Favorite Shakespeare Quotations

Here is a selection of my favorite quotes from Shakespeare. I have taken a few liberties to make the language a little more modern and a little more compact. In fact this is done in most film versions. I support this since it helps the text retain it's original punch. Best known parts of longer quotations are highlighted.

There are lots of short pithy quotes from the Bard that work well in business life or can be worked into speeches with great effect.

MP3 Clips

Text Quotes

Henry V

  • Once more unto the breach dear friends, once more;
    • Or close the wall up with our English dead!

     

  • Westmoreland
    O that we now had here
    But one ten thousand of those men in England
    That do no work to-day!


    • King Henry
    What's he that wishes so?
    My cousin Westmoreland? No, my fair cousin:
    If we are marked to die, we are enough
    To do our country loss; and if to live,
    The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
    God's will! I pray thee, wish not one man more.


    Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,
    That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
    Let him depart;     his passport shall be made
    And crowns for convoy put into his purse:
    We would not die in that man's company
    That fears his fellowship to die with us.


    This day is called the feast of Crispian:
    He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
    Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named,
    And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
    He that shall live this day, and see old age,
    Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbors,
    And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian:'
    Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars.
    And say 'These wounds I had on Crispin's day.'


    Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,
    But he'll remember with advantages
    What feats he did that day: then shall our names.
    Familiar in his mouth as household words
    Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,
    Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
    Be in their flowing cups freshly remember'd.
    This story shall the good man teach his son;
    And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
    From this day to the ending of the world,
    But we in it shall be remember'd;
    We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
    For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
    Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
    This day shall gentle his condition:
    And gentlemen in England now a-bed
    Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
    And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
    That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

  • Shame, and eternal shame, nothing but shame!

 

Romeo and Juliet

  • Romeo

    • If I profane with my unworthest hand. 
    This holy shrine. The gentle sin is this: 
    My lips to blushing pilgrims stand. 
    To smooth a rough touch with a gentle kiss.
  • Romeo

    • But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks? 
    It is the east, and Juliet is the sun 
       
  • Juliet

    • What's in a name? that which we call a rose
    By any other name would smell as sweet;
  • Romeo

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

    • Parting is such sweet sorrow. 
    That I shall say goodnight till it be morrow.
  • Romeo

    • O blessed, blessed night! -- 
    Too flattering-sweet to be substantial.

Macbeth

  • Lady Macbeth

    • Glamis thou art, and Cawdor; and shalt be
    What thou art promised: yet do I fear thy nature;
    It is too full o' the milk of human kindness
    To catch the nearest way

  • Lady Macbeth

    • If we should fail? -- We fail! But screw your courage to the sticking-place,
    And we'll not fail. When Duncan is asleep--
    Whereto the rather shall his day's hard journey Soundly invite him--
    his two chamberlains Will I with wine and wassail so convince
    That memory, the warder of the brain, Shall be a fume,
    and the receipt of reason A limbeck only: when in swinish sleep
    Their drenched natures lie as in a death, What cannot you and I perform upon
    The unguarded Duncan? what not put upon His spongy officers,
    who shall bear the guilt Of our great quell?
  • Macbeth

    • Is this a dagger which I see before me,
    The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee.
    I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.
    Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible
    To feeling as to sight ? or art thou but
    A dagger of the mind, a false creation,
    Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?
  • Macbeth

    • If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well
    It were done quickly
  • Here's a knocking indeed!

    • If a man were porter of hell-gate,
    he should have old turning the key.

 
  • Macbeth

    • To be thus is nothing!
    But to be safely thus.--Our fears in Banquo
    Stick deep; and in his royalty of nature
    Reigns that which would be fear'd: 'tis much he dares;
    And, to that dauntless of his mind,
    He hath a wisdom that doth guide his valour
    To act in safety. There is none but he
    Whose being I do fear: and, under him,
    My Genius is rebuked; as, it is said,
    Mark Antony's was by Caesar.
  • Avaunt! and quit my sight! let the earth hide thee
  • Macbeth (also Rumpole!)

    • Methought I heard a voice cry 'Sleep no more!
    Macbeth does murder sleep', the innocent sleep,
    Sleep that knits up the raveled sleeve of care,
    The death of each day's life, sore labor's bath,
    Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,
    Chief nourisher in life's feast,--
    Still it cried 'Sleep no more!' to all the house:
    'Glamis hath murdered sleep, and therefore Cawdor
    Shall sleep no more; Macbeth shall sleep no more.'
  • Thou hast it now: King, Cawdor, Glamis, all,

    • As the weird women promised, and , I fear,
    Thou play'dst most foully for it:
  • Macbeth

    • We have scotch'd the snake, not kill'd it:
    She'll close and be herself, whilst our poor malice
    Remains in danger of her former tooth.
  • Stand not upon the order of your going but go at once.
  • Macbeth

    • Life's but a walking shadow , a poor player
    That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
    And then is heard no more: it is a tale
    Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
    Signifying nothing.

   

   

Much Ado About Nothing

  • Benedick

    • That a woman conceived me, I thank her; that she 
    brought me up, I likewise give her most humble 
    thanks: but all women shall pardon me. 
    Because I will not do 
    them the wrong to mistrust any, I will do myself the 
    right to trust none; and the fine is, for the which
    I may go the finer, I will live a bachelor.
  • Don John

    • I had rather be a canker in a hedge than a rose in
    his grace, and it better fits my blood to be 
    disdained of all than to fashion a carriage to rob 
    love from any: in this, though I cannot be said to 
    be a flattering honest man, it must not be denied 
    but I am a plain-dealing villain. I am trusted with 
    a muzzle and enfranchised with a clog; therefore I 
    have decreed not to sing in my cage. If I had my
    mouth, I would bite; if I had my liberty, I would do
    my liking: in the meantime let me be that I am and
    seek not to alter me.
  • Benedick

    • She speaks poniards, and every word stabs: 
    if her breath were as terrible as her terminations, 
    there were no living near her; she would infect to 
    the north star.

      
  • Beatrice

    • What fire is in mine ears? Can this be true? 
    Stand I condemned for pride and scorn so much? 
    Contempt, farewell! and maiden pride, adieu! 
    No glory lives behind the back of such. 
    And, Benedick, love on; I will requite thee, 
    Taming my wild heart to thy loving hand:
  • Leonato

    • Being that I flow in grief, 
    The smallest twine may lead me.
  • Benedick

    • I do love nothing in the world so well as you:
    Is not that strange?
  • Leonato

    • I pray thee, peace. I will be flesh and blood; 
    For there was never yet philosopher
    That could endure the toothache patiently, 
    However they have writ the style of gods 
    And made a push at chance and sufferance.

Hamlet

  • Hamlet

    • But to my mind, though I am native here 
    And to the manner born, it is a custom
    More honored in the breach than the observance.
  • Murder most foul
  • He was a man, take him for all in all,

    • I shall not look upon his like again.
  • Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

    •  

     

  • O shame! where is thy blush?
  • Hamlet

    • Yet I, dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak,
    Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause,
    And can say nothing; no, not for a king, 
    Upon whose property and most dear life 
    A damned defeat was made. 
  • Hamlet

    • I'll have grounds more relative than this: the play 's the thing
    Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king. 
  • Hamlet (note the movie title)  

    • I am but mad north-north-west: when the wind is 
    southerly I know a hawk from a hand saw. 

The Merchant of Venice

  • Shylock  

    • To bait fish withal! If it will feed nothing else, 
    it will feed my revenge. He hath disgraced me, and 
    hindered me half a million; laughed at my losses, 
    mocked at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my 
    bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine enemies; and what's his reason? I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example? Why, revenge. The villainy you teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.
  • Shylock

    • I'll have my bond; speak not against my bond: 
    I have sworn an oath that I will have my bond. 
    Thou callest me a dog before thou hadst a cause;
    But, since I am a dog, beware my fangs.
     
  • Portia

    • The quality of mercy is not strained,
    It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
    Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest; 
    It blesseth him that gives and him that takes: 
    'Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes 
    The throned monarch better than his crown;

King Lear

Other Shakespeare


 

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Changes last made on: 02/08/06

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