William Shakespeare quote: "To gild refined gold, to paint the lily, To throw a perfume on the violet, To smooth the ice, or add another hue Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish, Is wasteful and ridiculous excess. -King John. Act iv. Sc. 2."

The empty vessel makes the loudest sound.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

To be, or not to be, that is the question.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

'Tis best to weigh the enemy more mighty than he seems.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Lord, Lord, how subject we old men are to this vice of lying!
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Life every man holds dear; but the dear man holds honor far more precious dear than life.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Things done well and with a care, exempt themselves from fear.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child!
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

There is no darkness but ignorance.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

To do a great right do a little wrong.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Listen to many, speak to a few.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

This above all; to thine own self be true.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

We know what we are, but know not what we may be.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Time and the hour run through the roughest day.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Desire of having is the sin of covetousness.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

There's no art to find the mind's construction in the face.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

I say there is no darkness but ignorance.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Though she be but little, she is fierce.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

What's done can't be undone.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

They say miracles are past.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Wisely, and slow. They stumble that run fast.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Our peace shall stand as firm as rocky mountains.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

And oftentimes excusing of a fault doth make the fault the worse by the excuse.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

I like not fair terms and a villain's mind.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Reputation is an idle and most false imposition; oft got without merit, and lost without deserving.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

When words are scarce they are seldom spent in vain.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

If you prick us do we not bleed? If you tickle us do we not laugh? If you poison us do we not die? A...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Give me my robe, put on my crown; I have Immortal longings in me.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

My crown is called content, a crown that seldom kings enjoy.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

As soon go kindle fire with snow, as seek to quench the fire of love with words.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Now is the winter of our discontent.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

The course of true love never did run smooth.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

These violent delights have violent ends
And in their triump die, like fire and powder
Whi...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

I am not bound to please thee with my answer.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered-
We few, we hap...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits a...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Whereof whats past is prologue, what to comeIn yours and my discharge.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Things won are done, joys soul lies in the doing.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

man, proud man,Dressd in a little brief authority,
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

This was the noblest Roman of them all. All the conspirators, save only he,Did that they did in envy...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

All the worlds a stage,And all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their ent...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

I am in bloodSteppd in so far that, should I wade no more,Returning were as tedious as go oer.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

So farewell to the little good you bear me. Farewell! a long farewell, to all my greatness!This is t...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

The first thing we do, lets kill all the lawyers.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Had I but servd my God with half the zealI servd my king, He would not in mine ageHave left me naked...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Glendower:I can call spirits from the vasty deep. Hotspur:Why, so can I, or so can any man;But will ...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And t...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players.
They have their exits and t...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumber'd...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Life is as tedious as a twice-told tale.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?
Deny thy father and refuse thy name;
Or, if thou ...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

When love begins to sicken and decay it uses an enforced ceremony. Julius Caesar
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

To say the truth, reason and love keep little company together now-a-days.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

They do not love that do not show their love. The course of true love never did run smooth. Love is ...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Love is too young to know what conscience is.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs. Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers eyes. Being ve...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Men have died from time to time, and worms have eaten them, but not for love.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

But love is blind, and lovers cannot see What petty follies they themselves commit
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Love bears it out even to the edge of doom.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

She's gone. I am abused, and my relief must be to loathe her.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

We that are true lovers run into strange capers.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Were't not affection chains thy tender days To the sweet glances of thy honored love, I rather...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

In my mind's eye, Horatio.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Give a man health and a course to steer, and he'll never stop to trouble about whether he's happy o...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Wisely and slow; they stumble that run fast.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Jesters do oft prove prophets
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

To be or not to be that is the question. Whether it is nobler in the mind to suffer the stings and...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Go to your bosom: Knock there, and ask your heart what it doth know
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

As long as I have a want, I have a reason for living. Satisfaction is death.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

To climb steep hills requires slow pace at first.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Is it not strange that sheep's guts should hale souls out of men's bodies?
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

If music be the food of love, play on;
Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
The appetite ...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

The man that hath no music in himself, nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, is fit for tre...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Sweets grown common lose their dear delight.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Own more than thou showest, speak less than thou knowest.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

How goes it now, sir? This news which is called true is so like an old tale that the verity of it ...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Master, master, old news! And such news as you never heard of!
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

My heart hath one poor string to stay it by, Which holds but till thy news be uttered, And the...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

O, my sweet sir, news fitting to the night, Black, fearful, comfortless, and horrible.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Ten day ago I drowned these news in tears; And now, to add more measure to your woes, I come t...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Yet the first bringer of unwelcome news Hath but a losing office, and his tongue Sounds ever a...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

There's villainous news abroad.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

If't be summer news, Smile to't before; if winterly, thou need'st But keep that count'nance st...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

The art of our necessities is strange, That can make vile things precious.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

No, rather I abjure all roofs, and choose To wage against the emnity o' th' air, To be a comra...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Now we sit close about this taper here And call in question our necessities.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Fortune brings in some boats that are not steered.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Madness in great ones must not unwatched go.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

When most I wink, then do my eyes best see
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

So our virtues Lie in the interpretation of the time
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

So we grew together, Like to a double cherry, seeming parted, But yet an union in partition-- ...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

They say men are molded out of faults, and for the most, become much more the better; for being a li...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Men's faults to themselves seldom appear.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Love to faults is always blind, always is to joy inclined. Lawless, winged, and unconfined, and brea...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

'Tis the mind that makes the body rich.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments. Love is not love which alters when it al...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

He is half of a blessed man. Left to be finished by such as she; and she a fair divided excellence, ...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Tut, man, one fire burns out another's burning; One pain is less'ned by another's anguish; Tur...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

My nature is subdued to what it works in, like the dyer's hand.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

And this, our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, s...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

The proverb is something musty.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

O, what a mansion have those vices got Which for their habitation chose out thee, Where beauty...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Who has a book of all that monarchs do, He's more secure to keep it shut than shown; For vice ...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

There is no vice so simple but assumes Some mark of virtue on his outward parts.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices Make instruments to plague us.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Where doth the world thrust forth a vanity (So it be new, there's no respect how vile) That is...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Hoy-day! What a sweep of vanity comes this way!
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Go to you bosom: Knock there, and ask your heart what it doth know.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Neither a borrower nor a lender be.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

O, what a world of vile ill-favored faults Looks handsome in three hundred pounds a year.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

All that glisters is not gold; Often have you heard that told; Many a man his life hath sold; ...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

If thou art rich, thou'rt poor, For, like an ass whose back with ingots bows, Thou bear'st thy...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

All gold and silver rather turn to dirt, An 'tis no better reckoned but of these Who worship d...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

What, man! more water glideth by the mill That wots the miller of; and easy it is Of a cut lo...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Here's that which is too weak to be a sinner: Honest water, which ne'er left man i' th' mire.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

The people are like water and the ruler a boat. Water can support a boat or overturn it.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

For who so firm that cannot be seduced?
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

While you live tell the truth and shame the devil.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Ha, ha! keep time: how sour sweet music is,
When time is broke and no proportion kept!
So is ...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

O, call back yesterday, bid time return.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Make not your thoughts you prisons.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passi...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Had I but served my God with half the zeal I served my King, He would not in mine age Have left me...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

A man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

O, how thy worth with manners may I sing When thou art all the better part of me? What can min...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Cry havoc! and let loose the dogs of war, that this foul deed shall smell above the earth with carri...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

We go to gain a little patch of ground that hath in it no profit but the name.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

To be wise and love exceeds man's might.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

O, what a world of vile ill-favored faults, looks handsome in three hundred pounds a year!
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Not that I have the power to clutch my hand
When his fair angels would salute by palm,
But for...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

The voluntary path to cheerfulness, if our spontaneous be lost, is to sit up cheerfully, and act and...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

I had rather have a fool make me merry, than experience make me sad.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

But O, how bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man's eyes.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Friendship is constant in all other things, Save in the office and affairs of love.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Words are easy, like the wind; Faithful friends are hard to find.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

A friend should bear a friend's infirmities, But Brutus makes mine greater than they are.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

A friend is one that knows you as you are, understands where you have been, accepts what you have be...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel, but d...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Do not swear by the moon, for she changes constantly. then your love would also change.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come. Merchant Of Venice
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Youth is full of sport, age's breath is short; youth is nimble, age is lame; Youth is hot and bold, ...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Though I look old, yet I am strong and lusty; for in my youth I never did apply hot and rebellious l...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Have you not a moist eye, a dry hand, a yellow cheek, a white beard, a decreasing leg, an increasing...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

I have lived long enough. My way of life is to fall into the sere, the yellow leaf, and that which s...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

'Tis but an hour ago since it was nine, and after one hour more twill be eleven. And so from hour to...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

My age is as a lusty winter, frosty but kindly.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

You take my life when you do take the means whereby I live.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Good-morrow to thee; welcome:
Thou look'st like him that knows a warlike charge:
To business...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

If it were done when 'tis done, then t'were well. It were done quickly.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Suit the action to the world, the world to the action, with this special observance, that you overst...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

O, let my books be then the eloquence and dumb presages of my speaking breast.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Get thee glass eyes, and like a scurvy politician, seem to see the things thou dost not.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

A politician is one that would circumvent God.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

There have been many great men that have flattered the people who never loved them.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

A miser grows rich by seeming poor. An extravagant man grows poor by seeming rich.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

No sooner met but they looked; no sooner looked but they loved; no sooner loved but they sighed; no ...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

The world must be peopled. When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I ...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

To suckle fools, and chronicle small beer.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

I care not, a man can die but once; we owe God and death.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

But I will be a bridegroom in my death, and run into a lover's bed.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

All that live must die, passing through nature to eternity.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

After life's fitful fever he sleeps well. Treason has done his worst. Nor steel nor poison, malice d...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft int...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Men must endure, their going hence even as their coming hither. Ripeness is all.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

The weariest and most loathed worldly life, that age, ache, penury and imprisonment can lay on natur...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

The undiscovered country form whose born no traveler returns. Hamlet
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Knowledge is the wing whereby we fly to Heaven.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Yet do I fear thy nature. It is too full o' th' milk of human kindness To catch the nearest wa...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Have you the heart? When your head did but ache, I knit my handkercher about your brows-- The...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

A little more than kin, and less than kind!
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

So full of artless jealousy is guilt, It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

O! beware, my lord, of jealousy; It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock The meat it feeds on.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

But jealous souls will not be answered so; They are not ever jealous for the cause, But jealou...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

O, beware, my lord, of jealousy! It is the green-eyed monster, which doth mock The meat it fee...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

I do beseech you-- Though I perchance am vicious in my guess (As I confess it is my nature's p...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Never waste jealousy on a real man: it is the imaginary man that supplants us all in the long run.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

If I shall be condemned Upon surmises, all proofs sleeping else But what your jealousies awake...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Trifles light as air Are to the jealous confirmations strong As proofs of holy writ.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

'Tis mad idolatry To make the service greater than the god.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

We defy augury. There's a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, 'Tis not to com...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

My plenteous joys, Wanton in fullness, seek to hide themselves In drops of sorrow.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Through tattered clothes, small vices do appear. Robes and furred gowns hide all.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Sweet are the uses of adversity which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, wears yet a precious jewel ...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Children wish fathers looked but with their eyes; fathers that children with their judgment looked; ...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Yet 'tis greater skill In a true hate to pray they have their will; The very devils cannot pla...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

How use doth breed a habit in a man! This shadowy desert, unfrequented woods, I better brook t...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

The miserable have no other medicine But only hope.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

O world, world! thus is the poor agent despised. O traitors and bawds, how earnestly are you set a-w...
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

To gild refined gold, to paint the lily, To throw a perfume on the violet, To smooth the ice, or add another hue Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish, Is wasteful and ridiculous excess. -King John. Act iv. Sc. 2.

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William Shakespeare

To gild refined gold, to paint the lily, To throw a perfume on the violet, To smooth the ice, or add another hue Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish, Is wasteful and ridiculous excess. -King John. Act iv. Sc. 2.

William Shakespeare

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