108 Shakespeare Quotes - Love, Life & Wisdom

By Save the Quote Editorial Team · Published October 26, 2025 · Updated October 26, 2025

Love and Romance

My bounty is as boundless as the sea, My love as deep. The more I give to thee, The more I have, for both are infinite.
Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind; And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind.
If music be the food of love, play on.
The course of true love never did run smooth.
There's beggary in love that can be reckoned.
Thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
Love all, trust a few, Do wrong to none.
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
They do not love that do not show their love.
Speak low if you speak love.
There's no such man; it is impossible.
Love comforteth like sunshine after rain.

To be, or not to be: that is the question.
Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once.
All that lives must die, Passing through nature to eternity.
We are such stuff As dreams are made on, and our little life Is rounded with a sleep.
The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together.
I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.
Out, out brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage.
There is a tide in the affairs of men Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.
Men at some time are masters of their fates.
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all.
Nothing will come of nothing.
O gentlemen, the time of life is short.

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.
The fool doth think he is wise but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.
Brevity is the soul of wit.
Better a witty fool than a foolish wit.
To wilful men, the injuries that they themselves procure must be their schoolmasters.
How poor are they that have not patience! What wound did ever heal but by degrees?
Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt.
There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.
All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players.
The robbed that smiles steals something from the thief.
Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice.
Words are easy, like the wind; Faithful friends are hard to find.

Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, Grapple them unto thy soul with hoops of steel.
Keep thy friend Under thy own life's key.
I count myself in nothing else so happy As in a soul remembering my good friends.
A friend should bear his friend's infirmities.
The better part of valour is discretion.
I do desire we may be better strangers.
Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.
Good friends, sweet friends, let me not stir you up.
Friendship is constant in all other things Save in the office and affairs of love.
When shall we three meet again?

I have no spur to prick the sides of my intent but only vaulting ambition which o'erleaps itself and falls on the other.
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff.
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.
The abuse of greatness is when it disjoins remorse from power.
My crown I am, but still my griefs are mine.
Greatness knows itself.
Let me have men about me that are fat; Sleek-headed men and such as sleep o' nights.
Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper sprinkle cool patience.
The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones.
Conscience doth make cowards of us all.
Men should be what they seem.
Farewell the plumed troop and the big wars That make ambition virtue.

There is a tide in the affairs of men Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.
O, call back yesterday, bid time return.
Better three hours too soon than a minute too late.
Defer no time, delays have dangerous ends.
What's past is prologue.
We are time's subjects, and time bids be gone.
Time is the nurse and breeder of all good.
All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players.
There are many events in the womb of time, which will be delivered.
Summer's lease hath all too short a date.
Make use of time, let not advantage slip.

The valiant never taste of death but once.
Men of few words are the best men.
He jests at scars that never felt a wound.
Be absolute for death; either death or life Shall thereby be the sweeter.
The better part of valour is discretion.
When valour preys on reason, it eats the sword it fights with.
O, it is excellent to have a giant's strength, but it is tyrannous to use it like a giant.
Men at some time are masters of their fates.
Conscience makes cowards of us all.
Be not afraid of greatness.

O, beware, my lord, of jealousy! It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock The meat it feeds on.
Trifles light as air are to the jealous confirmations strong as proofs of holy writ.
Such men as he be never at heart's ease Whiles they behold a greater than themselves.
And oft, my jealousy shapes faults that are not.
Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind.
The venom clamours of a jealous woman poison more deadly than a mad dog's tooth.
Thou wilt never get such a secret from me but by a parable.
Love is blind, and lovers cannot see The pretty follies that themselves commit.

And this, our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything.
One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.
I like this place and could willingly waste my time in it.
April hath put a spirit of youth in everything.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May.
Virtue is beauty.
Beauty is but a vain and doubtful good; a shining gloss that fadeth suddenly.
The seasons alter; hoary-headed frosts fall in the fresh lap of the crimson rose.
The earth has music for those who listen.
The lunatic, the lover, and the poet Are of imagination all compact.

Better a witty fool than a foolish wit.
Brevity is the soul of wit.
I am a great eater of beef, and I believe that does harm to my wit.
Lord, what fools these mortals be!
I do desire we may be better strangers.
Though she be but little, she is fierce.
Many a true word hath been spoken in jest.
The fool thinks himself to be wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.
I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me.
Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps.