Years and years ago, there was a production of The Tempest, out of doors, at an Oxford college on a lawn, which was the stage, and the lawn went back towards the lake in the...

I sit with Shakespeare and he winces not. Across the color-line I move arm in arm with Balzac and Dumas, where smiling men and welcoming women glide in gilded halls. From out the caves of...

Wisely and slow; they stumble that run fast.

I cannot live to hear the news from England.But I do prophesy th’ election lightsOn Fortinbras; he has my dying voice.So tell him, with th’ occurents, more and less,Which have solicited – the rest is...

Conscience doth make cowards of us all.

But men may construe things after their fashion, Clean from the purpose of the things themselves.

[…] my heart is wondrous light,Since this same wayward girl is so reclaim’d.

I suppose the fundamental distinction between Shakespeare and myself is one of treatment. We get our effects differently. Take the familiar farcical situation of someone who suddenly discovers that something unpleasant is standing behind them....

If you cannot understand my argument, and declare “It’s Greek to me”, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you claim to be more sinned against than sinning, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you recall your salad...

CREONTA: Rope! My rope! Hang those two thieves by the neck until they are dead.THE ROPE: Alack, but vile and ill-natured female! Upon wherein did thine affections tarry when I didst but lie here and...

In reality there is no kind of evidence or argument by which one can show that Shakespeare, or any other writer, is “good”. Nor is there any way of definitely proving that–for instance–Warwick Beeping is...

If Jupiter was in the ascendant when you were born, you are of a jovial disposition; and if you’re not jovial but miserable and saturnine that’s a disaster, because a disaster is a dis-astro, or...

I’ve worked with freshmen that were easier than this.

How would it alter Juliet’s love perception to learn the sea is but a rounded jug of water? Would her sensuous analogy turned simple simile unveil to her the limits of herself? Or would she...

Work is the undoing of nature.

What’s the use trying to read Shakespeare, especially in one of those little paper editions whose pages get ruffled, or stuck together with sea-water?

Educated men are so impressive!

And therefore, — since I cannot prove a lover,To entertain these fair well-spoken days, —I am determined to prove a villain,And hate the idle pleasures of these days.

Go, prick thy face and over-red thy fear,Thou lily-livered boy.

Strike as thou didst at Caesar; for I know / When though didst hate him worst, thou loved’st him better / Than ever thou loved’st Cassius.

A third…candidate for Shakespearean authorship was Christopher Marlowe. He was the right age (just two months older than Shakespeare), had the requisite talent, and would certainly have had ample leisure after 1593, assuming he wasn’t...

To be, or not to be: what a question!

Literature shrivels in a universal language, and an uprooted language rots before it dies. And it should be possible to lift the eyes above the cant of the ‘language of Shakespeare’… sufficiently to realise the...

Can you blame me, my dear, for looking on this attachment as a romantic folly inspired by that cursed Shakespeare who will poke his nose where he is not wanted?

Gender mattered a whole lot less to Shakespeare than it seems to matter to us.

If there really had been a Mercutio, and if there really were a Paradise, Mercutio might be hanging out with teenage Vietnam draftee casualties now, talking about what it felt like to die for other...

Everybody needs a career manager.”- Lady Macbeth

I began with the desire to speak with the dead.

If Shakespeare had never existed, he asked, would the world have differed much from what it is today? Does the progress of civilization depend upon great men? Is the lot of the average human being...

Lucentio: I read that I profess, the Art of Love.Bianca: And may you prove, sir, master of your art!Lucentio: While you, sweet dear, prove mistress of my heart!

Women may fail when there is no strength in man

If one good deed in all my life I did, I do repent it from my very soul.

The curse of true love never did run smooth.

If it were possible for a metaphysician to be a golfer, he might perhaps occasionally notice that his ball, instead of moving forward in a vertical plane (like the generality of projectiles, such as brickbats...

You and those shot-glass eyes, deep swirling pools of 80-proof firewater, with the depth and profundity of Saturn’s spinning pulsars…

…imagine anybody having lived forty-five or fifty years without knowing Hamlet! One might as well spend one’s life in a coal mine.

…[T]he three greatest works are those of Homer, Dante and Shakespeare.These are closely followed by the works of Virgil and Milton.

That they will find each other during the play, once more, in the words of Shakespeare.

Nine tenths of the ills from which intelligent people suffer spring from their intellect. They need at least a doctor who understands the disease. How can you expect Cottard to be able to treat you?...

Lord, what fools these mortals be!

Teagan: How long has it been since you read a book that didn’t havevampires in it?Abby: They write books with no vampires? Wait…the penguins made us read that Shakesrear guy, right?Teagan: Shakespeare.

What needs my Shakespeare for his honoured bones,The labor of an age in pilèd stones,Or that his hallowed relics should be hidUnder a star-y-pointing pyramid?Dear son of memory, great heir of fame,What need’st thou such...

He [Alexander von Humboldt] was to science what Shakespeare was to the drama.

The world is not thy friend, nor the world’s law. – Romeo

Some are born great, others achieve greatness.

Thou whoreson zed! Thou unnecessary letter! My lord, if you will give me leave, I will tread this unbolted villain into mortar, and daub the wall of a jakes with him. *all cheer for Shakespearean...

Dame los puñales; los que duermen y los muertos no son sino sombras; únicamente los ojos de los niños tiemblan ante una estampa del diablo.

And now to sleep, to dream…perchance to fart.

The life of Shakespeare is a fine mystery and I tremble every day lest something turn up.

Why can’t you remember your Shakespeare and forget the third-raters. You’ll find what you’re trying to say in him- as you’ll find everything else worth saying. ‘We are such stuff as dreams are made on,...