Shakespeare

A Book of Quotations

William Shakespeare

• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN:
  9780486404356
• eBook ISBN:
  9780486111933
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Shakespeare Drama
• Index: Literature

Shakespeare is without doubt the most quoted writer in English. His plays and poems comprise an inexhaustible source of memorable and often profound thoughts beautifully and concisely expressed. This remarkably affordable volume presents over 400 quotations conveniently arranged by topic: love, marriage, conduct and morality, truth, beauty, time, death, music, and more.
Included are such timeless observations as: "All that glitters is not gold," "Brevity is the soul of wit," "How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is/ To have a thankless child"; "While you live, tell truth and shame the devil!"; "The very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream," and many more. Romantic thoughts receive a particularly rich treatment; extensive selections on the subject of love include quotes from the plays ("The course of true love never did run smooth"; "Speak low if you speak love") and sonnets ("For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings,/ That then I scorn to change my state with kings"). Each quote bears a complete citation.
Ideal for writers, speakers, students of literature, and any lover of Shakespeare's works, this inexpensive treasury lends itself admirably to a virtually endless number of uses, from casual browsing to designing personal greeting cards.

LOVE

For aught that I could ever read, could ever hear by tale or history, the course of true love never did run smooth.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act I, sc. 1.

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments: love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O, no! it is an ever fixed mark.

Sonnet CXVI.

Perdition catch my soul, but I do love thee! and when I love thee not, Chaos is come again.

Othello, Act III, sc. 3.

O, then, what graces in my love do dwell, that he hath turn’d a heaven unto a hell!

A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act I, sc. 1.

O, how this spring of love resembleth the uncertain glory of an April day!

The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act I, sc. 3.

Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps.

Much Ado about Nothing, Act III, sc. 1.

Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind; and therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act I, sc. 1.

Love is blind, and lovers cannot see the pretty follies that themselves commit.

The Merchant of Venice, Act II, sc. 6.

If love be blind, love cannot hit the mark.

Romeo and Juliet, Act II, sc. 1.

If love be blind, it best agrees with night.

Romeo and Juliet, Act III, sc. 2.

What power is it which mounts my love so high, that makes me see, and cannot feed mine eye?

All’s Well that Ends Well, Act I, sc. 1.

My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips’ red . . .
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound.

Sonnet CXXX.

Things base and vile, holding no quantity, love can transpose to form and dignity.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act I, sc. 1.

Speak low if you speak love.

Much Ado about Nothing, Act II, sc. 1.

I will wear my heart upon my sleeve for daws to peck at.

Othello, Act I, sc. 1.

Is love a tender thing? It is too rough, too rude, too boist’rous, and it pricks like thorn.

Romeo and Juliet, Act I, sc. 4.

The hind that would be mated by the lion must die for love.

All’s Well that Ends Well, Act I, sic. 1.

Self-love, my liege, is not so vile a sin as self neglecting.

Henry V, Act II, sc. 4.

She cannot love, nor take no shape nor project of affection, she is so self-endeared.

Much Ado about Nothing, Act III, sc...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Note
• Table of Contents
• ACTION
• ADVERSITY
• AGE
• AMBITION
• APPEARANCE
• BAD NEWS
• BEAUTY
• CONDUCT AND MORALITY
• DEATH
• DESTINY
• DEVIL
• DRINK
• EXCESS
• FASHION AND APPAREL
• FEAR
• FORGIVENESS
• HUMAN CONDITION
• JEALOUSY
• KINSHIP
• LAW
• LIFE
• LOVE
• MADNESS
• MAN AND WOMAN
• MARRIAGE
• MEMORY
• MOON
• MULTITUDE
• MUSIC
• NATURE AND THE SEASONS
• PATIENCE
• REASON
• REPUTATION
• SLEEP
• SPEECH
• SUICIDE
• SUSPICION
• THEATRE
• THOUGHT
• TIME
• TRUTH
• VALOUR
• VARIOUS
• WISHES