William Shakespeare
English playwright and poet, 1564-1616
41 quotes.
Quotes by William Shakespeare
- An honest tale speeds best, being plainly told.
- Be not afraid of greatness. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon ’em.
- Better be three hours too soon than one minute too late.
- But screw your courage to the sticking-place, and we'll not fail!
- Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once.
- Do not, for one repulse, forego the purpose that you resolved to effect.
- Fearless minds climb soonest unto crowns.
- Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice: Take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgement.
- He that filches from me my good name robs me of that which not enriches him, but makes me poor indeed.
- How far that little candle throws its beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world.
- How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a weary world.
- How poor are they who have not patience! What wound did ever heal but by degrees.
- I dare do all that may become a man; who dares do more is none.
- In a false quarrel there is no true valor.
- It is a good divine that follows his own instructions; I can easier teach twenty what were good to be done, than to be one of the twenty to follow mine own teachings.
- It is but a base, ignoble mind that mounts no higher than a bird can soar.
- It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.
- Lord, we know what we are, but know not what we may be.
- Many strokes, though with a little axe, Hew down and fell the hardest-timber'd oak.
- 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.
- Neither a borrower nor a lender be: For loan oft loses both itself and friend
- No legacy so rich as honesty.
- Nothing is, unless our thinking makes it so.
- O, it is excellent To have a giant’s strength; but it is tyrannous To use it like a giant.
- Our doubts are traitors, And make us lose the good we oft might win By fearing to attempt.
- Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.
- Some falls are means the happier to rise.
- Strong reasons make strong actions.
- The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel.
- The purest treasure mortal times afford is spotless reputation; that away, men are but gilded loam or painted clay.
- There is a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them as we will.
- There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; Omitted, all the voyage of their life Is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat, And we must take the current when it serves, Or lose our ventures.
- There is no time so miserable but a man may be true.
- 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.
- To thine own self be true.
- Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful.
- We must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures.
- What's gone, and what's past help, should be past grief.
- Whereof what’s past is prologue, what to come In yours and my discharge.
- Who seeks, and will not take when once 'tis offer'd, Shall never find it more.