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Miscellaneous Other Great Quotations from the Works of Shakespeare

Below is just a small initial collection of other mini golden nuggets from different plays by Shakespeare, many of which are so well-loved that they have since entered the English language as common-place phrases still in widespread use four centuries later!

 

Hamlet

“There is nothing either good or bad,
But thinking makes it so.” - (Act II, Scene ii).

“Though this be madness, yet there is method in ’t.” - (Act II, Scene ii).

“Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.” - (Act I, Scene iv).

“That it should come to this!” - (Act I, Scene ii).

“The lady doth protest too much, methinks.” - (Act III, Scene ii).

“In my mind’s eye.” - (Act I, 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).

“Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind.” - (Act III, Scene i).

“I will speak daggers to her, but use none.” - (Act III, Scene ii).

“Frailty, thy name is woman!” - (Act I, Scene ii).

“When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions.” - (Act IV, Scene v).

 

Macbeth

“But screw your courage to the sticking-place,
And we'll not fail.” - (Lady Macbeth, Act I, Scene viii).

“There’s daggers in men’s smiles.” - (Act II, Scene iii).

“What’s done is done.”- (Act III, Scene ii).

“I dare do all that may become a man;
Who dares do more is none.” - (Act I, Scene vii).

“I bear a charmed life.” - (Act V, Scene viii).

“Yet do I fear thy nature;
It is too full o’ the milk of human kindness.” - (Act I, Scene v).

“Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.” - (Act IV, Scene i).

“When shall we three meet again,
In thunder, lightning, or in rain?
When the hurlyburly’s done,
When the battle’s lost and won.” - (Three Witches, Act I, Scene i).

“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 ow'd
As ’twere a careless trifle.” - (Malcolm, Act I, Scene iv).

“Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck,
Till thou applaud the deed. Come, seeling night,
Scarf up the tender eye of pitiful day;
And with thy bloody and invisible hand
Cancel and tear to pieces that great bond
Which keeps me pale!--Light thickens; and the crow
Makes wing to the rooky wood:
Good things of day begin to droop and drowse;
Whiles night’s black agents to their preys do rouse.” - (Macbeth, Act II, Scene ii).

“I have no spur to prick the sides of my intent, but only vaulting ambition, which o’erleaps itself, and falls on the other.” - (Act I, Scene vii).

“Have we eaten on the insane root
That takes the reason prisoner?”

“If you can look into the seeds of time, and say which grain will grow and which will not, speak then to me.”

“Infirm of purpose!”

 

Romeo and Juliet

“For you and I are past our dancing days.” - (Act I, Scene v).

“It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night like a rich jewel in an Ethiope's ear.” - (Act I, Scene v).

“Not stepping o’er the bounds of modesty.” - (Act IV, Scene ii).

 

The Merchant of Venice

“But love is blind, and lovers cannot see.”

“The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.” - (Act I, Scene iii).

“I like not fair terms and a villain’s mind.” - (Act I, Scene iii).

“[He] speaks an infinite deal of nothing, more than any man in all Venice. His reasons are as two grains of wheat hid in two bushels of chaff: you shall seek all day ere you find them; and when you have them, they are not worth the search.”

“All that glitters is not gold;
Often have you heard that told.”

“They are as sick that surfeit with too much as they that starve with nothing.”

 

Othello

“ ’Tis neither here nor there.” - (Act IV, Scene iii).

“I will wear my heart upon my sleeve for daws to peck at.” - (Act I, Scene i).

“To mourn a mischief that is past and gone is the next way to draw new mischief on.” - (Act I, Scene iii).

“I am very ill at ease, unfit for my own purposes.”

“Into the vale of years.”

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

 

As You Like It

“Can one desire too much of a good thing?” - (Act IV, Scene i).

“I like this place and willingly could waste my time in it.” - (Act II, Scene iv).

“True is it that we have seen better days.” - (Act II, Scene vii).

“For ever and a day.” - (Act IV, Scene i).

“The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.” - (Act V, Scene i).

“The sight of lovers feedeth those in love.”

 

The Merry Wives of Windsor

“Why, then the world’s mine oyster.” - (Act II, Scene ii).

“This is the short and the long of it.” - (Act II, Scene ii).

“As good luck would have it.” - (Act III, Scene v).

 

The Tempest

“O, wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world
That has such people in’t!” - (Miranda, Act V, Scene i)

 

Julius Caesar

“But, for my own part, it was Greek to me.” - (Act I, Scene ii).

“A dish fit for the gods.” - (Act II, Scene i).

“Cry ‘Havoc,’ and let slip the dogs of war.” - (Act III, Scene i).

“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.” - (Act I, Scene ii).

“Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look;
He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.” (Act I, Scene ii).

 

King Richard III

“If thou art rich, thou art poor; for, like an ass, whose back with ingots bows, thou bearest the heavy riches but a journey, and death unloads thee.
If thy offences were upon record,
Would it not shame thee, in so fair a troop,
To read a lecture of them?”

 

King Richard III

“Now is the winter of our discontent.” - (Act I, Scene i).

“A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!” - (Act V, Scene iv).

“So wise so young, they say, do never live long.” - (Act III, Scene i).

“Off with his head!” - (Act III, Scene iv).

“An honest tale speeds best, being plainly told.” - (Act IV, Scene iv).

“I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.”

 

The Taming of the Shrew

“I’ll not budge an inch.” - (Induction, Scene i).

“Out of the jaws of death.” - (Act III, Scene iv).

“For the rain it raineth every day.” - (Act V, Scene i).

“There's small choice in rotten apples.”

 

The Winter's Tale

“What’s gone and what’s past help should be past grief.” - (Act III, Scene ii).

“You pay a great deal too dear for what’s given freely.” - (Act I, Scene i).

 

Cymbeline

“The game is up.” - (Act III, Scene iii).

“I have not slept one wink.” - (Act III, Scene iii).

 

A Midsummer Night's Dream

“Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, and therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.” - (Act I, Scene i).

 

Measure for Measure

“Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall.” - (Act II, Scene i).

“The miserable have no other medicine but only hope.” - (Act III, Scene i).

 

King Henry IV, Part I

“He will give the devil his due.” - (Act I, Scene ii).

“The better part of valour is discretion.” - (Act V, Scene iv).

 

King Henry IV, Part II

“He hath eaten me out of house and home.” - (Act II, Scene i).

“Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.” - (Act III, Scene i).

“A man can die but once.” - (Act III, Scene ii).

“We have heard the chimes at midnight.” - (Act III, Scene ii).

 

King Henry IV, Part III

“Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind;
The thief doth fear each bush an officer.” - (Act V, Scene vi).

 

King Henry VI, Part III

“Having nothing, nothing can he lose.” - (Act III, Scene iii).

 

Timon of Athens

“We have seen better days.” - (Act IV, Scene ii).

 

King Lear

“How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child!” - (Act I, Scene iv).

“You are not worth the dust which the rude wind blows in your face.”

 

Twelfth Night

“Journeys end in lovers meeting,
Every wise man’s son doth know.” - (Act II, Scene iii).

“Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them.” - (Act II, Scene v).

 

King Henry V

“Men of few words are the best men.” - (Act III, Scene ii).

 

Much Ado About Nothing

“Everyone can master a grief but he that has it.” - (Act III, Scene ii).

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