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Shakespeare Quotes On Life Biography.

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William Shakespeare Biography
By Esther Lombardi
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(1564-1616) British writer. William Shakespeare is recognized as one of the greatest writers of all time, known for works like "Hamlet," "Much Ado About Nothing," "Romeo and Juliet," "Othello," "The Tempest," and many other works.

With the 154 poems and 37 plays of Shakespeare's literary career, his body of works are among the most quoted in literature. Shakespeare created comedies, histories, tragedies, and poetry. Despite the authorship controversies that have surrounded his works, the name of Shakespeare continues to be revered by scholars and writers from around the world.

William Shakespeare Birth:

William Shakespeare was born in April, 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, about 100 miles northwest of London. According to the records of Stratford's Holy Trinity Church, he was baptized on April 26. It was customary to baptize infants within days of their birth, so the traditional birth date of Shakespeare is April 23rd, St. George's day, the patron saint of England.

William Shakespeare Death:

William Shakespeare died in Stratford on April 23, 1616 and was buried on April 25, 1616.

William Shakespeare Marriage:

William Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway on November 27, 1582, or at least that's when the marriage certificate was issued. Shakespeare was 18; Anne was 26, eight years older than him.

Susanna was born around May 26, 1583; twins, Hamnet and Judith, were born around February 2, 1585.

William Shakespeare Education:

William Shakespeare was likely educated at the grammar school in Stratford from the age of six or seven.

William Shakespeare Accomplishments:

William Shakespeare published his first poem, "Venus and Adonis," in 1593. He then wrote 154 poems and 37 plays, and his fame has only increased with time.

William Shakespeare Lines From "Sonnet 18":

"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date..."

William Shakespeare Lines from "Hamlet":

"To be, or not to be: that is the question."
- (Act III, Scene I)

"This above all: to thine own self be true."
-Act I, Scene III

"Though this be madness, yet there is method in 't."
-Act II, Scene II

"The play 's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king."
-Act II, Scene II

"Brevity is the soul of wit."
-Act II, Scene II

"Doubt that the sun doth move, doubt truth to be a liar, but never doubt I love."
-Act II, Scene II

"I will speak daggers to her, but use none." -Act III, Scene II

William Shakespeare Lines from "As You Like It":

"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..."
-Act II, Scene VII

"How bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man's eyes!"
-Act V, Scene II

"Blow, blow, thou winter wind! Thou art not so unkind as man's ingratitude."
-Act II, Scene VII

"True is it that we have seen better days."
-Act II, Scene VII

William Shakespeare Lines from "Macbeth":

"There's daggers in men's smiles."
-Act II, Scene III

"Nothing in his life became him like the leaving it; he died as one that had been studied in his death to throw away the dearest thing he owed, as 't were a careless trifle."
-Act I, Scene IV

"Out, out, brief candle! 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, signifying nothing."
-Act V, Scene V

Shakespeare Quotes
'Interred With Their Bones' Review
Fools in Literature
Literary Insults

Suggested Reading
'Hamlet' Quotes
'The Tempest' Quotes
'Macbeth' Quotes
Suggested Reading
'Cymbeline' Quotes
'As You Like It' Quotes
'Antony and Cleopatra' Quotes
Suggested Reading
'King Lear' Quotes
'Much Ado About Nothing' Quotes
'All's Well That Ends Well' Quotes
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William Shakespeare (1564-1616) British writer.

William Shakespeare

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...
~ Jaques in As You Like It
William Shakespeare (26 April 1564 (baptised) – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright and poet, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language.
Contents [hide]
1 Works of Shakespeare
2 Quotes
2.1 Richard III (1592–3)
2.2 Romeo and Juliet (1595)
2.3 A Midsummer Night's Dream (1595)
2.4 The Merchant of Venice (1596–7)
2.5 Henry IV, Part 2 (1597–8)
2.6 Much Ado About Nothing (1598)
2.7 Julius Caesar (1599)
2.8 As You Like It (1599–1600)
2.9 Hamlet (1600–1)
2.10 Twelfth Night (1601)
2.11 Othello (1603–4)
2.12 Timon of Athens (1605)
2.13 King Lear (1605–6)
2.14 Antony and Cleopatra (1606)
2.15 Macbeth (1606)
2.16 Sonnets (1609)
2.17 Cymbeline (1610)
2.18 The Tempest (1611)
3 Misattributed
4 Quotes about Shakespeare
4.1 Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations
4.2 Psalm 46 rumours
5 See also
5.1 Quotes by Shakespeare
5.2 Quotes about Shakespeare
6 External links
Works of Shakespeare[edit]

But release me from my bands
With the help of your good hands.
Gentle breath of yours my sails
Must fill, or else my project fails,
Which was to please. Now I want
Spirits to enforce, art to enchant;
And my ending is despair,
Unless I be reliev'd by prayer,
Which pierces so that it assaults
Mercy itself, and frees all faults.
As you from crimes would pardon'd be,
Let your indulgence set me free.
~ Prospero in The Tempest
Separate pages exist for quotations from all of the following works:
All's Well That Ends Well
Antony and Cleopatra
As You Like It
The Comedy of Errors
Coriolanus
Cymbeline
Hamlet
Henry IV, Part 1
Henry IV, Part 2
Henry V
Henry VI, Part 1
Henry VI, Part 2
Henry VI, Part 3
Henry VIII
Julius Caesar
King John
King Lear
Love's Labour's Lost
Macbeth
Measure for Measure
The Merchant of Venice
The Merry Wives of Windsor
A Midsummer Night's Dream
Much Ado About Nothing
Othello
Pericles, Prince of Tyre
Richard II
Richard III
Romeo and Juliet
The Sonnets
The Taming of the Shrew
The Tempest
Timon of Athens
Titus Andronicus
Troilus and Cressida
Twelfth Night
The Two Gentlemen of Verona
The Two Noble Kinsmen
Venus and Adonis
The Winter's Tale.
Quotes[edit]

Time's glory is to command contending kings,
To unmask falsehood, and bring truth to light.

Blese be the man that spares these stones
And curst be he that moves my bones
Beauty itself doth of itself persuade
The eyes of men without an orator.
The Rape of Lucrece (1594).
Time's glory is to command contending kings,
To unmask falsehood, and bring truth to light.
The Rape of Lucrece.
On a day — alack the day! —
Love, whose month is ever May,
Spied a blossom passing fair
Playing in the wanton air
Sonnets to Sundry Notes of Music, II. Not to be confused with The Sonnets; this poem is not a sonnet
Crabbed age and youth cannot live together:
Youth is full of pleasure, age is full of care
The Passionate Pilgrim: A Madrigal; there is some doubt about the authorship of this.
I gyve unto my wief my second best bed with the furniture
Shakespeare's will
Good frend for Jesus sake forbeare
To digg the dust encloased heare
Blese be the man that spares these stones
And curst be he that moves my bones
Shakespeare's epitaph
Richard III (1592–3)[edit]
Main article: Richard III (play)
Now is the winter of our discontent.
Richard, Act I, scene i.
Off with his head!
Richard, Act III, scene iv.
A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!
Richard, Act V, scene iv.
Romeo and Juliet (1595)[edit]
Main article: Romeo and Juliet
What light through yonder window breaks?
Romeo, Act II, scene ii
What's in a name? That which we call a rose,
By any other name would smell as sweet.
Juliet, Act II, scene ii.
O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?
Juliet, Act II, scene ii.
A Midsummer Night's Dream (1595)[edit]
Main article: A Midsummer Night's Dream
The course of true love never did run smooth.
Lysander, Act I, scene i.
Lord, what fools these mortals be!
Puck, Act III, scene ii.
Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind,
And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind.
Helena, Act I, scene i.
The Merchant of Venice (1596–7)[edit]
Main article: The Merchant of Venice
If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men’s cottages princes’ palaces.
Portia, Act I, scene ii.
All that glisters is not gold.
Prince of Morocco, reading Portia's note, Act II, scene vii; this is the source of the popular paraphrase "All that glitters is not gold."
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, shall we not revenge?
Shylock, Act III, scene i.
Henry IV, Part 2 (1597–8)[edit]
Main article: Henry IV, Part 2
A man can die but once.
Feeble, Act III, scene ii.
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.
King Henry, Act III, scene i.
Much Ado About Nothing (1598)[edit]
Main article: Much Ado About Nothing
As merry as the day is long.
Beatrice, Act II, scene i.
Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more,
Men were deceivers ever;
One foot in sea, and one on shore,
To one thing constant never.
Balthazar, Act II, scene iii.
Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps.
Hero, Act III, scene i.
Julius Caesar (1599)[edit]
Main article: Julius Caesar (play)
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.
Cassius, Act I, scene ii.
Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.
Caesar, Act II, scene ii.
Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones.
Antony, Act III, scene ii.
As You Like It (1599–1600)[edit]
Main article: As You Like It
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.
Jaques, Act II, scene vii.
Hamlet (1600–1)[edit]
Main article: Hamlet
Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all: to thine ownself be true.
Polonius, Act I, scene iii.
Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice.
Polonius, Act I, scene iii.
There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.
Hamlet, Act II, scene ii.
What a piece of work is a man!
How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty!
In form and moving how express and admirable!
In action how like an angel,
in apprehension how like a god!
Hamlet, Act II, scene ii.
To be or not to be, that is the question.
Hamlet, Act III, scene i.
Twelfth Night (1601)[edit]
Main article: Twelfth Night
If music be the food of love, play on.
Orsino, Act I, scene i.
Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon 'em.
Malvolio, Act II, scene v.
Othello (1603–4)[edit]
Main article: Othello
Reputation is an idle and most false imposition; oft got without merit and lost without deserving.
Iago, Act II, scene iii.
Of one that lov'd not wisely but too well.
Othello, Act V, scene ii.
Timon of Athens (1605)[edit]
Main article: Timon of Athens
We have seen better days.
Flavius, Act IV, scene ii.
King Lear (1605–6)[edit]
Main article: King Lear
Nothing can come of nothing.
Lear, Act I, scene i.
How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is
To have a thankless child!
Lear, Act I, scene iv.
I am a man,
More sinn'd against than sinning.
Lear, Act III, scene ii.
Antony and Cleopatra (1606)[edit]
Main article: Antony and Cleopatra
The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne,
Burnt on the water.
Enobarbus, Act II, scene ii.
Macbeth (1606)[edit]
Main article: Macbeth
Come what come may,
Time and the hour runs through the roughest day.
Macbeth, Act I, scene iii.
Is this a dagger which I see before me,
The handle toward my hand?
Macbeth, Act II, scene i.
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
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,
Signifying nothing.
Macbeth, Act V, scene v.
Sonnets (1609)[edit]
Main article: The Sonnets
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
XVIII
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments.
CXVI
Cymbeline (1610)[edit]
Main article: Cymbeline
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.
Guiderius, Act IV, scene ii.
The Tempest (1611)[edit]
Main article: The Tempest
Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes;
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Ariel, Act I, scene ii.
Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.
Trinculo, Act II, scene ii.
We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.
Prospero, Act IV, scene i.

Misattributed[edit]

Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. The saying goes you live by the sword you shall die by the sword...It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind. And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader and gladly so. How do I know? For this is what I have done. And I am Caesar.
This statement by an unknown author has also been wrongly attributed to Julius Caesar, as well as to Shakespeare's play on his assassination and its aftermath, but there are no records of it prior to late 2000. It has been debunked at Snopes.com
Nothing is more common than the wish to be remarkable.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table (1858), ch. XII : Nothing is so common-place as to wish to be remarkable.
Children wish fathers looked but with their eyes; fathers that children with their judgment looked; and either may be wrong.
Derived from A Midsummer Night's Dream on p.269, Aphorisms from Shakespeare (1812), Capel Lofft, Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown, a book which rewrites in aphoristic form Shakespeare quotations, in this case the exchange between Hermia and Theseus: "I would my father look'd but with my eyes", "Rather your eyes must with his judgment look".
However wickedness outstrips men, it has no wings to fly from God.
Derived from a longer quote in Henry V, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 283.
Quotes about Shakespeare[edit]

Shakespear's Magick could not copy'd be,
Within that Circle none durst walk but he. ~ John Dryden

The remarkable thing about Shakespeare is that he is really very good — in spite of all the people who say he is very good. ~ Robert Graves

He was not of an age, but for all time! ~ Ben Jonson

Shakespeare led a life of Allegory; his works are the comments on it. ~ John Keats
Alphabetized by author
Shakespeare one gets acquainted with without knowing how. It is a part of an Englishman's constitution. His thoughts and beauties are so spread abroad that one touches them every where, one is intimate with him by instinct.
Jane Austen, Mansfield Park (1814), Ch. 34.
There, Shakespeare, on whose forehead climb
The crowns o' the world.
Oh, eyes sublime
With tears and laughter for all time.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning, A Vision of Poets (1844).
Shakespeare's drama, where ideal women walk
in worship, and the baser sort find sympathy.
Robert Bridges, The Testament of Beauty (1929), Book III, line 921.
Shakespeare's name, you may depend upon it, stands absurdly too high and will go down. He had no invention as to stories, none whatever. He took all his plots from old novels, and threw their stories into dramatic shape... That he threw over whatever he did write some flashes of genius, nobody can deny; but this was all.
Lord Byron, letter to James Hogg (24 March 1814), as quoted in Chambers Dictionary of Quotations (1997), p. 221.
Consider now, if they asked us, Will you give up your Indian Empire or your Shakespeare, you English: never have had any Shakespeare? Really it were a grave question. Official persons would an swer doubtless in official language: but we, for our part too, should not be forced, to answer: Indian Empire, or no Indian Empire we cannot do with out Shakespeare!
Thomas Carlyle, "On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History" (1841), Lecture 3. The Hero as Poet. Dante; Shakespeare.
The souls most fed with Shakespeare's flame
Still sat unconquered in a ring,
Remembering him like anything.
G. K. Chesterton, "Shakespeare Memorial" (1915).
He is of no age — nor, I may add, of any religion, or party, or profession. The body and substance of his works came out of the unfathomable depths of his own oceanic mind.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Specimens of the Table Talk of the Late Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Vol. II (1835), p. 301.
I have tried lately to read Shakespeare, and found it so intolerably dull that it nauseated me.
Charles Darwin, The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Vol. I (1860), as quoted in Webster's New World Dictionary of Quotations (2005), p. 253.
'I'm always ill after Shakespeare,' said Mrs Wititterly. 'I scarcely exist the next day; I find the reaction so very great after a tragedy, my lord, and Shakespeare is such a delicious creature.'
Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby (1838–1839), Ch. 27.
But Shakespear's Magick could not copy'd be,
Within that Circle none durst walk but he.
John Dryden, The Tempest (1667), Prologue.
To begin then with Shakespeare; he was the man who of all Modern, and perhaps Ancient Poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul. All the Images of Nature were still present to him, and he drew them not laboriously, but luckily: when he describes any thing, you more than see it, you feel it too. Those who accuse him to have wanted learning, give him the greater commendation: he was naturally learn'd; he needed not the spectacles of Books to read Nature; he look'd inwards, and found her there. I cannot say he is every where alike; were he so, I should do him injury to compare him with the greatest of Mankind. He is many times flat, insipid; his comic wit degenerating into clenches; his serious swelling into Bombast. But he is always great, when some great occasion is presented to him: no man can say he ever had a fit subject for his wit, and did not then raise himself as high above the rest of the poets.
John Dryden, An Essay of Dramatic Poesy (1668), "Shakespeare and Ben Jonson Compared"
If I would compare him [Jonson] with Shakespeare, I must acknowledge him the more correct poet, but Shakespeare the greater wit.
John Dryden, An Essay of Dramatic Poesy (1668), "Shakespeare and Ben Jonson Compared"
Shakespeare was the Homer, or father of our dramatic poets; Jonson was the Virgil, the pattern of elaborate writing. I admire him, but I love Shakespeare.
John Dryden, An Essay of Dramatic Poesy (1668), "Shakespeare and Ben Jonson Compared"
Dante and Shakespeare divide the modern world between them; there is no third.
T. S. Eliot, "Dante" (1929), from Selected Essays (1932).
What point of morals, of manners, of economy, of philosophy, of religion, of taste, of the conduct of life, has he not settled? What mystery has he not signified his knowledge of? What office, or function, or district of man's work, has he not remembered? What king has he not taught state, as Talma taught Napoleon? What maiden has not found him finer than her delicacy? What lover has he not outloved? What sage has he not outseen? What gentleman has he not instructed in the rudeness of his behavior?
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Representative Men (1850), Shakespeare
Nor sequent centuries could hit
Orbit and sum of SHAKSPEARE's wit.
Ralph Waldo Emerson in "Solution", from May-Day and Other Pieces (1867).
England's genius filled all measure
Of heart and soul, of strength and pleasure,
Gave to the mind its emperor,
And life was larger than before:
Nor sequent centuries could hit
Orbit and sum of Shakespeare's wit.
The men who lived with him became
Poets, for the air was fame.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Solution," lines 35–42, Poems (1918), p. 222. These lines are inscribed above the fireplace in the old reading room of the Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, D.C.
The passages of Shakespeare that we most prize were never quoted until within this century.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Letters and Social Aims (1876), Quotation and Originality.
Ultimately, Anthony Burgess's emphasis on the multiplicity of meanings latent in the text of Shakespeare's life foregrounds his own appropriation of Shakespeare … Clearly this is not an inconsistency on Burgess's part but a deliberate pointer at the inevitability of appropriating any given text, particularly that most irresistible one of Shakespeare's life.
Paul Franssen, on Burgess's use of Shakespeare's "Dark Lady" of the Sonnets in Nothing Like the Sun: A Story of Shakespeare's Love Life, in "The Bard, the Bible and the Desert Island" in ‪The Author as Character : Representing Historical Writers in Western Literature‬ (1999) edited by Paul Franssen and A. J. Hoenselaars, p. 115.
Do you know how they are going to decide the Shakespeare-Bacon dispute? They are going to dig up Shakespeare and dig up Bacon; they are going to set their coffins side by side, and they are going to get Tree to recite Hamlet to them. And the one who turns in his coffin will be the author of the play.
W. S. Gilbert, letter quoted in Chambers Dictionary of Quotations (1997), p. 426.
But my God, how beautiful Shakespeare is, who else is as mysterious as he is; his language and method are like a brush trembling with excitement and ecstasy. But one must learn to read, just as one must learn to see and learn to live.
Vincent van Gogh, in a letter to Theo van Gogh (July 1880) as translated by Mrs. Johanna van Gogh-Bonger
I'm thinking "Great English wordsmith," my enemies and crew are thinking: "Shake…spear!"
"Captain Shakespeare" on the origins of his nom de guerre, in Stardust (2007), screenplay written by Jane Goldman and Matthew Vaughn, based on the novel by Neil Gaiman
The remarkable thing about Shakespeare is that he is really very good — in spite of all the people who say he is very good.
Robert Graves, in The Observer, "Sayings of the Week", (6 December 1964).
Far from the sun and summer-gale,
In thy green lap was Nature's Darling laid.
Thomas Gray, The Progress of Poesy (1754), lines 83-84.
For there is an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tygers hart wrapt in a Players hyde, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blanke verse as the best of you: and beeing an absolute Johannes fac totum, is in his owne conceit the onely Shake-scene in a countrey.
Robert Greene, Groats-worth of Witte (1592).
There's a statistical theory that if you gave a million monkeys typewriters and set them to work, they'd eventually come up with the complete works of Shakespeare. Thanks to the Internet, we now know this isn't true.
Ian Hart, in the Sunday Herald (30 December 2001), as quoted in Webster's New World Dictionary of Quotations (2005), p. 384.
This figure that thou here seest put,
It was for gentle Shakespeare cut,
Wherein the graver had a strife
With Nature, to out-do the life:
O could he but have drawn his wit
As well in brass, as he has hit
His face; the print would then surpass
All that was ever writ in brass:
But since he cannot, reader, look
Not on his picture, but his book.
Ben Jonson, on the Portrait of Shakespeare, from Mr William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies (1623), "To the Reader", as quoted in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (1999), p. 420.
Soul of the Age!
The applause, delight, the wonder of our stage!
My Shakespeare...
Thou art a monument, without a tomb,
And art alive still while thy book doth live,
And we have wits to read, and praise to give.
Ben Jonson, To the Memory of my Beloved, the Author, Mr. William Shakespeare (1623).
He was not of an age, but for all time!
Ben Jonson, To the Memory of my Beloved, the Author, Mr. William Shakespeare (1623).
There was ever more in him to be praised than to be pardoned.
Ben Jonson, Timber: or Discoveries made upon Men and Matter (1640).
He that tries to recommend him by select Quotations, will succeed like the Pedant in Hierocles, who, when he offered his House to Sale, carried a Brick in his Pocket as a Specimen.
Samuel Johnson, The plays of William Shakespeare, Vol. I (1765), Preface.
Shakespeare has united the powers of exciting laughter and sorrow not only in one mind but in one composition. Almost all his plays are divided between serious and Ludicrous characters and they sometimes produce sorrow and sometimes laughter.
That this is a practice contrary to the rules of criticism will be readily allowed; but there is always an appeal open from criticism to nature.
Samuel Johnson, The plays of William Shakespeare, Vol. I (1765), Preface.
And so sepulchr'd, in such pomp dost lie,
That kings for such a tomb would wish to die.
John Milton, "On Shakespeare" (1630).
I never quite despair and I read Shakspeare — indeed I shall I think never read any other Book much [...] I am very near Agreeing with Hazlit that Shakspeare is enough for us.
John Keats, in a letter to Benjamin Robert Haydon (11 May 1817).
He has left nothing to say about nothing or any thing.
John Keats, in a letter to John Hamilton Reynolds (22 November 1817).
At once it struck me, what quality went to form a Man of Achievement especially in Literature & which Shakespeare posessed so enormously — I mean Negative Capability, that is when man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact & reason.
John Keats, in a letter to George and Tom Keats ([21/27?] December 1817).
Shakespeare led a life of Allegory; his works are the comments on it.
John Keats, in a letter to George and Georgiana Keats (19 February 1819).
Shakespeare is not our poet, but the world's;
Therefore on him no speech!
Walter Savage Landor, "To Robert Browning," published in The Morning Chronicle (22 November 1845); reprinted in The Works of Walter Savage Landor (1846), vol. II
When I read Shakespeare I am struck with wonder
That such trivial people should muse and thunder
In such lovely language.
D. H. Lawrence, "When I read Shakespeare," from Pansies (1929).
EDMUND (sits down opposite his father - contemptuously). Yes, facts don't mean a thing, do they? What you want to believe, that's the only truth! (Derisively.) Shakespeare was an Irish Catholic, for example.
TYRONE (stubbornly). So he was. The proof is in his plays.
Eugene O'Neill, Long Day's Journey Into Night (1956), Act IV.
When we speak of the aim and Art observable in Shakespeare's works, we must not forget that Art belongs to Nature; that it is, so to speak, self-viewing, self-imitating, self-fashioning Nature. The Art of a well-developed genius is far different from the Artfulness of the Understanding, of the merely reasoning mind. Shakspeare was no calculator, no learned thinker; he was a mighty, many-gifted soul, whose feelings and works, like products of Nature, bear the stamp of the same spirit; and in which the last and deepest of observers will still find new harmonies with the infinite structure of the Universe; concurrences with later ideas, affinities with the higher powers and senses of man. They are emblematic, have many meanings, are simple and inexhaustible, like products of Nature; and nothing more unsuitable could be said of them than that they are works of Art, in that narrow mechanical acceptation of the word.
Novalis, as quoted in "Novalis" (1829) by Thomas Carlyle
Children are made to learn bits of Shakespeare by heart, with the result that ever after they associate him with pedantic boredom. If they could meet him in the flesh, full of jollity and ale, they would be astonished, and if they had never heard of him before they might be led by his jollity to see what he had written. But if at school they had been inoculated against him, they will never be able to enjoy him. [...] Shakespeare did not write with a view to boring school-children; he wrote with a view to delighting his audiences. If he does not give you delight, you had better ignore him.
Bertrand Russell, New Hopes for a Changing World (1951), p. 201.
On this planet the reputation of Shakespeare is secure. When life is discovered elsewhere in the universe and some interplanetary traveler brings to this new world the fruits of our terrestrial culture, who can imagine anything but that among the first books carried to the curious strangers will be a Bible and the works of WIlliam Shakespeare.
Louis Marder, in His Exits and his Entrances : The Story of Shakespeare's Reputation (1963), p. 362.
The verbal poetical texture of Shakespeare is the greatest the world has known, and is immensely superior to the structure of his plays as plays.
Vladimir Nabokov, quoted in interview with Alfred Appel, Jr. (September 1966), printed in Wisconsin Studies in Contemporary Literature 8 (1967); republished in Nabokov's Strong Opinions (1973).
Shakespeare — the nearest thing in incarnation to the eye of God.
Laurence Olivier, quoted in Kenneth Harris, "Sir Laurence Olivier," from Kenneth Harris Talking To... (1971).
I sent for some dinner and there dined, Mrs. Margaret Pen being by, to whom I had spoke to go along with us to a play this afternoon, and then to the King's Theatre, where we saw 'Midsummer's Night's Dream', which I had never seen before, nor shall ever again, for it is the most insipid ridiculous play that ever I saw in my life.
Samuel Pepys, diary for 29 September 1662
Shakespearean language is a bizarre super-tongue, alien and plastic, twisting, turning, and forever escaping. It is untranslatable, since it knocks Anglo-Saxon root words against Norman and Greco-Roman importations sweetly or harshly, kicking us up and down rhetorical levels with witty abruptness. No one in real life ever spoke like Shakespeare's characters. His language does not "make sense," especially in the greatest plays. Anywhere from a third to a half of every Shakespearean play, I conservatively estimate, will always remain under an interpretive cloud. Unfortunately, this fact is obscured by the encrustations of footnotes in modern texts, which imply to the poor cowed student that if only he knew what the savants do, all would be as clear as day. Every time I open Hamlet, I am stunned by its hostile virtuosity, its elusiveness and impenetrability. Shakespeare uses language to darken. He suspends the traditional compass points of rhetoric, still quite firm in Marlowe, normally regarded as Shakespeare's main influence. Shakespeare's words have "aura." This he got from Spenser, not Marlowe.
Camille Paglia, Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson, p. 195.
The shape of the Globe gives words power, but you're the wordsmith! The one true genius; the only one clever enough to do it. … Trust yourself. When you're locked away in your room, the words just come, don't they, like magic. Words, the right sound, the right shape, the right rhythm, words that last forever. That's what you do, Will. You choose perfect words. Do it. Improvise!
The tenth incarnation of The Doctor in The Shakespeare Code episode of Doctor Who, written by Gareth Roberts
Æschylus is above all things the poet of righteousness. "But in any wise, I say unto thee, revere thou the altar of righteousness": this is the crowning admonition of his doctrine, as its crowning prospect is the reconciliation or atonement of the principle of retribution with the principle of redemption, of the powers of the mystery of darkness with the coeternal forces of the spirit of wisdom, of the lord of inspiration and of light. The doctrine of Shakespeare, where it is not vaguer, is darker in its implication of injustice, in its acceptance of accident, than the impression of the doctrine of Æschylus. Fate, irreversible and inscrutable, is the only force of which we feel the impact, of which we trace the sign, in the upshot of Othello or King Lear. The last step into the darkness remained to be taken by "the most tragic" of all English poets. With Shakespeare — and assuredly not with Æschylus — righteousness itself seems subject and subordinate to the masterdom of fate: but fate itself, in the tragic world of Webster, seems merely the servant or the synonym of chance.
Algernon Charles Swinburne in The Age of Shakespeare (1908).
Shakespeare is a savage with sparks of genius which shine in a horrible night.
Voltaire, quoted in The Academy and literature, Vol. 56 (1899), p. 676.
Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations[edit]
Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 700-02.
This Booke
When Brasse and Marble fade, shall make thee looke
Fresh to all Ages.
Commendatory Verses prefixed to the folio of Shakespeare (1623).
This was Shakespeare's form;
Who walked in every path of human life,
Felt every passion; and to all mankind
Doth now, will ever, that experience yield
Which his own genius only could acquire.
Mark Akenside, Inscription, IV.
Others abide our question. Thou art free.
We ask and ask—Thou smilest and art still,
Out-topping knowledge.
Matthew Arnold, Shakespeare
Renowned Spenser, lie a thought more nigh
To learned Chaucer, and rare Beaumont lie
A little nearer Spenser, to make room
For Shakespeare in your threefold, fourfold tomb.
William Basse, On Shakespeare
"With this same key
Shakespeare unlocked his heart," once more!
Did Shakespeare? If so, the less Shakespeare he!
Robert Browning, House, X
If I say that Shakespeare is the greatest of intellects, I have said all concerning him. But there is more in Shakespeare's intellect than we have yet seen. It is what I call an unconscious intellect; there is more virtue in it than he himself is aware of.
Thomas Carlyle, Essays, Characteristics of Shakespeare
Voltaire and Shakespeare! He was all
The other feigned to be.
The flippant Frenchman speaks: I weep;
And Shakespeare weeps with me.
Matthias Claudius, A Comparison
Our myriad-minded Shakespeare.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Biographia Literaria, Chapter XV. Borrowed from a Greek monk who applied it to a Patriarch of Constantinople.
When great poets sing,
Into the night new constellations spring,
With music in the air that dulls the craft
Of rhetoric. So when Shakespeare sang or laughed
The world with long, sweet Alpine echoes thrilled
Voiceless to scholars' tongues no muse had filled
With melody divine.
C. P. Cranch, Shakespeare.
But Shakespeare's magic could not copied be;
Within that circle none durst walk but he.
John Dryden, The Tempest (1667), Prologue.
Now you who rhyme, and I who rhyme,
Have not we sworn it, many a time,
That we no more our verse would scrawl,
For Shakespeare he had said it all!
R. W. Gilder, The Modern Rhymer.
If we wish to know the force of human genius we should read Shakespeare. If we wish to see the insignificance of human learning we may study his commentators.
William Hazlitt, Table Talk, On the Ignorance of the Learned.
Mellifluous Shakespeare, whose enchanting Quill
Commandeth Mirth or Passion, was but Will.
Thomas Heywood, Hierarchie of the Blessed Angels.
The stream of Time, which is continually washing the dissoluble fabrics of other poets, passes without injury by the adamant of Shakspere.
Samuel Johnson, Preface to Works of Shakspere.
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, Discoveries, De Shakespeare nostrat
This figure that thou here seest put,
It was for gentle Shakespeare cut,
Wherein the graver had a strife
With Nature, to outdo the life:
Oh, could he but have drawn his wit
As well in brass, as he has hit
His face, the print would then surpass
All that was ever writ in brass;
But since he cannot, reader, look
Not on his picture, but his book.
Ben Jonson, Lines on a Picture of Shakespeare
Shakespeare is not our poet, but the world's,
Therefore on him no speech!
Walter Savage Landor, To Robert Browning, line 5.
Then to the well-trod stage anon
If Jonson's learned sock be on,
Or sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy's child,
Warble his native woodnotes wild.
John Milton, L'Allegro, line 131.
What needs my Shakespeare for his honored bones
The labors of an age in piled stones?
Or that his hallowed reliques should be hid
Under a starre-y-pointing pyramid?
Dear son of Memory, great heir of fame,
What need'st thou such weak witness of thy name?
Thou in our wonder and astonishment
Hath built thyself a livelong monument.
John Milton, An Epitaph. Similar phrases in the entire epitaph are found in the epitaph on Sir Thomas Stanley, supposed to have been written by Shakespeare. Also, same ideas found in Crashaw.
Shakspeare (whom you and every playhouse bill
Style the divine! the matchless! what you will),
For gain, not glory, wing'd his roving flight,
And grew immortal in his own despite.
Alexander Pope, Imitations of Horace, Epistle I, Book II, line 69.

Few of the university pen plaies well, they smell too much of that writer Ovid and that writer Metamorphosis and talk too much of Proserpina and Jupiter. Why, here's our fellow Shakespeare puts them all down. Aye, and Ben Jonson too. O that B. J. is a pestilent fellow, he brought up Horace giving the poets a pill, but our fellow, Shakespeare, hath given him a purge that made him beray his credit.

William Shakespeare

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...
~ Jaques in As You Like It
William Shakespeare (26 April 1564 (baptised) – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright and poet, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language.
Contents [hide]
1 Works of Shakespeare
2 Quotes
2.1 Richard III (1592–3)
2.2 Romeo and Juliet (1595)
2.3 A Midsummer Night's Dream (1595)
2.4 The Merchant of Venice (1596–7)
2.5 Henry IV, Part 2 (1597–8)
2.6 Much Ado About Nothing (1598)
2.7 Julius Caesar (1599)
2.8 As You Like It (1599–1600)
2.9 Hamlet (1600–1)
2.10 Twelfth Night (1601)
2.11 Othello (1603–4)
2.12 Timon of Athens (1605)
2.13 King Lear (1605–6)
2.14 Antony and Cleopatra (1606)
2.15 Macbeth (1606)
2.16 Sonnets (1609)
2.17 Cymbeline (1610)
2.18 The Tempest (1611)
3 Misattributed
4 Quotes about Shakespeare
4.1 Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations
4.2 Psalm 46 rumours
5 See also
5.1 Quotes by Shakespeare
5.2 Quotes about Shakespeare
6 External links
Works of Shakespeare[edit]

But release me from my bands
With the help of your good hands.
Gentle breath of yours my sails
Must fill, or else my project fails,
Which was to please. Now I want
Spirits to enforce, art to enchant;
And my ending is despair,
Unless I be reliev'd by prayer,
Which pierces so that it assaults
Mercy itself, and frees all faults.
As you from crimes would pardon'd be,
Let your indulgence set me free.
~ Prospero in The Tempest
Separate pages exist for quotations from all of the following works:
All's Well That Ends Well
Antony and Cleopatra
As You Like It
The Comedy of Errors
Coriolanus
Cymbeline
Hamlet
Henry IV, Part 1
Henry IV, Part 2
Henry V
Henry VI, Part 1
Henry VI, Part 2
Henry VI, Part 3
Henry VIII
Julius Caesar
King John
King Lear
Love's Labour's Lost
Macbeth
Measure for Measure
The Merchant of Venice
The Merry Wives of Windsor
A Midsummer Night's Dream
Much Ado About Nothing
Othello
Pericles, Prince of Tyre
Richard II
Richard III
Romeo and Juliet
The Sonnets
The Taming of the Shrew
The Tempest
Timon of Athens
Titus Andronicus
Troilus and Cressida
Twelfth Night
The Two Gentlemen of Verona
The Two Noble Kinsmen
Venus and Adonis
The Winter's Tale.
Quotes[edit]

Time's glory is to command contending kings,
To unmask falsehood, and bring truth to light.

Blese be the man that spares these stones
And curst be he that moves my bones
Beauty itself doth of itself persuade
The eyes of men without an orator.
The Rape of Lucrece (1594).
Time's glory is to command contending kings,
To unmask falsehood, and bring truth to light.
The Rape of Lucrece.
On a day — alack the day! —
Love, whose month is ever May,
Spied a blossom passing fair
Playing in the wanton air
Sonnets to Sundry Notes of Music, II. Not to be confused with The Sonnets; this poem is not a sonnet
Crabbed age and youth cannot live together:
Youth is full of pleasure, age is full of care
The Passionate Pilgrim: A Madrigal; there is some doubt about the authorship of this.
I gyve unto my wief my second best bed with the furniture
Shakespeare's will
Good frend for Jesus sake forbeare
To digg the dust encloased heare
Blese be the man that spares these stones
And curst be he that moves my bones
Shakespeare's epitaph
Richard III (1592–3)[edit]
Main article: Richard III (play)
Now is the winter of our discontent.
Richard, Act I, scene i.
Off with his head!
Richard, Act III, scene iv.
A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!
Richard, Act V, scene iv.
Romeo and Juliet (1595)[edit]
Main article: Romeo and Juliet
What light through yonder window breaks?
Romeo, Act II, scene ii
What's in a name? That which we call a rose,
By any other name would smell as sweet.
Juliet, Act II, scene ii.
O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?
Juliet, Act II, scene ii.
A Midsummer Night's Dream (1595)[edit]
Main article: A Midsummer Night's Dream
The course of true love never did run smooth.
Lysander, Act I, scene i.
Lord, what fools these mortals be!
Puck, Act III, scene ii.
Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind,
And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind.
Helena, Act I, scene i.
The Merchant of Venice (1596–7)[edit]
Main article: The Merchant of Venice
If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men’s cottages princes’ palaces.
Portia, Act I, scene ii.
All that glisters is not gold.
Prince of Morocco, reading Portia's note, Act II, scene vii; this is the source of the popular paraphrase "All that glitters is not gold."
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, shall we not revenge?
Shylock, Act III, scene i.
Henry IV, Part 2 (1597–8)[edit]
Main article: Henry IV, Part 2
A man can die but once.
Feeble, Act III, scene ii.
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.
King Henry, Act III, scene i.
Much Ado About Nothing (1598)[edit]
Main article: Much Ado About Nothing
As merry as the day is long.
Beatrice, Act II, scene i.
Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more,
Men were deceivers ever;
One foot in sea, and one on shore,
To one thing constant never.
Balthazar, Act II, scene iii.
Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps.
Hero, Act III, scene i.
Julius Caesar (1599)[edit]
Main article: Julius Caesar (play)
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.
Cassius, Act I, scene ii.
Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.
Caesar, Act II, scene ii.
Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones.
Antony, Act III, scene ii.
As You Like It (1599–1600)[edit]
Main article: As You Like It
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.
Jaques, Act II, scene vii.
Hamlet (1600–1)[edit]
Main article: Hamlet
Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all: to thine ownself be true.
Polonius, Act I, scene iii.
Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice.
Polonius, Act I, scene iii.
There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.
Hamlet, Act II, scene ii.
What a piece of work is a man!
How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty!
In form and moving how express and admirable!
In action how like an angel,
in apprehension how like a god!
Hamlet, Act II, scene ii.
To be or not to be, that is the question.
Hamlet, Act III, scene i.
Twelfth Night (1601)[edit]
Main article: Twelfth Night
If music be the food of love, play on.
Orsino, Act I, scene i.
Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon 'em.
Malvolio, Act II, scene v.
Othello (1603–4)[edit]
Main article: Othello
Reputation is an idle and most false imposition; oft got without merit and lost without deserving.
Iago, Act II, scene iii.
Of one that lov'd not wisely but too well.
Othello, Act V, scene ii.
Timon of Athens (1605)[edit]
Main article: Timon of Athens
We have seen better days.
Flavius, Act IV, scene ii.
King Lear (1605–6)[edit]
Main article: King Lear
Nothing can come of nothing.
Lear, Act I, scene i.
How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is
To have a thankless child!
Lear, Act I, scene iv.
I am a man,
More sinn'd against than sinning.
Lear, Act III, scene ii.
Antony and Cleopatra (1606)[edit]
Main article: Antony and Cleopatra
The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne,
Burnt on the water.
Enobarbus, Act II, scene ii.
Macbeth (1606)[edit]
Main article: Macbeth
Come what come may,
Time and the hour runs through the roughest day.
Macbeth, Act I, scene iii.
Is this a dagger which I see before me,
The handle toward my hand?
Macbeth, Act II, scene i.
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
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,
Signifying nothing.
Macbeth, Act V, scene v.
Sonnets (1609)[edit]
Main article: The Sonnets
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
XVIII
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments.
CXVI
Cymbeline (1610)[edit]
Main article: Cymbeline
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.
Guiderius, Act IV, scene ii.
The Tempest (1611)[edit]
Main article: The Tempest
Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes;
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Ariel, Act I, scene ii.
Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.
Trinculo, Act II, scene ii.
We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.
Prospero, Act IV, scene i.

Misattributed[edit]

Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. The saying goes you live by the sword you shall die by the sword...It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind. And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader and gladly so. How do I know? For this is what I have done. And I am Caesar.
This statement by an unknown author has also been wrongly attributed to Julius Caesar, as well as to Shakespeare's play on his assassination and its aftermath, but there are no records of it prior to late 2000. It has been debunked at Snopes.com
Nothing is more common than the wish to be remarkable.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table (1858), ch. XII : Nothing is so common-place as to wish to be remarkable.
Children wish fathers looked but with their eyes; fathers that children with their judgment looked; and either may be wrong.
Derived from A Midsummer Night's Dream on p.269, Aphorisms from Shakespeare (1812), Capel Lofft, Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown, a book which rewrites in aphoristic form Shakespeare quotations, in this case the exchange between Hermia and Theseus: "I would my father look'd but with my eyes", "Rather your eyes must with his judgment look".
However wickedness outstrips men, it has no wings to fly from God.
Derived from a longer quote in Henry V, reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 283.
Quotes about Shakespeare[edit]

Shakespear's Magick could not copy'd be,
Within that Circle none durst walk but he. ~ John Dryden

The remarkable thing about Shakespeare is that he is really very good — in spite of all the people who say he is very good. ~ Robert Graves

He was not of an age, but for all time! ~ Ben Jonson

Shakespeare led a life of Allegory; his works are the comments on it. ~ John Keats
Alphabetized by author
Shakespeare one gets acquainted with without knowing how. It is a part of an Englishman's constitution. His thoughts and beauties are so spread abroad that one touches them every where, one is intimate with him by instinct.
Jane Austen, Mansfield Park (1814), Ch. 34.
There, Shakespeare, on whose forehead climb
The crowns o' the world.
Oh, eyes sublime
With tears and laughter for all time.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning, A Vision of Poets (1844).
Shakespeare's drama, where ideal women walk
in worship, and the baser sort find sympathy.
Robert Bridges, The Testament of Beauty (1929), Book III, line 921.
Shakespeare's name, you may depend upon it, stands absurdly too high and will go down. He had no invention as to stories, none whatever. He took all his plots from old novels, and threw their stories into dramatic shape... That he threw over whatever he did write some flashes of genius, nobody can deny; but this was all.
Lord Byron, letter to James Hogg (24 March 1814), as quoted in Chambers Dictionary of Quotations (1997), p. 221.
Consider now, if they asked us, Will you give up your Indian Empire or your Shakespeare, you English: never have had any Shakespeare? Really it were a grave question. Official persons would an swer doubtless in official language: but we, for our part too, should not be forced, to answer: Indian Empire, or no Indian Empire we cannot do with out Shakespeare!
Thomas Carlyle, "On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History" (1841), Lecture 3. The Hero as Poet. Dante; Shakespeare.
The souls most fed with Shakespeare's flame
Still sat unconquered in a ring,
Remembering him like anything.
G. K. Chesterton, "Shakespeare Memorial" (1915).
He is of no age — nor, I may add, of any religion, or party, or profession. The body and substance of his works came out of the unfathomable depths of his own oceanic mind.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Specimens of the Table Talk of the Late Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Vol. II (1835), p. 301.
I have tried lately to read Shakespeare, and found it so intolerably dull that it nauseated me.
Charles Darwin, The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Vol. I (1860), as quoted in Webster's New World Dictionary of Quotations (2005), p. 253.
'I'm always ill after Shakespeare,' said Mrs Wititterly. 'I scarcely exist the next day; I find the reaction so very great after a tragedy, my lord, and Shakespeare is such a delicious creature.'
Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby (1838–1839), Ch. 27.
But Shakespear's Magick could not copy'd be,
Within that Circle none durst walk but he.
John Dryden, The Tempest (1667), Prologue.
To begin then with Shakespeare; he was the man who of all Modern, and perhaps Ancient Poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul. All the Images of Nature were still present to him, and he drew them not laboriously, but luckily: when he describes any thing, you more than see it, you feel it too. Those who accuse him to have wanted learning, give him the greater commendation: he was naturally learn'd; he needed not the spectacles of Books to read Nature; he look'd inwards, and found her there. I cannot say he is every where alike; were he so, I should do him injury to compare him with the greatest of Mankind. He is many times flat, insipid; his comic wit degenerating into clenches; his serious swelling into Bombast. But he is always great, when some great occasion is presented to him: no man can say he ever had a fit subject for his wit, and did not then raise himself as high above the rest of the poets.
John Dryden, An Essay of Dramatic Poesy (1668), "Shakespeare and Ben Jonson Compared"
If I would compare him [Jonson] with Shakespeare, I must acknowledge him the more correct poet, but Shakespeare the greater wit.
John Dryden, An Essay of Dramatic Poesy (1668), "Shakespeare and Ben Jonson Compared"
Shakespeare was the Homer, or father of our dramatic poets; Jonson was the Virgil, the pattern of elaborate writing. I admire him, but I love Shakespeare.
John Dryden, An Essay of Dramatic Poesy (1668), "Shakespeare and Ben Jonson Compared"
Dante and Shakespeare divide the modern world between them; there is no third.
T. S. Eliot, "Dante" (1929), from Selected Essays (1932).
What point of morals, of manners, of economy, of philosophy, of religion, of taste, of the conduct of life, has he not settled? What mystery has he not signified his knowledge of? What office, or function, or district of man's work, has he not remembered? What king has he not taught state, as Talma taught Napoleon? What maiden has not found him finer than her delicacy? What lover has he not outloved? What sage has he not outseen? What gentleman has he not instructed in the rudeness of his behavior?
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Representative Men (1850), Shakespeare
Nor sequent centuries could hit
Orbit and sum of SHAKSPEARE's wit.
Ralph Waldo Emerson in "Solution", from May-Day and Other Pieces (1867).
England's genius filled all measure
Of heart and soul, of strength and pleasure,
Gave to the mind its emperor,
And life was larger than before:
Nor sequent centuries could hit
Orbit and sum of Shakespeare's wit.
The men who lived with him became
Poets, for the air was fame.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Solution," lines 35–42, Poems (1918), p. 222. These lines are inscribed above the fireplace in the old reading room of the Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, D.C.
The passages of Shakespeare that we most prize were never quoted until within this century.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Letters and Social Aims (1876), Quotation and Originality.
Ultimately, Anthony Burgess's emphasis on the multiplicity of meanings latent in the text of Shakespeare's life foregrounds his own appropriation of Shakespeare … Clearly this is not an inconsistency on Burgess's part but a deliberate pointer at the inevitability of appropriating any given text, particularly that most irresistible one of Shakespeare's life.
Paul Franssen, on Burgess's use of Shakespeare's "Dark Lady" of the Sonnets in Nothing Like the Sun: A Story of Shakespeare's Love Life, in "The Bard, the Bible and the Desert Island" in ‪The Author as Character : Representing Historical Writers in Western Literature‬ (1999) edited by Paul Franssen and A. J. Hoenselaars, p. 115.
Do you know how they are going to decide the Shakespeare-Bacon dispute? They are going to dig up Shakespeare and dig up Bacon; they are going to set their coffins side by side, and they are going to get Tree to recite Hamlet to them. And the one who turns in his coffin will be the author of the play.
W. S. Gilbert, letter quoted in Chambers Dictionary of Quotations (1997), p. 426.
But my God, how beautiful Shakespeare is, who else is as mysterious as he is; his language and method are like a brush trembling with excitement and ecstasy. But one must learn to read, just as one must learn to see and learn to live.
Vincent van Gogh, in a letter to Theo van Gogh (July 1880) as translated by Mrs. Johanna van Gogh-Bonger
I'm thinking "Great English wordsmith," my enemies and crew are thinking: "Shake…spear!"
"Captain Shakespeare" on the origins of his nom de guerre, in Stardust (2007), screenplay written by Jane Goldman and Matthew Vaughn, based on the novel by Neil Gaiman
The remarkable thing about Shakespeare is that he is really very good — in spite of all the people who say he is very good.
Robert Graves, in The Observer, "Sayings of the Week", (6 December 1964).
Far from the sun and summer-gale,
In thy green lap was Nature's Darling laid.
Thomas Gray, The Progress of Poesy (1754), lines 83-84.
For there is an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tygers hart wrapt in a Players hyde, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blanke verse as the best of you: and beeing an absolute Johannes fac totum, is in his owne conceit the onely Shake-scene in a countrey.
Robert Greene, Groats-worth of Witte (1592).
There's a statistical theory that if you gave a million monkeys typewriters and set them to work, they'd eventually come up with the complete works of Shakespeare. Thanks to the Internet, we now know this isn't true.
Ian Hart, in the Sunday Herald (30 December 2001), as quoted in Webster's New World Dictionary of Quotations (2005), p. 384.
This figure that thou here seest put,
It was for gentle Shakespeare cut,
Wherein the graver had a strife
With Nature, to out-do the life:
O could he but have drawn his wit
As well in brass, as he has hit
His face; the print would then surpass
All that was ever writ in brass:
But since he cannot, reader, look
Not on his picture, but his book.
Ben Jonson, on the Portrait of Shakespeare, from Mr William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies (1623), "To the Reader", as quoted in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (1999), p. 420.
Soul of the Age!
The applause, delight, the wonder of our stage!
My Shakespeare...
Thou art a monument, without a tomb,
And art alive still while thy book doth live,
And we have wits to read, and praise to give.
Ben Jonson, To the Memory of my Beloved, the Author, Mr. William Shakespeare (1623).
He was not of an age, but for all time!
Ben Jonson, To the Memory of my Beloved, the Author, Mr. William Shakespeare (1623).
There was ever more in him to be praised than to be pardoned.
Ben Jonson, Timber: or Discoveries made upon Men and Matter (1640).
He that tries to recommend him by select Quotations, will succeed like the Pedant in Hierocles, who, when he offered his House to Sale, carried a Brick in his Pocket as a Specimen.
Samuel Johnson, The plays of William Shakespeare, Vol. I (1765), Preface.
Shakespeare has united the powers of exciting laughter and sorrow not only in one mind but in one composition. Almost all his plays are divided between serious and Ludicrous characters and they sometimes produce sorrow and sometimes laughter.
That this is a practice contrary to the rules of criticism will be readily allowed; but there is always an appeal open from criticism to nature.
Samuel Johnson, The plays of William Shakespeare, Vol. I (1765), Preface.
And so sepulchr'd, in such pomp dost lie,
That kings for such a tomb would wish to die.
John Milton, "On Shakespeare" (1630).
I never quite despair and I read Shakspeare — indeed I shall I think never read any other Book much [...] I am very near Agreeing with Hazlit that Shakspeare is enough for us.
John Keats, in a letter to Benjamin Robert Haydon (11 May 1817).
He has left nothing to say about nothing or any thing.
John Keats, in a letter to John Hamilton Reynolds (22 November 1817).
At once it struck me, what quality went to form a Man of Achievement especially in Literature & which Shakespeare posessed so enormously — I mean Negative Capability, that is when man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact & reason.
John Keats, in a letter to George and Tom Keats ([21/27?] December 1817).
Shakespeare led a life of Allegory; his works are the comments on it.
John Keats, in a letter to George and Georgiana Keats (19 February 1819).
Shakespeare is not our poet, but the world's;
Therefore on him no speech!
Walter Savage Landor, "To Robert Browning," published in The Morning Chronicle (22 November 1845); reprinted in The Works of Walter Savage Landor (1846), vol. II
When I read Shakespeare I am struck with wonder
That such trivial people should muse and thunder
In such lovely language.
D. H. Lawrence, "When I read Shakespeare," from Pansies (1929).
EDMUND (sits down opposite his father - contemptuously). Yes, facts don't mean a thing, do they? What you want to believe, that's the only truth! (Derisively.) Shakespeare was an Irish Catholic, for example.
TYRONE (stubbornly). So he was. The proof is in his plays.
Eugene O'Neill, Long Day's Journey Into Night (1956), Act IV.
When we speak of the aim and Art observable in Shakespeare's works, we must not forget that Art belongs to Nature; that it is, so to speak, self-viewing, self-imitating, self-fashioning Nature. The Art of a well-developed genius is far different from the Artfulness of the Understanding, of the merely reasoning mind. Shakspeare was no calculator, no learned thinker; he was a mighty, many-gifted soul, whose feelings and works, like products of Nature, bear the stamp of the same spirit; and in which the last and deepest of observers will still find new harmonies with the infinite structure of the Universe; concurrences with later ideas, affinities with the higher powers and senses of man. They are emblematic, have many meanings, are simple and inexhaustible, like products of Nature; and nothing more unsuitable could be said of them than that they are works of Art, in that narrow mechanical acceptation of the word.
Novalis, as quoted in "Novalis" (1829) by Thomas Carlyle
Children are made to learn bits of Shakespeare by heart, with the result that ever after they associate him with pedantic boredom. If they could meet him in the flesh, full of jollity and ale, they would be astonished, and if they had never heard of him before they might be led by his jollity to see what he had written. But if at school they had been inoculated against him, they will never be able to enjoy him. [...] Shakespeare did not write with a view to boring school-children; he wrote with a view to delighting his audiences. If he does not give you delight, you had better ignore him.
Bertrand Russell, New Hopes for a Changing World (1951), p. 201.
On this planet the reputation of Shakespeare is secure. When life is discovered elsewhere in the universe and some interplanetary traveler brings to this new world the fruits of our terrestrial culture, who can imagine anything but that among the first books carried to the curious strangers will be a Bible and the works of WIlliam Shakespeare.
Louis Marder, in His Exits and his Entrances : The Story of Shakespeare's Reputation (1963), p. 362.
The verbal poetical texture of Shakespeare is the greatest the world has known, and is immensely superior to the structure of his plays as plays.
Vladimir Nabokov, quoted in interview with Alfred Appel, Jr. (September 1966), printed in Wisconsin Studies in Contemporary Literature 8 (1967); republished in Nabokov's Strong Opinions (1973).
Shakespeare — the nearest thing in incarnation to the eye of God.
Laurence Olivier, quoted in Kenneth Harris, "Sir Laurence Olivier," from Kenneth Harris Talking To... (1971).
I sent for some dinner and there dined, Mrs. Margaret Pen being by, to whom I had spoke to go along with us to a play this afternoon, and then to the King's Theatre, where we saw 'Midsummer's Night's Dream', which I had never seen before, nor shall ever again, for it is the most insipid ridiculous play that ever I saw in my life.
Samuel Pepys, diary for 29 September 1662
Shakespearean language is a bizarre super-tongue, alien and plastic, twisting, turning, and forever escaping. It is untranslatable, since it knocks Anglo-Saxon root words against Norman and Greco-Roman importations sweetly or harshly, kicking us up and down rhetorical levels with witty abruptness. No one in real life ever spoke like Shakespeare's characters. His language does not "make sense," especially in the greatest plays. Anywhere from a third to a half of every Shakespearean play, I conservatively estimate, will always remain under an interpretive cloud. Unfortunately, this fact is obscured by the encrustations of footnotes in modern texts, which imply to the poor cowed student that if only he knew what the savants do, all would be as clear as day. Every time I open Hamlet, I am stunned by its hostile virtuosity, its elusiveness and impenetrability. Shakespeare uses language to darken. He suspends the traditional compass points of rhetoric, still quite firm in Marlowe, normally regarded as Shakespeare's main influence. Shakespeare's words have "aura." This he got from Spenser, not Marlowe.
Camille Paglia, Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson, p. 195.
The shape of the Globe gives words power, but you're the wordsmith! The one true genius; the only one clever enough to do it. … Trust yourself. When you're locked away in your room, the words just come, don't they, like magic. Words, the right sound, the right shape, the right rhythm, words that last forever. That's what you do, Will. You choose perfect words. Do it. Improvise!
The tenth incarnation of The Doctor in The Shakespeare Code episode of Doctor Who, written by Gareth Roberts
Æschylus is above all things the poet of righteousness. "But in any wise, I say unto thee, revere thou the altar of righteousness": this is the crowning admonition of his doctrine, as its crowning prospect is the reconciliation or atonement of the principle of retribution with the principle of redemption, of the powers of the mystery of darkness with the coeternal forces of the spirit of wisdom, of the lord of inspiration and of light. The doctrine of Shakespeare, where it is not vaguer, is darker in its implication of injustice, in its acceptance of accident, than the impression of the doctrine of Æschylus. Fate, irreversible and inscrutable, is the only force of which we feel the impact, of which we trace the sign, in the upshot of Othello or King Lear. The last step into the darkness remained to be taken by "the most tragic" of all English poets. With Shakespeare — and assuredly not with Æschylus — righteousness itself seems subject and subordinate to the masterdom of fate: but fate itself, in the tragic world of Webster, seems merely the servant or the synonym of chance.
Algernon Charles Swinburne in The Age of Shakespeare (1908).
Shakespeare is a savage with sparks of genius which shine in a horrible night.
Voltaire, quoted in The Academy and literature, Vol. 56 (1899), p. 676.
Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations[edit]
Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 700-02.
This Booke
When Brasse and Marble fade, shall make thee looke
Fresh to all Ages.
Commendatory Verses prefixed to the folio of Shakespeare (1623).
This was Shakespeare's form;
Who walked in every path of human life,
Felt every passion; and to all mankind
Doth now, will ever, that experience yield
Which his own genius only could acquire.
Mark Akenside, Inscription, IV.
Others abide our question. Thou art free.
We ask and ask—Thou smilest and art still,
Out-topping knowledge.
Matthew Arnold, Shakespeare
Renowned Spenser, lie a thought more nigh
To learned Chaucer, and rare Beaumont lie
A little nearer Spenser, to make room
For Shakespeare in your threefold, fourfold tomb.
William Basse, On Shakespeare
"With this same key
Shakespeare unlocked his heart," once more!
Did Shakespeare? If so, the less Shakespeare he!
Robert Browning, House, X
If I say that Shakespeare is the greatest of intellects, I have said all concerning him. But there is more in Shakespeare's intellect than we have yet seen. It is what I call an unconscious intellect; there is more virtue in it than he himself is aware of.
Thomas Carlyle, Essays, Characteristics of Shakespeare
Voltaire and Shakespeare! He was all
The other feigned to be.
The flippant Frenchman speaks: I weep;
And Shakespeare weeps with me.
Matthias Claudius, A Comparison
Our myriad-minded Shakespeare.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Biographia Literaria, Chapter XV. Borrowed from a Greek monk who applied it to a Patriarch of Constantinople.
When great poets sing,
Into the night new constellations spring,
With music in the air that dulls the craft
Of rhetoric. So when Shakespeare sang or laughed
The world with long, sweet Alpine echoes thrilled
Voiceless to scholars' tongues no muse had filled
With melody divine.
C. P. Cranch, Shakespeare.
But Shakespeare's magic could not copied be;
Within that circle none durst walk but he.
John Dryden, The Tempest (1667), Prologue.
Now you who rhyme, and I who rhyme,
Have not we sworn it, many a time,
That we no more our verse would scrawl,
For Shakespeare he had said it all!
R. W. Gilder, The Modern Rhymer.
If we wish to know the force of human genius we should read Shakespeare. If we wish to see the insignificance of human learning we may study his commentators.
William Hazlitt, Table Talk, On the Ignorance of the Learned.
Mellifluous Shakespeare, whose enchanting Quill
Commandeth Mirth or Passion, was but Will.
Thomas Heywood, Hierarchie of the Blessed Angels.
The stream of Time, which is continually washing the dissoluble fabrics of other poets, passes without injury by the adamant of Shakspere.
Samuel Johnson, Preface to Works of Shakspere.
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, Discoveries, De Shakespeare nostrat
This figure that thou here seest put,
It was for gentle Shakespeare cut,
Wherein the graver had a strife
With Nature, to outdo the life:
Oh, could he but have drawn his wit
As well in brass, as he has hit
His face, the print would then surpass
All that was ever writ in brass;
But since he cannot, reader, look
Not on his picture, but his book.
Ben Jonson, Lines on a Picture of Shakespeare
Shakespeare is not our poet, but the world's,
Therefore on him no speech!
Walter Savage Landor, To Robert Browning, line 5.
Then to the well-trod stage anon
If Jonson's learned sock be on,
Or sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy's child,
Warble his native woodnotes wild.
John Milton, L'Allegro, line 131.
What needs my Shakespeare for his honored bones
The labors of an age in piled stones?
Or that his hallowed reliques should be hid
Under a starre-y-pointing pyramid?
Dear son of Memory, great heir of fame,
What need'st thou such weak witness of thy name?
Thou in our wonder and astonishment
Hath built thyself a livelong monument.
John Milton, An Epitaph. Similar phrases in the entire epitaph are found in the epitaph on Sir Thomas Stanley, supposed to have been written by Shakespeare. Also, same ideas found in Crashaw.
Shakspeare (whom you and every playhouse bill
Style the divine! the matchless! what you will),
For gain, not glory, wing'd his roving flight,
And grew immortal in his own despite.
Alexander Pope, Imitations of Horace, Epistle I, Book II, line 69.

Few of the university pen plaies well, they smell too much of that writer Ovid and that writer Metamorphosis and talk too much of Proserpina and Jupiter. Why, here's our fellow Shakespeare puts them all down. Aye, and Ben Jonson too. O that B. J. is a pestilent fellow, he brought up Horace giving the poets a pill, but our fellow, Shakespeare, hath given him a purge that made him beray his credit.

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