUOTES
36.
“How soon this mightiness meets misery; And if you can be merry then,
I’ll say A man may weep upon his wedding day” – King Henry VIII
“The better part of valour is discretion” – King Henry IV, Part I
37.
“He hath eaten me out of house and home” – King Henry IV, Part II
38.
“Let life be short; else shame will be too long” – King Henry V
39.
“Of all base passions, fear is the most accursed” – King Henry VI, Part I
40.
41.
“Conscience is but a word that cowards use, devised at first to keep the strong in awe” – King Richard III
“Let them obey that knows not how to rule” – King Henry VI, Part II
42.
“Having nothing, nothing can he lose” – King Henry VI, Part III
43.
“Heaven take thy soul, and England keep my bones” – King John
44.
“I wasted time, and now doth time waste me” – King Richard II
45.
POETRY QUOTES
46.
“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate” – Sonnet 18
“Love comforteth like sunshine after rain” – Venus and Adonis
47.
“In thee hath neither sting, knot, nor confine, For thou art all, and all things else are thine” – A Lover’s Complaint
48.
“But his own worth, wherein his life was graced” – Funeral Elegy by W.S.
49.
“What win I, if I gain the thing I seek?” – The Rape of Lucrece
50.
