Right before the witching hour of midnight yesterday, Ant and I were waxing lyrical on the genius of William Shakespeare. Yes, yes, we are über-geeks so what?! 🙂

Anyways, I thought I’d post a collection of Shakespeare quotes I got off of http://www.goodreads.com. I’m amazed by how much of Shakespeare’s works are referenced in our daily speech. To make such a mark on the world is truly legacy at its finest.

“Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.”
― William Shakespeare, All’s Well That Ends Well

“Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind,
And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.”
― William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream

“Be not afraid of greatness. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them.”
― William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night

“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.”
― William Shakespeare, Hamlet

“I would challenge you to a battle of wits, but I see you are unarmed!”
― William Shakespeare

“It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.”
― William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar

“If music be the food of love, play on,
Give me excess of it; that surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.”
― William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
(This was engraved on my old iPod, Blanche I…a black iPod called White. I loved her.)

“All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages.”
― William Shakespeare

“We know what we are, but not what we may be.”
― William Shakespeare, Hamlet

“Hell is empty and all the devils are here.”
― William Shakespeare, The Tempest

“My tongue will tell the anger of my heart, or else my heart concealing it will break.”
― William Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew

“Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.”
― William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar

“When he shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night
And pay no worship to the garish sun.”
― William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
(A favourite quote!)

“My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
My love as deep; the more I give to thee,
The more I have, for both are infinite.”
― William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

“If you love and get hurt, love more.
If you love more and hurt more, love even more.
If you love even more and get hurt even more, love some more until it hurts no more…”
― William Shakespeare

“All that glitters is not gold;
Often have you heard that told:
Many a man his life hath sold
But my outside to behold:
Gilded tombs do worms enfold.”
― William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice

“Though she be but little, she is fierce!”
― William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream
(Cheesy to stencil this unto the walls of my daughter’s nursery when she is born? Yes. Is that going to stop me? Hell naw!)

“Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt.”
― William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure
(My favourite of Shakespeare’s plays)

Men were deceivers ever,-
One foot in sea and one on shore,
To one thing constant never.”
― William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing

“I like this place and could willingly waste my time in it.”
― William Shakespeare, As you Like It

“They do not love that do not show their love. The course of true love never did run smooth. Love is a familiar. Love is a devil. There is no evil angel but Love.”
― William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream

“To weep is to make less the depth of grief.”
― William Shakespeare

“With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come.”
― William Shakespeare

“Presume not that I am the thing I was.”
― William Shakespeare
(LOVE!)

“Love is heavy and light, bright and dark, hot and cold, sick and healthy, asleep and awake- its everything except what it is!”
― William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet (Act 1, Scene 1)

“Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t.”
― William Shakespeare, Hamlet
(Sounds like Nigeria)

“Don’t waste your love on somebody, who doesn’t value it.”
― William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
tags: love, romeo-and-juliet, values, waste 676 people liked it like

“Love me or hate me, both are in my favor…If you love me, I’ll always be in your heart…If you hate me, I’ll always be in your mind.”
― William Shakespeare

“Brevity is the soul of wit.”
― William Shakespeare, Hamlet

“The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.”
― William Shakespeare, King Henry VI, Part 2
(Lol, I’ve always liked this quote)

“I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions; fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, heal’d by the same means, warm’d and cool’d by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, do we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that.”
― William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice
(Another favourite powerful for its depth and truism, brought to life by my excellent literature teacher when I was about 15. R.I.P Mr. Paul U.)

“Expectation is the root of all heartache.”
― William Shakespeare

“And yet,to say the truth, reason and love keep little company together nowadays.”
― William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream

“Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak knits up the o-er wrought heart and bids it break.”
― William Shakespeare, Macbeth

“The object of Art is to give life a shape.”
― William Shakespeare

“Do you not know I am a woman? When I think, I must speak.”
― William Shakespeare, As You Like It

“Conscience doth make cowards of us all.”
― William Shakespeare, Hamlet

“My words fly up, my thoughts remain below: Words without thoughts never to heaven go.”
― William Shakespeare, Hamlet

“I can see he’s not in your good books,’ said the messenger.
‘No, and if he were I would burn my library.”
― William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing

“How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a weary world.”
― William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice