457 Quotes About Shakespeare

Shakespeare is getting flyblown; a paternal government might well forbid writing about him, as they put his monument at Stratford beyond the reach of scribbling fingers. With all this buzz of criticism about, one may hazard one's conjectures privately, make one's notes in the margin; but, knowing that someone has said it before, or said it better, the zest is gone. Illness, it its kingly sublimity, sweeps all that aside and leaves nothing but Shakespeare and oneself.

Shakespeare used the word 'flush' to indicate plenty of money. Well, just remember there was only one Shakespeare, and he was the only one that had a right to use that word in that sense . You'll never be a Shakespeare, there will never be such another— Nature exhausted herself in producing him.

To be or not to be, that is the question: to go on living, fighting against this sea of troubles, or to die and end everything? Why be afraid of death? To die is to sleep, no more. Perhaps to dream? Yes, that's the problem: in that sleep of death, what dreams will come?

Go ahead, speak my name. For what's in a name? That which we call a rose would smell as sweet by any other name. Ha! But you could not hear the irony in my thoughts when those words first erupted from the fertile womb of my muse. 'Twas a sprinkling, a hint, a clue to the truth and those that have "eyes" will see. Do you have the eyes for truth? Perhaps you need the stomach as well, for my tale is not for those comfortable with lies.

I began as every man does, a simple boy toying with lofty dreams and eating the promise-crammed air. You think you know who I am, and yet, you are deceived. Shall I speak the name with you? Come, let it fall. William Shakespeare. 'Twas easily said and now that I see you settling in for a tale about the man you think you know, a twist. I am not William Shakespeare.

He is indeed the true enchanter, whose spell operates, not upon the senses, but upon the imagination and the heart.

This place looks like the last scene in Hamlet.

If Jupiter was in the ascendant when you were born, you are of a jovial disposition; and if you're not jovial but miserable and saturnine that's a disaster, because a disaster is a dis-astro, or misplaced planet. Disaster is Latin for ill-starred.The fault, as Shakespeare put it, is not in our stars; but the language is.

I sometimes think that what civilized serenity the British people possess, and small but real ability to smile at themselves, is chiefly due to their good luck in having had William Shakespeare born one of their company.