Shakespeare's Sonnets Quotes

“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, Shakespeare's Sonnets

“Love is not love which alters it when alteration finds, or bends with the remover to remove: O no! It is an ever fixed mark that looks on tempests and is never shaken; it is the star to every wandering bark whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks within his bending sickle's compass come: Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, but bears it out, even to the edge of doom.”
― William Shakespeare, Shakespeare's Sonnets

“My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.”
― William Shakespeare, Shakespeare's Sonnets

“in black ink my love may still shine bright.”
― William Shakespeare, Shakespeare's Sonnets

“For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds; Lillies that fester smell far worse than weeds.”
― William Shakespeare, The Sonnets

“April hath put a spirit of youth in everything. (Sonnet XCVIII)”
― William Shakespeare, Shakespeare's Sonnets

“For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright,
Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.”
― William Shakespeare, Shakespeare's Sonnets

“When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possess'd,
Desiring this man's art and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;
For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings. a”
― William Shakespeare, Shakespeare's Sonnets

“Summer's lease hath all too short a date.”
― William Shakespeare, Shakespeare's Sonnets

“That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou seest the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire
Consumed with that which it was nourish'd by.
This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.”
― William Shakespeare, Shakespeare's Sonnets

“So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.”
― William Shakespeare, Shakespeare's Sonnets

“All days are nights to see till I see thee,
And nights bright days when dreams do show thee me.”
― Shakespeare; William, Shakespeare's Sonnets

“Not marble nor the gilded monuments
Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme,
But you shall shine more bright in these contents
Than unswept stone, besmeared with sluttish time.
When wasteful war shall statues overturn
And broils roots out the work of masonry,
Nor mars his sword nor war's quick fire shall burn
The living record of your memory.
'Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity
Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room
Even in the eyes of all posterity
That wear this world out to the ending doom.
So, till judgement that yourself arise,
You in this, and dwell in lovers eyes.”
― William Shakespeare, Shakespeare's Sonnets

“No longer mourn for me when I am dead
than you shall hear the surly sullen bell
give warning to the world that I am fled
from this vile world with vilest worms to dwell:
nay, if you read this line, remember not
the hand that writ it, for I love you so,
that I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot,
if thinking on me then should make you woe.
O! if, I say, you look upon this verse
when I perhaps compounded am with clay,
do not so much as my poor name rehearse;
but let your love even with my life decay;
lest the wise world should look into your moan,
and mock you with me after I am gone.
”
― Shakespeare, Shakespeare's Sonnets

“The worst was this: my love was my decay.”
― William Shakespeare, Shakespeare's Sonnets

“Being your slave, what should I do but tend
Upon the hours and times of your desire?
I have no precious time at all to spend,
Nor services to do, till you require.
Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour
Whilst I, my sovereign, watch the clock for you,
Nor think the bitterness of absence sour
When you have bid your servant once adieu;
Nor dare I question with my jealous thought
Where you may be, or your affairs suppose,
But, like a sad slave, stay and think of nought
Save, where you are how happy you make those.
So true a fool is love that in your will,
Though you do any thing, he thinks no ill.”
― William Shakespeare, Shakespeare's Sonnets

“When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see,
For all the day they view things unrespected;
But when I sleep, in dreams they look on thee,
And darkly bright are bright in dark directed.
Then thou, whose shadow shadows doth make bright,
How would thy shadow's form form happy show
To the clear day with thy much clearer light,
When to unseeing eyes thy shade shines so!
How would, I say, mine eyes be blessed made
By looking on thee in the living day,
When in dead night thy fair imperfect shade
Through heavy sleep on sightless eyes doth stay!
All days are nights to see till I see thee,
And nights bright days when dreams do show thee me.”
― William Shakespeare, Shakespeare's Sonnets

“Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom:
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved”
― William Shakespeare, Shakespeare's Sonnets

“La unión de dos almas sinceras
no admite impedimentos.
No es amor el amor
que se transforma con el cambio,
o se aleja con la distancia.
¡Oh, no! Es un faro siempre firme,
que desafía a las tempestades sin estremecerse.
Es la estrella para el navio a la deriva,
de valor incalculable, aunque se mída su altura.
No es amor bufón del tiempo, aunque los rosados labios y
mejillas caigan bajo el golpe de su guadaña.
El amor no se altera con sus breves horas y semanas,
sino que se afianza incluso hasta en el borde del abismo.
Sí estoy equivocado y se demuestra,
yo nunca nada escribí, y nadie jamás amó.”
― William Shakespeare, Shakespeare's Sonnets

“Why should we rise because 'tis light?
Did we lie down because t'was night?”
― William Shakespeare, Shakespeare's Sonnets

“If thou dost seek to have what thou dost hide,
By self-example mayst thou be denied.”
― William Shakespeare, Sonnets

“As an unperfect actor on the stage,
Who with his fear is put besides his part,
Or some fierce thing replete with too much rage,
Whose strength's abundance weakens his own heart;
So I, for fear of trust, forget to say
The perfect ceremony of love's rite,
And in mine own love's strength seem to decay,
O'ercharg'd with burden of mine own love's might.
O, let my books be then the eloquence
And dumb presagers of my speaking breast;
Who plead for love, and look for recompense,
More than that tongue that more hath more express'd.
O, learn to read what silent love hath writ:
To hear with eyes belongs to love's fine wit.”
― William Shakespeare, Shakespeare's Sonnets

“When I do count the clock that tells the time,
And see the brave day sunk in hideous night;
When I behold the violet past prime,
And sable curls all silver'd o'er with white;
When lofty trees I see barren of leaves
Which erst from heat did canopy the herd,
And summer's green all girded up in sheaves
Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard,
Then of thy beauty do I question make,
That thou among the wastes of time must go,
Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake
And die as fast as they see others grow;
And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make defence
Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence.”
― William Shakespeare, Shakespeare's Sonnets

“Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day
And make me travel forth without my cloak,
To let base clouds o'ertake me in my way,
Hiding they brav'ry in their rotten smoke?”
― William Shakespeare, Shakespeare's Sonnets

“Enjoy'd no sooner but despised straight,
Past reason hunted, and no sooner had
Past reason hated”
― William Shakespeare, The Sonnets

“Thine eyes I love, and they, as pitying me,
Knowing thy heart torment me with disdain,
Have put on black and loving mourners be,
Looking with pretty ruth upon my pain.
And truly not the morning sun of heaven
Better becomes the grey cheeks of the east,
Nor that full star that ushers in the even,
Doth half that glory to the sober west,
As those two mourning eyes become thy face:
O! let it then as well beseem thy heart
To mourn for me since mourning doth thee grace,
And suit thy pity like in every part.
Then will I swear beauty herself is black,
And all they foul that thy complexion lack”
― William Shakespeare, Shakespeare's Sonnets

“In me thou see'st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
-Sonnet 73”
― William Shakespeare, Shakespeare's Sonnets

“O! how shall summer's honey breath hold out, / Against the wrackful siege of battering days?”
― William Shakespeare, Shakespeare's Sonnets

“His beauty shall in these black lines be seen, and they shall live, and he in them still green.”
― William Shakespeare, Shakespeare's Sonnets

“What is your substance, whereof are you made,
That millions of strange shadows on you tend?
Since everyone hath every one, one shade,
And you, but one, can every shadow lend.
Describe Adonis, and the counterfeit
Is poorly imitated after you.
On Helen’s cheek all art of beauty set,
And you in Grecian tires are painted new.
Speak of the spring and foison of the year;
The one doth shadow of your beauty show,
The other as your bounty doth appear,
And you in every blessèd shape we know.
In all external grace you have some part,
But you like none, none you, for constant heart.”
― William Shakespeare, Shakespeare's Sonnets