William Shakespeare

Fruits that blossom first will first be ripe.

The web of our life is of a mingled yarn good and ill together.

Never shame to hear what you have nobly done.

What a terrible era in which idiots govern the blind.

Have more than you show. Speak less than you know.

Hear my soul speak. Of the very instant that I saw you, did my heart fly at your service.

The present eye praises the present object.

Love sought is good, but given unsought, is better.

We know what we are, but not what we may be.

Speak low, if you speak love.

Sweet mercy is nobility's true badge.

Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful.

Men shut their doors against a setting sun.

Man delights not me.

As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods; they kill us for their sport.

This most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o " erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire.

Good things should be praised.

With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come.

Tempt not a desperate man.

As true as steel, as plantage to the moon, as sun to day, at turtle to her mate, as iron to adamant, as earth to centre.

I must be cruel, only to be kind.

Reputation is an idle and most false imposition; oft got without merit, and lost without deserving.

He that is proud eats up himself. Pride is his own glass, his own trumpet, his own chronicle; and whatever praises itself but in the deed, devours the deed in the praise.

'Tis not enough to help the feeble up, but to support them after.

The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

Bondage is hoarse and may not speak aloud.

How poor are they that have not patience! What wound did ever heal but by degrees?

Conscience does make cowards of us all and thus the native hue of resolution is sicklied oer with the pale cast of thought.

Be not afraid of greatness; some are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them.

What is past is prologue.

How far that little candle throws his beams So shines a good deed in a weary world.

Lawless are they that make their wills their law.

No reckoning made, but sent to my account with all my imperfections on my head.

This world to me is like a lasting storm,Whirring me from my friends.

Cold indeed and labor lost Then farewell heat and welcome frost

Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.

The sweetest honey is loathsome in his own deliciousness and in the taste confounds the appetite.

A friend is one that knows you as you are, understands where you have been, accepts what you have become, and still, gently allows you to grow.

Parting is such sweet sorrow that I shall say goodnight till it be morrow.

Wisely, and slow. They stumble that run fast.

How far that little candle throws its beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world.

If it be a sin to covet honor, I am the most offending soul.

Diseased nature oftentimes breaks forth In strange eruptions.

A table full of welcome makes scarce one dainty dish.

'Tis best to weigh the enemy more mighty than he seems.

Look like the innocent flower, But be the serpent under it.

Words without thoughts never to heaven go.

Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall.

Ignorance is the curse of God; knowledge is the wing wherewith we fly to heaven.

God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another.

Teach not thy lip such scorn, for it was made For kissing, lady, not for such contempt.

Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot that it do singe yourself.

Go to you bosom: Knock there, and ask your heart what it doth know.

I like not fair terms and a villain's mind.

Children wish fathers looked but with their eyes; fathers that children with their judgment looked; and either may be wrong.

As the waves make toward the pebbled shore, so do our minutes hasten to their end.

Life every man holds dear but the dear man holds honor far more precious than life.

Fishes live in the sea, as men do a-land; the great ones eat up the little ones.

Most dangerous is that temptation that doth goad us on to sin in loving virtue.

In persons grafted in a serious trust, negligence is a crime.

If music be the food of love, play on, Give me excess of it; that surfeiting, The appetite may sicken, and so die.

If love be rough with you, be rough with love. Prick love for pricking and you beat love down.

The most peaceable way for you, if you do take a thief, is, to let him show himself what he is and steal out of your company.

How well he's read, to reason against reading!

I say there is no darkness but ignorance.

The best safety lies in fear.

Fire thats closest kept burns most of all.

Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.

When the blood burns how prodigal the soulLends the tongue vows.

I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano; A stage where every man must play a part, And mine is a sad one.

O sleep O gentle sleep Natures soft nurse how have I frighted thee That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down and steep my sense in forgetfulness

April hath put a spirit of youth in everything.

Nature hath framed strange fellows in her time.

That which hath made them drunk hath made me bold.

It is lost at dice what ancient honor won.

Eyes, look your last! Arms, take your last embrace.

The stroke of death is as a lovers pinch Which hurts and is desired.

Heaven the treasury of everlasting life.

Hell is empty and all the devils are here.

Theres small choice in rotten apples.

Sometimes, less is more.

Thou art all ice. Thy kindness freezes.

When a father gives to his son both laugh when a son gives to his father both cry.

I know no ways to mince it in love, but directly to say — I love you.

Base men being in love have then a nobility in their natures more than is native to them.

The miserable have no other medicine, but only hope.

The presence of a king engenders love Amongst his subjects, and his royal friends.

Rumor is a pipe blown by surmises, jealousies, conjectures.

Our peace shall stand as firm as rocky mountains.

Love is not love that alters when it alteration finds.

In delay there lies no plenty.

Go girl seek happy nights to happy days.

Oh! How bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man’s eyes.

No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity. But I know none and therefore am no beast.

To be, or not to be, that is the question.

Though those that are betrayd Do feel the treason sharply yet the traitor Stands in worse case of woe.

Oft expectation fails, and most oft there where most it promises; and oft it hits where hope is coldest, and despair most fits.

The venom clamours of a jealous woman poison more deadly than a mad dog's tooth.

O, swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon, That monthly changes in her circled orb, Lest that thy love prove likewise variable.