Quotes

by William Shakespeare

After the Bible no one and no book is quoted more often than Shakespeare. The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations devotes 70 pages to his quotes. I'm only going to list a dozen or so here. There are hundreds of famous Shakespeare quotes, some that you probably use without even knowing that they came from Shakespeare. For example, "one swell swoop", "strange bedfellows", "wild-goose chase", "bated breath", "we have seen better days", "budge an inch", "eaten me out of house and home", "foregone conclusion", "good riddance" and "knock, knock! Who's There?" all come from Shakespeare. And I could go on—but I'll stop—well, because— "what the dikens"? "What's done is done!" A good book about Shakespeare's common phrases is Brush Up Your Shakespeare! by Michael Macrone.

In time we hate that which we often fear.
—Antony and Cleopatra

Oh! how bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man's eyes.
—As You Like It

What is the city but the people?
—Coriolanus

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
—Hamlet

Brevity is the soul of wit.
—Hamlet

What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties; in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god: the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals!
—Hamlet

To be, or not to be--that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows or outrageous fortune
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them. To die, to sleep—
—Hamlet

. . . How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is
To have a thankless child.
—King Lear

Thou shouldst not have been old till thou hadst been wise.
—King Lear

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
—Macbeth

Our doubts are traitors
And make us lose the good we oft might win,
By fearing to attempt.
—Measure for Measure

But jealous souls will not be answered so;
They are not ever jealous for the cause,
But jealous for they're jealous. 'Tis a monster
Begot upon itself, born on itself.
—Othello

about William Shakespeare

How do you think, Reading could have assisted him in such great Thoughts? It would only have lost Time. When he found his Thoughts grow on him so fast, he could have writ for ever, had he liv'd so long.—Anon., Essay Against Too Much Reading

To begin with Shakespeare: he was the man who of all Modern, and perhaps Ancient Poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul.—John Dryden

I cannot read him, he is such a bombast fellow.—George II

I remember, the Players have often mentioned it as an honour to Shakespeare, that in his writing, (whatsoever he penned) he never blotted out a line. My answer hath been, would he had blotted a thousand.—Ben Jonson

When I read Shakespeare I am struck with wonder
That such trivial people should muse and thunder
In such lovely language.
—D. H. Lawrence

Sources for Quotations

I use various sources for quotations on this site. Below are the most common sources I use. I also draw from my own collection of quotes and from primary sources.

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 16th edition. John Bartlett, Justin Kaplan, editors. Little, Brown and Company, Boston, 1992.

BrainyQuote. <http://www.brainyquote.com/>

The Dictionary of Biographical Quotation. Richard Kenin and Justin Wintle, editors. Dorset Press, New York, 1978

The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, fourth edition. Angela Partington, editor. Oxford University Press, Oxford & New York, 1992

Peter's Quotations by Laurence J. Peter. Bantam Books, New York, 1980

The Quotations Page. <http://www.quotationspage.com/>