"You speak an infinite deal of nothing."
— William Shakespeare (The Merchant of Venice)

"Lord Polonius: What do you read, my lord?
Hamlet: Words, words, words.
Lord Polonius: What is the matter, my lord?
Hamlet: Between who?
Lord Polonius: I mean, the matter that you read, my lord."
— William Shakespeare (Hamlet)

"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:
Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And too often is his gold complexion dimm'd:
And every fair from fair sometimes declines,
By chance or natures changing course untrimm'd;
By thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee."
— William Shakespeare

"There's a few things I've learned in life: always throw salt over your left shoulder, keep rosemary by your garden gate, plant lavender for good luck, and fall in love whenever you can"
— William Shakespeare

"[Thine] face is not worth sunburning."
— William Shakespeare (Henry V)

"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 villian!
-Juliet 3.2. VS 79"
— William Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet)

"Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps. "
— William Shakespeare (Much Ado About Nothing)

"Et tu, Brute?"
— William Shakespeare

"All's well if all ends well."
— William Shakespeare

"[Thou] mad mustachio purple-hued maltworms!"
— William Shakespeare (Henry IV Part 1: Oxford School Shakespeare)

"I believe it was Shakespeare, or possibly Howard Cosell, who first observed that marriage is very much like a birthday candle, in that 'the flames of passion burn brightest when the wick of intimacy is first ignited by the disposable butane lighter of physical attraction, but sooner or later the heat of familiarity causes the wax of boredom to drip all over the vanilla frosting of novelty and the shredded coconut of romance.' I could not have phrased it better myself."
— Dave Barry

"Thou art a very ragged Wart."
— William Shakespeare (Henry IV, Part II)

"Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more,
Men were deceivers ever,-
One foot in sea and one on shore,
To one thing constant never."
— William Shakespeare (Much Ado About Nothing)

"What's in a name, anyway? That which we call a nose by any other name would still smell."
— Reduced Shakespeare Company

"Sweets to the sweet."
— William Shakespeare (Hamlet)

"Benedick: Then is courtesy a turncoat. But it is certain I am loved of all ladies, only you excepted: and I would I could find in my heart that I had not a hard heart; for, truly, I love none.

Beatrice: A dear happiness to women: they would else have been troubled with a pernicious suitor. I thank God and my cold blood, I am of your humour for that: I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me. -Much Ado About Nothing"
— William Shakespeare

"I have good reason to be content,
for thank God I can read and
perhaps understand Shakespeare to his depths."
— John Keats

"Tax not so bad a voice to slander music any more than once."
— William Shakespeare (Much Ado About Nothing)

"I am in blood
Stepp'd in so far, that, should I wade no more,
Returning were as tedious as go o'er."
— William Shakespeare (Macbeth)

"Your face, my thane, is as a book where men
May read strange matters. To beguile the time,
Look like the time; bear welcome in your eye,
Your hand, your tongue: look like the innocent flower,
But be the serpent under't. "
— William Shakespeare

"You are thought here to the most senseless and fit man for the job."
— William Shakespeare (Much Ado About Nothing)

"I have no spur
To prick the sides of my intent, but only
Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself
And falls on the other."
— William Shakespeare (Macbeth)

"If you expect me to believe that a lawyer wrote A Midsummer Night's Dream, I must be dafter than I look."
— Jasper Fforde (The Eyre Affair)

"'To be or not to be?' That is not the question. What is the question? The question is not one of being, but of becoming. 'To become more or not to become more' This is the question faced by each intelligence in our universe."
— Truman G. Madsen (Eternal Man)

"Oh, what fools these mortals be!"
— William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream

"They lie deadly that tell you have good faces."
— William Shakespeare (Coriolanus)

"[Thine] face is not worth sunburning."
— William Shakespeare

"Educated men are so impressive."
— William Shakespeare

"Life... is a paradise to what we know of death."
— William Shakespeare

"O, that he were here to write me down an ass! But, masters, remember, that I am an ass; though it be not written down, yet forget not that I am an ass."
— William Shakespeare

"And thus I clothe my naked villainy
With old odd ends stolen out of holy writ,
And seem a saint when most I play the devil."
— William Shakespeare (Richard III)

"Rude am I in my speech, And little blessed with the soft phrase of peace."
— William Shakespeare (Othello)

"yea dost thou fall upon thy face? thou wilt fall backward when thou hast more wit!"
— Sonia Leong

"I also became a poet, and for one year lived in a Paradise of my own creation; I imagined that I also might obtain a niche in the temple where the names of Homer and Shakespeare are consecrated."
— Mary Shelley (Frankenstein)

"And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover, To entertain these fair well-spoken days, I am determined to prove a villain And hate the idle pleasures of these days."
— William Shakespeare (Richard III)

"Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look. He thinks too much; such men are dangerous. "
— William Shakespeare (Julius Caesar)

"Jane Austen, who is said to be Shakespearian, never reminds us of Shakespeare, I think, in her full-dress portraits, but she does so in characters such as Miss Bates and Mrs. Allen."
— A.C. Bradley

"During the 17th century when Shakespeare wrote "Macbeth", witches were believed to be responsible for anything that was wrong or could not be explained, including the unfathomable future. Since we all frequently wish for someone or something to tell us what the future holds, one can hardly fault Macbeth for the same desire. Macbeth picks only the interpretation of the witches prediction at the first of the play (Act 1, Scene III) that suits his lust for power. His deeds inspire the later announcement from the Second Witch, “By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes” as Macbeth enters. (Macbeth, Act IV, Scene I)"
— William Shakespeare

"What's the use trying to read Shakespeare, especially in one of those little paper editions whose pages get ruffled, or stuck together with sea-water?"
— Virginia Woolf (Jacob's Room)