William Shakespeare

📔 Richard III

1594
“Small herbs have grace; great weeds do grow apace.” / And since, methinks I would not grow so fast, / Because sweet flowers are slow and weeds make haste.

📔 Romeo and Juliet

1597
O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo? / Deny thy father and refuse thy name. / Or if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, / And I’ll no longer be a Capulet. My master knows not but I am gone hence, / And fearfully did menace me with death / If I did stay to look on his intents.

📔 Love's Labour's Lost

1598
This is the flow'r that smiles on every one, / To show his teeth as white as whales-bone; / And consciences that will not die in debt / Pay him the due of 'honey-tongued Boyet.'

📔 As You Like It

1599
Firm and irrevocable is my doom / Which I have pass'd upon her; she is banish'd.

📔 Hamlet

1599
I have of late, but wherefore I know not, lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises; and indeed, it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy the air, look you, this brave o’erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

📔 Much Ado About Nothing

1599
You had musty victual, and he hath holp to eat it; he is a very valiant trencher-man; he hath an excellent stomach.

📔 Macbeth

1606
Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair, / And make my seated heart knock at my ribs, And pity, like a naked new-born babe, / Striding the blast, or heaven’s cherubin, hors’d / Upon the sightless couriers of the air, / Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye, / That tears shall drown the wind. Not in the legions / Of horrid hell can come a devil more damn’d / In evils to top Macbeth.

📔 The Winter's Tale

1611
The blessed gods / Purge all infection from our air whilst you / Do climate here!

📔 The Tempest

1611
I'll show thee the best springs; I'll pluck thee berries; / I'll fish for thee, and get thee wood enough. / A plague upon the tyrant that I serve! / I'll bear him no more sticks, but follow thee, / Thou wondrous man.

📔 King John

1623
I am the cygnet to this pale faint swan, / Who chants a doleful hymn to his own death, / And from the organ-pipe of frailty sings / His soul and body to their lasting rest.
Back to Authors