William Shakespeare (1564 – 1616) was an English poet, playwright and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world’s greatest dramatist and poet. He is often called England’s national poet and the “Bard of Avon.” His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. The best-selling fiction writer of all time, his most well-known works include Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Macbeth and Othello.
Quotes by William Shakespeare…
Nought’s had, all’s spent,
When our desire is got without content:
‘Tis safer to be that which we destroy
Than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy.
Thriftless ambition, that wilt ravin up
Thine own life’s means!
Shake off this downy sleep, death’s counterfeit,
And look on death itself!
Mock the time with fairest show:
False face must hide what the false heart doth know.
We still have judgment here; that we but teach
Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return
To plague the inventor: this even-handed justice
Commends the ingredients of our poison’d chalice
To our own lips.
If good, why do I yield to that suggestion
Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair
And make my seated heart knock at my ribs,
Against the use of nature? Present fears
Are less than horrible imaginings:
My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical,
Shakes so my single state of man, that function
Is smother’d in surmise, and nothing is
But what is not.
Be absolute with death. Either death or life
Shall thereby be the sweeter. Reason thus with life:
If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing
That none but fools would keep.
Merely, thou art death’s fool,
For him thou labor’st by thy flight to shun,
And yet run’st toward him still.
How would you be
If He, which is the top of judgment, should
But judge you as you are? Oh, think on that,
And mercy then will breathe within your lips
Like man new mad.
But come what may, I do adore thee so
That danger shall seem sport, and I will go!