Selfia

Quotes by William Shakespeare

11 quotes by William Shakespeare (died 1616), taken from 10 works. Each is given word for word, with its work, its passage and its source.

Works quoted: The Merchant of Venice, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Tempest, As You Like It, Sonnet 29, Sonnet 116, Julius Caesar, Hamlet, All’s Well That Ends Well and Measure for Measure.

The Merchant of Venice

  1. “How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world.”

  2. “The quality of mercy is not strain’d, It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest, It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.”

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

  1. “Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind; And therefore is wing’d Cupid painted blind.”

    William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 1, Scene 1

    Original text · Source: Project Gutenberg #1514

The Tempest

  1. “We are such stuff As dreams are made on; and our little life Is rounded with a sleep.”

As You Like It

  1. “Sweet are the uses of adversity, Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, Wears yet a precious jewel in his head”

Sonnet 29

  1. “Haply I think on thee, and then my state, / (Like to the lark at break of day arising / From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven’s gate, / For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings, / That then I scorn to change my state with kings.”

Sonnet 116

  1. “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 / That looks on tempests and is never shaken.”

Julius Caesar

  1. “There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; Omitted, all the voyage of their life Is bound in shallows and in miseries.”

Hamlet

  1. “This above all: to thine own self be true; And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.”

All’s Well That Ends Well

  1. “Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie, Which we ascribe to heaven: the fated sky Gives us free scope; only doth backward pull Our slow designs when we ourselves are dull.”

    William Shakespeare, All’s Well That Ends Well, Act 1, Scene 1

    Original text · Source: Project Gutenberg #100

Measure for Measure

  1. “Our doubts are traitors, And make us lose the good we oft might win By fearing to attempt.”

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