William Shakespeare Poetry Quotes

#1. Love is heavy and light, bright and dark, hot and cold, sick and healthy, asleep and awake- its everything except what it is! (Act 1, scene 1)

William Shakespeare

#2. O, how this spring of love resembleth
The uncertain glory of an April day,
Which now shows all the beauty of the sun,
And by and by a cloud takes all away!

William Shakespeare

#3. The tender spring upon thy tempting lip
Shows thee unripe; yet mayst thou well be tasted:
Make use of time, let not advantage slip;
Beauty within itself should not be wasted:
Fair flowers that are not gather'd in their prime
Rot and consume themselves in little time.

William Shakespeare

#4. Under the greenwood tree,
Who loves to lie with me
And tune his merry note,
Unto the sweet bird's throat;
Come hither, come hither, come hither.
Here shall he see
No enemy
But winter and rough weather.

William Shakespeare

#5. How like a winter hath my absence been
From Thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!
What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen,
What old December's bareness everywhere!

William Shakespeare

#6. Nor can thy shame give physic to my grief;
Though thou repent, yet I have still the loss:
The offender's sorrow lends but weak relief
To him that bears the strong offence's cross.

William Shakespeare

#7. There's an old saying that applies to me: you can't lose a game if you don't play the game. (Act 1, scene 4)

William Shakespeare

#8. He that is thy friend indeed,
He will help thee in thy need:
If thou sorrow, he will weep;
If thou wake, he cannot sleep:
Thus of every grief in heart
He with thee doth bear a part.
These are certain signs to know
Faithful friend from flattering foe.

William Shakespeare

#9. Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood clean from my hand?"
Macbeth

William Shakespeare

#10. Adieu, valour: rust, rapier: be still, drum, for your manager is in love: yea, he loveth. Assist me, some extemporal god of rhyme, for I am sure I shall turn sonnet. Devise, wit: write, pen, for I am for whole volumes in folio.

William Shakespeare

#11. What is thy body but a swallowing grave,
Seeming to bury that posterity
Which, by the rights of time, thou needs must have
If thou destroy them not in dark obscurity?
If so, the world will hold thee in disdain,
Sith in thy pride so fair a hope is slain.

William Shakespeare

#12. Mistrust of good success hath done this deed.
O hateful error, Melancholy's child,
Why dost thou show to the apt thoughts of men
The things that are not? O Error, soon concieved,
Thou never com'st unto a happy birth,
But kill'st the mother that engendered thee.

William Shakespeare

#13. I take thee at thy word:
Call me but love, and I'll be new baptized;
Henceforth I never will be Romeo.

William Shakespeare

#14. Never durst a poet touch a pen to write
Until his ink was tempered with love's sighs.

William Shakespeare

#15. If thou wilt leave me, do not leave me last,
When other petty griefs have done their spite,
But in the onset come: so shall I taste
At first the very worst of fortune's might;
And other strains of woe, which now seem woe,
Compar'd with loss of thee will not seem so.

William Shakespeare

#16. O serpent heart hid with a flowering face!
Did ever a dragon keep so fair a cave?
Beautiful tyrant, feind angelical, dove feather raven, wolvish-ravening lamb! Despised substance of devinest show, just opposite to what thou justly seemest - A dammed saint, an honourable villain!

William Shakespeare

#17. We number nothing that we spend for you;
Our duty is so rich, so infinite,
That we may do it still without accompt.
Vouchsafe to show the sunshine of your face,
That we, like savages, may worship it.

William Shakespeare

#18. Thus weary of the world, away she hies,
And yokes her silver doves; by whose swift aid
Their mistress mounted through the empty skies
In her light chariot quickly is convey'd;
Holding their course to Paphos, where their queen
Means to immure herself and not be seen.

William Shakespeare

#19. To me, fair friend, you never can be old,
For as you were when first your eye I ey'd,
Such seems your beauty still.

William Shakespeare

#20. For summer and his pleasures wait on thee,
And, thou away, the very birds are mute:
Or, if they sing, 'tis with so dull a cheer,
That leaves look pale, dreading the winter's near.

William Shakespeare

#21. O benefit of ill! Now I find true
That better is by evil still made better;
And ruin'd love, when it is built anew,
Grows fairer than at first, more strong, far greater.
So I return rebuk'd to my content,
And gain by ills thrice more than I have spent.

William Shakespeare

#22. A lover goes toward his beloved as enthusiastically as a schoolboy leaving his books, but when he leaves his girlfriend, he feels as miserable as the schoolboy on his way to school. (Act 2, scene 2)

William Shakespeare

#23. But thou art all my art, and dost advance
As high as learning my rude ignorance.

William Shakespeare

#24. The truest poetry is the most feigning.

William Shakespeare

#25. Then others for breath of words respect,
Me for my dumb thoughts, speaking in effect.

William Shakespeare

#26. Prior to Wordsworth, humor was an essential part of poetry. I mean, they don't call them Shakespeare comedies for nothing.

William Collins

#27. I had rather be a Kitten, and cry mew, Than one of these same Meeter Ballad-mongers: I had rather heare a Brazen Candlestick turn'd, Or a dry Wheele grate on the Axle-tree, And that would set my teeth nothing an edge, Nothing so much, as mincing Poetrie ...

William Shakespeare

#28. I like this place and could willingly waste my time in it.

William Shakespeare

#29. Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world
Like a Colossus; and we petty men
Walk under his huge legs, and peep about
To find ourselves dishonourable graves.

William Shakespeare

#30. Go wisely and slowly. Those who rush stumble and fall.

William Shakespeare