Every wink of an eye some new grace will be born. Our absence makes us
unthrifty to our knowledge.
Action
Good sentences, and well pronounced. They would be better if well followed.
That we would do, We should do when we would.
Action is eloquence.
If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been
churches, and poor men's cottages princes' palaces.
We must not stint our necessary actions in the fear to cope malicious
censurers.
Talkers are no good doers.
That we would do, we should do when we would.
If it were done, when 'tis done, then 'twere well it were done quickly.
From this moment, the very firstlings of my heart shall be the firstlings of
my hand.
O, what men dare do! What men may do! What men daily do, not knowing what
they do!
What you cannot as you would achieve, you must perforce accomplish as you
may.
Things won are done; joy's soul lies in the doing.
Acting and Actors
Condemn the fault, and not the actor of it? Why, every fault's condemned ere
it be done.
Like a dull actor nowI have forgot my part.
The eyes of men, after a well-graced actor leaves the stage, are idly bent
on him that enters next, thinking his prattle to be tedious.
And most dear actors, eat no onions nor garlic, for we are to utter sweet
breath.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, as I foretold you, were all
spirits, and are melted into air, into thin air: and, like the baseless
fabric of this vision, the cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, the
solemn temples, the great globe itself, yea, all which it inherit, shall
dissolve, and, like this insubstantial pageant faded, leave not a rack
behind.
Acts
And one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages.
These scroyles of Angiers flout you, kings, And stand securely on their
battlements, As in a theatre, whence they gape and point At your industrious
scenes and acts of death.
Adversity
A wretched soul bruised with adversity, we bid be quiet when we hear it cry;
but were we burdened with like weight of pain, as much, or more, we should
ourselves complain.
Sweet are the uses of adversity, which like the toad, ugly and venomous,
wears yet a precious jewel in his head.
Who would bear the whips and scorns of time, th'oppressor's wrong, the proud
man's contumely, the pangs of despised love, the law's delay, the insolence
of office, and the spurns that patient merit of the unworthy takes.
Let me embrace thee, sour adversity, for wise men say it is the wisest
course.
Misery acquaints a man with strange bed-fellows.
Advice
Men can counsel and speak comfort to that grief which they themselves not
feel; but tasting it, their counsel turns to passion.
No! I defy all counsel.
Be something scanter of your maiden presence.
Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none. Be able for thine enemy rather in
power than use, and keep thy friend under thy own life's key.
Have more than thou showest, speak less than thou knowest, lend less than
thou owest.
Let not the creaking of shoes, nor the rustling of silks, betray thy poor
heart to woman. Keep thy foot out of brothels, thy hand out of plackets, thy
pen from lenders' books, and defy the foul fiend.
Good counsellors lack no clients.
Affection
I praise God for you, sir: your reasons at dinner have been sharp and
sententious; pleasant without scurrility, witty without affection, audacious
without impudency, learned without opinion, and strange without heresy.
Affliction
Man’s nature cannot carry the affliction nor the fear.
Age
Age is unnecessary.
Crabbed age and youth cannot live together: youth is full of pleasance, age
is full of care; youth like summer morn, age like winter weather; youth like
summer brave, age like winter bare. Youth is full of sport, age’s breath is
short; youth is nimble, age is lame; youth is hot and bold, age is weak and
cold; youth is wild, and age is tame. Age, I do abhor thee; youth, I do
adore thee: O, my love, my love is young!
Aggression
Priests pray for enemies, but princes kill.
Air
Hover through the fog and filthy air.
Slight air, and purging fire, the first my thought, the other my desire.
Allies
Nature teaches beasts to know their friend.
Ambition
Thou art not for the fashion of these times, where none will sweat but for
promotion.
No man's pie is freed from his ambitious finger.
O foolish youth! Thou seek'st the greatness that will overwhelm thee.
Who does i'th' wars more than his captain can, becomes his captain's captain.
Fling away ambition, by that sin fell the angels.
Who doth ambition shun and loves to live i'th' sun.
Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself.
Lowliness is young ambition's ladder whereto the climber-upward turns his
face; but when he once attains the upmost round, he then unto the ladder
turns his back, looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees by which he
did ascend.
The very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream.
Arm thy heart and fit thy thoughts to mount aloft.
As Caesar loved me, I weep for him; as he was fortunate, I rejoice at it; as
he was valiant, I honour him; but, as he was ambitious, I slew him.
Ambivalence
I do perceive here a divided duty.
Her tongue will not obey her heart, nor can her heart inform her tongue; the
swan’s-down feather that stands upon the swell at the full of tide.
Anecdotes
Your tale, sir, would cure deafness.
Angel
A winged messenger of heaven.
Now cracks a noble heart. Good night, sweet prince,
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.
We are all men, In our own natures frail, and capable
Of our flesh; few are angels.
Angels are bright still, though the brightest fell.
Angels and ministers of grace defend us!
For fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
Anger
To be in anger is impiety; but who is man that is not angry?
I understand a fury in your words But not the words.
Come not within the measure of my wrath.
Rage must be withstood… Lions make leopards tame.
Come not between the dragon and his wrath!
Let grief Convert to anger; blunt not the heart, enrage it.
Could I come near your beauty with my nails, I’d set my ten commandments in
your face.
Animals
To hold opinion with Pythagoras, that souls of animals infuse themselves
into the trunks of men.
Pray you no more of this, 'tis like the howling of Irish wolves against the
moon.
Honeybees, creatures that by a rule in nature teach the act of order to a
peopled kingdom.
Hark, hark, the lark at heaven’s gate sings.
The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn.
So work the honey-bees, creatures that by a rule in nature teach the act of
order to a peopled kingdom.
A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!
The lark, the herald of the morn.
The fox, who, never so tame, so cherished and locked up, will have a wild
trick of his ancestors.
The poor beetle that we tread upon in corporal sufferance finds a pang as
great as when a giant dies.
The old bees die, the young possess their hive.
I could endure anything before but a cat, and now he’s a cat to me.
The owl, night’s herald.
Answer
What did he when thou saw'st him? What said he? How looked he? Wherein went
he? What makes he here? Did he ask for me? Where remains he? How parted he
with thee? And when shalt thou see him again? Answer me in one word.
Antipathy
Thou art all ice. Thy kindness freezes.
Some men there are love not a gaping pig, some that are mad if they behold a
cat, and others when the bagpipe sings I the nose cannot contain their
urine.
Anxiety
Men are flesh and blood, and apprehensive!
O polished perturbation! Golden care! That keep’st the ports of slumber open
wide to many a watchful night!
When day’s oppression is not eased by night, but day by night and night by
day oppressed.
My mind is troubled, like a fountain stirred; and I myself see not the
bottom of it.
So shaken as we are, so wan with care.
Care is no cure, but rather corrosive, for things that are not to be
remedied.
Past cure I am, now reason is past care, and frantic mad with evermore
unrest.
Where care lodges, sleep will never lie.
Apothecary
Give me some drink; and bid the apothecary bring the strong poison that I
bought of him.
O true apothecary! Thy drugs are quick.
Apparitions
What art thou that usurp'st this time of night?
I am thy father's spirit, doomed for a certain term to walk the night, and
for the day confined to fast in fires, till the foul crimes done in my days
of nature are burnt and purged away.
Show his eyes, and grieve his heart; come like shadows, so depart.
Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air, the extravagant and erring spirit
hies to his confine.
Appearances
Ye have angels' faces, but heaven knows your hearts.
Seems, madam? Nay, it is. I know not “seems”.
Let's write good angel on the devil's horn.
Cucullus non facit monachum; that's as much to say, as I wear not motley in
my brain.
The world is still deceived with ornament.
I am not merry, but I do beguile the thing I am by seeming otherwise.
The devil hath power t'assume a pleasing shape.
All that glisters is not gold.
I will wear my heart upon my sleeve.
There's no art to find the mind's construction in the face. He was a
gentleman on whom I built an absolute trust.
Appetite
Tie up the libertine in a field of feasts, Keep his brain fuming; Epicurean
cooks Sharpen with cloyless sauce his appetite.
Then everything include itself in power, power into will, will into
appetite, and appetite, an universal wolf, so doubly seconded with will and
power, must make perforce an universal prey, and last eat up himself.
Appreciation
Let never day nor night unhallowed pass, but still remember what the Lord
hath done.
April
O, how this spring of love resembleth The uncertain glory of an April day,
Which now shows all the beauty of the sun, And by and by a cloud takes all
away.
Argument
The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.
In a false quarrel there is no true valor.
I will name you the degrees. The first, the Retort Courteous; the second,
the Quip Modest; the third, the Reply Churlish; the fourth, the Reproof
Valiant; the fifth, the Countercheck Quarrelsome; the sixth, the Lie with
Circumstance; the seventh, the Lie Direct.
O sir, we quarrel in print, by the book; as you have books for good manners.
I will name you the degrees. The first, the Retort Courteous; the second,
the Quip Modest; the third, the Reply Churlish; the fourth, the Reproof
Valiant; the fifth, the Countercheck Quarrelsome; the sixth, the Lie with
Circumstance; the seventh, the Lie Direct. All these you may avoid but the
Lie Direct; and you may avoid that too, with an If.
He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his
argument.
Arms
I have in equal balance justly weighed what wrongs our arms may do, what
wrongs we suffer, and find our griefs heavier than our offences.
Army
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers. For he today that sheds his blood
with me shall be my brother; be never so vile. This day shall gentle his
condition. And gentlemen in England now abed 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.
'Tis the soldier's life to have their balmy slumbers waked with strife.
Arts and Artists
The object of art is to give life a shape.
Art made tongue-tied by authority.
What fine chisel Could ever yet cut breath?
O, had I but followed the arts!
Astronomy
These earthly godfathers of Heaven's lights, that give a name to every fixed
star, have no more profit of their shining nights than those that walk and
know not what they are.
Astrology
This is the excellent foppery of the world: that when we are sick in fortune
- often the surfeits of our own behavior - we make guilty of our disasters
the sun, the moon, and stars, as if we were villains on necessity, fools by
heavenly compulsion, knaves, thieves, and treachers by spherical
predominance, drunkards, liars, and adulterers by an enforced obedience of
planetary influence. An admirable evasion of whoremaster man, to lay his
goatish disposition on the charge of a star!
Authority
Thou hast seen a farmer's dog bark at a beggar? And the creature run from
the cur - there thou mightst behold the great image of authority - a dog's
obeyed in office.
The demi-god, Authority.
Autumn
The teeming Autumn big with rich increase, bearing the wanton burden of the
prime like widowed wombs after their lords decease.
Astronomy
These earthly godfathers of Heaven's lights, that give a name to every fixed
star, have no more profit of their shining nights than those that walk and
know not what they are.
Business
To business that we love we rise bedtime, and go to't with delight.
Brevity
Brevity is the soul of wit, and tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes.
Bores and Boredom
For I have neither wit, nor words, nor worth, action nor utterance, nor the
power of speech, to stir men's blood. I only speak right on. I tell you that
which you yourselves do know.
Books and Reading
O, let my books be then the eloquence and dumb presages of my speaking
breast.
Birth
When we are born we cry that we are come.. to this great stage of fools.
Bills
I did send to you for certain sums of gold, which you denied me.
Bereavement
For precious friends hid in death's dateless night.
Bed
What angel wakes me from my flowery bed?
Beauty
To me, fair friend, you never can be old. For as you were when first your
eye I eyed. Such seems your beauty still.
Beauty is but a vain and doubtful good; a shining gloss that fadeth suddenly;
a flower that dies when it begins to bud; a doubtful good, a gloss, a glass,
a flower, lost, faded, broken, dead within an hour.
Beards
He that hath a beard is more than a youth, and he that hath no beard is less
than a man.
Caution
It is the bright day that brings forth the adder, and that craves wary
walking.
To fear the worst oft cures the worse.
Censorship
Art made tongue-tied by authority.
Courage
That's a valiant flea that dares eat his breakfast on the lip of a lion.
I dare to do all that may become a man: who dares do more is none.
But screw your courage to the sticking-place and we'll not fail.
Cost
Why so large a cost, having so short a lease, does thou upon your fading
mansion spend?
Cosmetics
God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another.
Corruption
When rich villains have need of poor ones, poor ones may make what price
they will.
Cooperation
Now join your hands, and with your hands your hearts.
Cooking
'Tis an ill cook that cannot lick his own fingers.
Conversation
Conversation should be pleasant without scurrility, witty without affection,
free without indecency, learned without conceitedness, novel without
falsehood.
Contentment
My crown is in my heart, not on my head, Nor decked with diamonds and Indian
stones, Nor to be seen: My crown is called content: A crown it is, that
seldom kings enjoy.
Contentment
He that is well paid is well satisfied.
Conscience
My conscience hath a thousand several tongues, and every tongue brings in a
several tale, and every tale condemns me for a villain.
Conscience
Conscience does make cowards of us all.
Conceit
Conceit, more rich in matter than in words, brags of his substance: they are
but beggars who can count their worth.
Conceit in weakest bodies works the strongest.
Competition
When you fear a foe, fear crushes your strength; and this weakness gives
strength to your opponents.
Strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends.
Compassion
Mercy but murders, pardoning those that kill.
Company
Company, villainous company, hath been the spoil of me.
Comedy and Comedians
Though it make the unskillful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve.
And I did laugh sans intermission an hour by his dial. O noble fool, a
worthy fool -- motley's the only wear.
Children
How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child.
William Shakespeare
Children wish fathers looked but with their eyes; fathers that children with
their judgment looked; and either may be wrong.
Cheerfulness
The voluntary path to cheerfulness, if our spontaneous be lost, is to sit up
cheerfully, and act and speak as if cheerfulness wee already there. To feel
brave, act as if we were brave, use all our will to that end, and courage
will very likely replace fear. If we act as if from some better feeling, the
bad feeling soon folds its tent like an Arab and silently steals away
Cheating
For nothing can seem foul to those that win.
Chastity
Your old virginity is like one of our French withered pears: it looks ill,
it eats dryly.
Charm
I am bewitched with the rogue's company. If the rascal have not given me
medicines to make me love him, I'll be hanged.
Character
Life every man holds dear; but the dear man holds honor far more precious
dear than life.
The empty vessel makes the loudest sound.
Ceremony
Ceremony was but devised at first to set a gloss on faint deeds, hollow
welcomes, recanting goodness, sorry ere 'Tis shown; but where there is true
friendship, there needs none.
Coward and Cowardice
Cowards die a thousand deaths. The valiant taste of death but once.
Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death
but once.
Cries and Crying
I have full cause of weeping, but this heart shall break into a hundred
thousand flaws or ere I'll weep.
Crime and Criminals
He that is robbed, not wanting what is stolen, him not know t, and he's not
robbed at all.
Crisis
The time is out of joint. O cursed spite that ever I was born to set it
right!
Danger
Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
Send danger from the east unto the west, so honor cross it from the north to
south.
Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look; He thinks too much; such men are
dangerous. [Julius Caesar]
Death and Dying
After life's fitful fever he sleeps well. Treason has done his worst. Nor
steel nor poison, malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing can touch him
further.
All that live must die, passing through nature to eternity.
But I will be a bridegroom in my death, and run into a lover's bed.
I care not, a man can die but once; we owe God and death.
The weariest and most loathed worldly life, that age, ache, penury and
imprisonment can lay on nature is a paradise, to what we fear of death.
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. The evil that men do lives after
them; the good is oft interred with their bones.
Men must endure, their going hence even as their coming hither. Ripeness is
all.
Nothing in his life became him like the leaving it.
Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie, which we ascribe to heaven.
The undiscovered country form whose born no traveler returns. [Hamlet]
Debt
He that dies pays all his debts.
I can get no remedy against this consumption of the purse: borrowing only
lingers and lingers it out, but the disease is incurable.
Words pay no debts.
Decay
'Tis but an hour ago since it was nine, and after one hour more twill be
eleven. And so from hour to hour we ripe and ripe, and then from hour to
hour we rot and rot. and thereby hangs a tale.
Deception
For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright, who art as black as
hell, as dark as night.
Delinquency
Now, neighbor confines, purge you of your scum! Have you a ruffian that will
swear, drink, dance, revel the night, rob, murder, and commit the oldest
sins the newest kind of ways?
Despair
Now, God be praised, that to believing souls gives light in darkness,
comfort in despair.
O God, O God, how weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable seem to me all the
uses of this world!
Destiny
Such as we are made of, such we be.
Devil
The devil has the power to assume a pleasing shape.
The devil can site scripture for his own purpose! An evil soul producing
holy witness is like a villain with a smiling cheek.
Diligence
That which ordinary men are fit for, I am qualified in. and the best of me
is diligence.
Dress
The apparel oft proclaims the man.
Dress
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy, but not expressed in fancy; rich not
gaudy; for the apparel oft proclaims the man.
Doubt
Modest doubt is called the beacon of the wise.
Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we might win, by fearing
to attempt.
Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we might win, by fearing
to attempt.
Modest doubt is called the beacon of the wise.
Dreams
I have had a most rare vision. I have had a dream past the wit of man to say
what dream it was. Man is but an ass if he go about to expound this dream.
We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life, is rounded
with a sleep. [The Tempest]
Thought are but dreams till their effects are tried.
That, if then I had waked after a long sleep, will make me sleep again; and
then, in dreaming, the clouds me thought would open and show riches ready to
drop upon me; that, when I waked I cried to dream again.
That, if then I had waked after a long sleep, will make me sleep again; and
then, in dreaming, the clouds me thought would open and show riches ready to
drop upon me; that, when I waked I cried to dream again.
Thought are but dreams till their effects are tried.
We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life, is rounded
with a sleep. [The Tempest]
I have had a most rare vision. I have had a dream past the wit of man to say
what dream it was. Man is but an ass if he go about to expound this dream.
Dress
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy, but not expressed in fancy; rich not
gaudy; for the apparel oft proclaims the man.
The apparel oft proclaims the
man.
Explanations
There is occasions and causes why and wherefore in all things.
Experts
Good counselors lack no clients.
Excuses
And oftentimes excusing of a fault doth make the fault the worse by the
excuse.
Excellence
When workmen strive to do better than well, they do confound their skill in
covetousness.
Then to Silvia let us sing that Silvia is excelling. She excels each mortal
thing upon the dull earth dwelling.
Evil
There's small choice in rotten apples.
Envy
Oh, what a bitter thing it is to look into happiness through another man's
eyes.
Engineering
For 'Tis the sport to have the engineer hoisted with his own petard.
Engagement
No sooner met but they looked; no sooner looked but they loved; no sooner
loved but they sighed; no sooner sighed but they asked one another the
reason; no sooner knew the reason but they sought the remedy; and in these
degrees have they made a pair of stairs to marriage, which they will climb
incontinent, or else be incontinent before marriage.
Endurance
Many can brook the weather that love not the wind.
Effort
Nothing can come of nothing.
Faces
God had given you one face, and you make yourself another. [Hamlet]
Thus is his cheek the map of days outworn.
The tartness of his face sours ripe grapes.
Fame
Time hath a wallet at his back, wherein he puts. Alms for oblivion, a
great-sized monster of ingratitudes.
Glory is like a circle in the water, which never ceaseth to enlarge itself,
till, by broad spreading, it disperse to naught.
Death makes no conquest of this conqueror: For now he lives in fame, though
not in life.
Celebrity is never more admired than by the negligent.
Family
The voice of parents is the voice of gods, for to their children they are
heaven's lieutenants.
Familiarity
Sweets grown common lose their dear delight.
Fashion
Fashion wears out more clothes than the man.
Farewells
Come, let's have one other gaudy night. Call to me. All my sad captains.
Fill our bowls once more. Let's mock the midnight bell.
To see him act is like reading Shakespeare
by flashes of lightning.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1772-1834, British Poet, Critic, Philosopher
England has two books, one which she has made and one which has made her:
Shakespeare and the Bible.
Victor Hugo 1802-1885, French Poet, Dramatist, Novelist
If those gentlemen would let me alone I should be much obliged to them. I
would say, as Shakespeare would say... “Sweet Friend, for Jesus sake forbear.”
Thomas Carlyle 1795-1881, Scottish Philosopher, Author
We do not fear censorship for we have no wish to offend with improprieties
or obscenities, but we do demand, as a right, the liberty to show the dark
side of wrong, that we may illuminate the bright side of virtue - the same
liberty that is conceded to the art of the written word, that art to which
we owe the Bible and the works of Shakespeare.
David Wark Griffiths 1875-1948, American Pioneer Film Director
Find enough clever things to say, and you’re a Prime Minister; write them
down and you’re a Shakespeare.
George Bernard Shaw 1856-1950, Irish-born British Dramatist
Dreaming is an act of pure imagination, attesting in all men a creative
power, which, if it were available in waking, would make every man a Dante
or Shakespeare.
Francis Herbert Hedge 1846-1924, British Philosopher
There is hardly a pioneer’s hut which does not contain a few odd volumes of
Shakespeare. I remember reading the feudal drama of Henry V for the first
time in a log cabin.
Alexis De Tocqueville 1805-1859, French Social Philosopher
If a man is called to be a streetsweeper, he should sweep streets even as
Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote
poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and
earth will pause to say, here lived a great streetsweeper who did his job
well.
Martin Luther King Jr. 1929-1968, American Black Leader, Nobel Prize Winner,
1964
If you write fiction you are, in a sense, corrupted. There’s a tremendous
corruptibility for the fiction writer because you’re dealing mainly with sex
and violence. These remain the basic themes, they’re the basic themes of
Shakespeare whether you like it or not.
Anthony Burgess 1917-1993, British Writer, Critic
When I heard the word “stream” uttered with such a revolting primness, what
I think of is urine and not the contemporary novel. And besides, it isn’t
new, it is far from the dernier cri. Shakespeare used it continually, much
too much in my opinion, and there’s Tristam Shandy, not to mention the
Agamemnon.
James Joyce 1882-1941, Irish Author
You ask whether I have ever been in love: fool as I am, I am not such a fool
as that. But if one is only to talk from first-hand experience, conversation
would be a very poor business. But though I have no personal experience of
the things they call love, I have what is better - the experience of Sappho,
of Euripides, of Catallus, of Shakespeare, of Spenser, of Austen, of Bronte,
of anyone else I have read.
C. S. Lewis 1898-1963, British Academic, Writer, Christian Apologist
Here Greek and Roman find themselves alive along these crowded shelves; and
Shakespeare treads again his stage, and Chaucer paints anew his age.
John Greenleaf Whittier 1807-1892, American Poet, Reformer, Author
The artist is of no importance. Only what he creates is important, since
there is nothing new to be said. Shakespeare, Balzac, Homer have all written
about the same things, and if they had lived one thousand or two thousand
years longer, the publishers wouldn’t have needed anyone since.
William Faulkner 1897-1962, American Novelist
In real life, unlike in Shakespeare, the sweetness of the rose depends upon
the name it bears. Things are not only what they are. They are, in very
important respects, what they seem to be.
Hubert H. Humphrey 1911-1978, American Democratic Politician, Vice President
Single-mindedness is all very well in cows or baboons; in an animal claiming
to belong to the same species as Shakespeare it is simply disgraceful.
Aldous Huxley 1894-1963, British Author
Playing Shakespeare is really tiring. You never get to sit down, unless you’re
the king.
Josephine Hull Actress
Now we sit through Shakespeare in order to recognize the quotations.
Orson Welles 1915-1985, American Film Maker
A remarkable thing about Shakespeare is that he is really very good in spite
of all the people who say he is very good.
Robert Graves 1895-1985, British Poet, Novelist
Shakespeare, Leonardo Da Vinci, Benjamin Franklin, and Lincoln never saw a
movie, heard a radio, or looked at a TV They had loneliness and knew what to
do with it. They were not afraid of being lonely because they knew that was
when the creative mood in them would mark.
Carl Sandburg 1878-1967, American Poet
Raphael paints wisdom; Handel sings it, Phidias carves it, Shakespeare
writes it, Wren builds it, Columbus sails it, Luther preaches it, Washington
arms it, Watt mechanizes it.
Ralph Waldo Emerson 1803-1882, American Poet, Essayist
Young women... you are, in my opinion, disgracefully ignorant. You have never made a
discovery of any sort of importance. You have never shaken an empire or led an army into
battle. The plays by Shakespeare are not by you, and you have never introduced a barbarous
race to the blessings of civilization. What is your excuse?
Virginia Woolf 1882-1941, British Novelist, Essayist
The aim, if reached or not, makes great the life: try to be Shakespeare, leave the rest to
fate!
Robert Browning 1812-1889, British Poet
Each writer is born with a repertory company in his head. Shakespeare has perhaps 20
players, and Tennessee Williams has about 5, and Samuel Beckett one - and maybe a clone of
that one. I have 10 or so, and that’s a lot. As you get older, you become more
skillful at casting them.
Gore Vidal
The characteristic of Chaucer is intensity: of Spencer, remoteness: of Milton elevation
and of Shakespeare everything.
William Hazlitt 1778-1830, British Writer and Critic
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE'S
WORKS
1588-1593 The Comedy of Errors
1588-1594 Love’s Labor’s Lost
1590-1591 2 Henry VI
1590-1591 3 Henry VI
1591-1592 1 Henry VI
1592-1593 Richard III
1592-1594 Titus Andronicus
1593-1594 The Taming of the Shrew
1593-1595 The Two Gentlemen of Verona
1594-1596 Romeo and Juliet
1595 Richard II
1594-1596 A Midsummer Night’s Dream
1596-1597 King John
I596-1597 The Merchant of Venice
1597 1 Henry IV
1597-1598 2 Henry IV
1598-1600 Much Ado About Nothing
1598-1599 Henry V
1599-1600 Julius Caesar
1599-1600 As You Like It
1599-1600 Twelfth Night
1600-1601 Hamlet
1597-1601 The Merry Wives of Windsor
1601-1602 Troilus and Cressida
1602-1604 All’s Well That Ends Well
1603-1604 Othello
1604-1605 Measure for Measure
1605-1606 King Lear
1605-1606 Macbeth
1606-1607 Antony and Cleopatra
1605-1608 Timon of Athens
1607-1609 Coriolanus
1608-1609 Pericles
1609-1610 Cymbeline
1610-1611 The Winter’s Tale
1611-1612 The Tempest
1612-1613 Henry VIII
POEMS
1592 Venus and Adonis
1593-1594 The Rape of Lucrece
1593-1600 Sonnets
1600-1601 The Phoenix and the Turtle
