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Shakespeare Quotes

Browse 327 quotes about Shakespeare.

Shakespeare Quotes

“We read the pagan sacred books with profit and delight. With myth and fable we are ever charmed, and find a pleasure in the endless repetition of the beautiful, poetic, and absurd. We find, in all these records of the past, philosophies and dreams, and efforts stained with tears, of great and tender souls who tried to pierce the mystery of life and death, to answer the eternal questions of the Whence and Whither, and vainly sought to make, with bits of shattered glass, a mirror that would, in very truth, reflect the face and form of Nature's perfect self. These myths were born of hopes, and fears, and tears, and smiles, and they were touched and colored by all there is of joy and grief between the rosy dawn of birth, and death's sad night. They clothed even the stars with passion, and gave to gods the faults and frailties of the sons of men. In them, the winds and waves were music, and all the lakes, and streams, and springs,—the mountains, woods and perfumed dells were haunted by a thousand fairy forms. They thrilled the veins of Spring with tremulous desire; made tawny Summer's billowed breast the throne and home of love; filled Autumns arms with sun-kissed grapes, and gathered sheaves; and pictured Winter as a weak old king who felt, like Lear upon his withered face, Cordelia's tears. These myths, though false, are beautiful, and have for many ages and in countless ways, enriched the heart and kindled thought. But if the world were taught that all these things are true and all inspired of God, and that eternal punishment will be the lot of him who dares deny or doubt, the sweetest myth of all the Fable World would lose its beauty, and become a scorned and hateful thing to every brave and thoughtful man.”

“In the campaign of 1876, Robert G. Ingersoll came to Madison to speak. I had heard of him for years; when I was a boy on the farm a relative of ours had testified in a case in which Ingersoll had appeared as an attorney and he had told the glowing stories of the plea that Ingersoll had made. Then, in the spring of 1876, Ingersoll delivered the Memorial Day address at Indianapolis. It was widely published shortly after it was delivered and it startled and enthralled the whole country. I remember that it was printed on a poster as large as a door and hung in the post-office at Madison. I can scarcely convey now, or even understand, the emotional effect the reading of it produced upon me. Oblivious of my surroundings, I read it with tears streaming down my face. It began, I remember: "The past rises before me like a dream. Again we are in the great struggle for national life.We hear the sounds of preparation--the music of boisterous drums--the silver voices of heroic bugles. We see the pale cheeks of women and the flushed faces of men; and in those assemblages we see all the dead whose dust we have covered with flowers..." I was fairly entranced. he pictured the recruiting of the troops, the husbands and fathers with their families on the last evening, the lover under the trees and the stars; then the beat of drums, the waving flags, the marching away; the wife at the turn of the lane holds her baby aloft in her arms--a wave of the hand and he has gone; then you see him again in the heat of the charge. It was wonderful how it seized upon my youthful imagination. When he came to Madison I crowded myself into the assembly chamber to hear him: I would not have missed it for every worldly thing I possessed. And he did not disappoint me. A large handsome man of perfect build, with a face as round as a child's and a compelling smile--all the arts of the old-time oratory were his in high degree. He was witty, he was droll, he was eloquent: he was as full of sentiment as an old violin. Often, while speaking, he would pause, break into a smile, and the audience, in anticipation of what was to come, would follow him in irresistible peals of laughter. I cannot remember much that he said, but the impression he made upon me was indelible. After that I got Ingersoll's books and never afterward lost an opportunity to hear him speak. He was the greatest orater, I think, that I have ever heard; and the greatest of his lectures, I have always thought, was the one on Shakespeare. Ingersoll had a tremendous influence upon me, as indeed he had upon many young men of that time. It was not that he changed my beliefs, but that he liberated my mind. Freedom was what he preached: he wanted the shackles off everywhere. He wanted men to think boldly about all things: he demanded intellectual and moral courage. He wanted men to follow wherever truth might lead them. He was a rare, bold, heroic figure.”

“And school isn’t the same as theatre,” said Xavier, gazing round the building. “In a classroom you can talk this stuff through, interrogate it, contextualize it, and so on. You can’t do that here. There’s no pop-up footnotes to explain the subtext while the story is happening in front of you. That’s different. Makes it feel…real. Or at least endorsed: like, this is how it is and we’re not going to explain it. Study it critically by all means, talk about it, but don’t stage Othello and expect me to just sit there and drink it in, okay? Not gonna happen. Not Othello, and not The Merchant of Venice.”

“The real thing that got me thinking were his female characters. Beatrice... Rosalind... Viola... Portia. They were feminists long before there was ever a woman's movement. But Shakespeare, in real life, had two daughters that he never educated. They didn't even know how to write their own names." Melina shook her head. "I just can't believe a man who created such iconic women in his plays wouldn't want his daughters to have the same rights.”

“In Shakespearean tragedy the main source of the convulsion which produces suffering and death is never good: good contributes to this convulsion only from its tragic implication with its opposite in one and the same character. The main source, on the contrary, is in every case evil; and, what is more (though this seems to have been little noticed), it is in almost every case evil in the fullest sense, not mere imperfection but plain moral evil. The love of Romeo and Juliet conducts them to death only because of the senseless hatred of their houses. Guilty ambition, seconded by diabolic malice and issuing in murder, opens the action in Macbeth. Iago is the main source of the convulsion in Othello; Goneril, Regan and Edmund in King Lear. Even when this plain moral evil is not the obviously prime source within the play, it lies behind it: the situation with which Hamlet has to deal has been formed by adultery and murder. Julius Caesar is the only tragedy in which one is even tempted to find an exception to this rule. And the inference is obvious. If it is chiefly evil that violently disturbs the order of the world, this order cannot be friendly to evil or indifferent between evil and good, any more than a body which is convulsed by poison is friendly to it or indifferent to the distinction between poison and food.”

“The comparatively innocent hero still shows some marked imperfection or defect – irresolution, precipitancy, pride, credulousness, excessive simplicity, excessive susceptibility to sexual emotions, and the like. These defects or imperfections are certainly, in the wide sense of the word, evil, and they contribute decisively to the conflict and catastrophe. And the inference is again obvious. The ultimate power which shows itself disturbed by this evil and reacts against it, must have a nature alien to it. Indeed its reaction is so vehement and ‘relentless’ that it would seem to be bent on nothing short of good in perfection, and to be ruthless in its demand for it.”

“When the evil in him masters the good and has its way, it destroys other people through him, but it also destroys him. At the close of the struggle he has vanished, and has left behind him nothing that can stand. What remains is a family, a city, a country, exhausted, pale and feeble, but alive through the principle of good which animates it; and, within it, individuals who, if they have not the brilliance or greatness of the tragic character, still have won our respect and confidence. And the inference would seem clear. If existence in an order depends on good, and if the presence of evil is hostile to such existence, the inner being or soul of this order must be akin to good.”

“Nor does the idea of a moral order asserting itself against attack or want of conformity answer in full to our feelings regarding the tragic character. We do not think of Hamlet merely as failing to meet its demand, of Antony as merely sinning against it, or even of Macbeth as simply attacking it. What we feel corresponds quite as much to the idea that they are its parts, expressions, products; that in their defect or evil it is untrue to its soul of goodness, and falls into conflict and collision with itself; that, in making them suffer and waste themselves, it suffers and wastes itself; and that when, to save its life and regain peace from this intestinal struggle, it casts them out, it has lost a part of its own substance – a part more dangerous and unquiet, but far more valuable and nearer to its heart, than that which remains – a Fortinbras, a Malcolm, an Octavius. There is no tragedy in its expulsion of evil: the tragedy is that this involves the waste of good.”

“Good, in the widest sense, seems thus to be the principle of life and health in the world; evil, at least in these worst forms, to be a poison. The world reacts against it violently, and, in the struggle to expel it, is driven to devastate itself. If we ask why the world should generate that which convulses and wastes it, the tragedy gives no answer, and we are trying to go beyond tragedy in seeking one. But the world, in this tragic picture, is convulsed by evil, and rejects it.”

“On the one hand we see a world which generates terrible evil in profusion. Further, the beings in whom this evil appears at its strongest are able, to a certain extent, to thrive. They are not unhappy, and they have power to spread misery and destruction around them. All this is undeniable fact. On the other hand this evil is merely destructive: it founds nothing, and seems capable of existing only on foundations laid by its opposite. It is also self-destructive: it sets these beings at enmity; they can scarcely unite against a common and pressing danger; if it were averted they would be at each other’s throats in a moment; the sisters do not even wait till it is past. Finally, these beings, all five of them, are dead a few weeks after we see them first; three at least die young; the outburst of their evil is fatal to them. These also are undeniable facts; and, in face of them, it seems odd to describe King Lear as ‘a play in which the wicked prosper’ (Johnson). Thus the world in which evil appears seems to be at heart unfriendly to it.”

“Who are these people sharing the street with me? What is going on in their worlds, inside their heads? Are they in love? If so, is it the kind that Mum and Dad have? Based on having things in common, like raspberry picking and a love of dogs, and Shakespeare, and long country walks? Or is it the knock-you-out, eat-you-up, set-you-on-fire kind of love that I have longed for-and avoided-all my life?”

“The name of Robert G. Ingersoll is in the pantheon of the world. More than any other man who ever lived he destroyed religious superstition. He was the Shakespeare of oratory -- the greatest that the world has ever known. Ingersoll lived and died far in advance of his time. He wrought nobly for the transformation of this world into a habitable globe; and long after the last echo of destruction has been silenced, his name will be loved and honored, and his fame will shine resplendent, for his immortality is fixed and glorious. {Debbs had this much respect for Ingersoll, despite their radically different political views. This statement was made at Ingersoll's funeral}”

“Of all public figures and benefactors of mankind, no one is loved by history more than the literary patron. Napoleon was just a general of forgotten battles compared with the queen who paid for Shakespeare's meals and beer in the tavern. The statesman who in his time freed the slaves, even he has a few enemies in posterity, whereas the literary patron has none. We thank Gaius Maecenas for the nobility of soul we attribute to Virgil; but he isn’t blamed for the selfishness and egocentricity that the poet possessed. The patron creates 'literature through altruism,' something not even the greatest genius can do with a pen.”

“Themes of descent often turn on the struggle between the titanic and the demonic within the same person or group. In Moby Dick, Ahab’s quest for the whale may be mad and “monomaniacal,” as it is frequently called, or even evil so far as he sacrifices his crew and ship to it, but evil or revenge are not the point of the quest. The whale itself may be only a “dumb brute,” as the mate says, and even if it were malignantly determined to kill Ahab, such an attitude, in a whale hunted to the death, would certainly be understandable if it were there. What obsesses Ahab is in a dimension of reality much further down than any whale, in an amoral and alienating world that nothing normal in the human psyche can directly confront. The professed quest is to kill Moby Dick, but as the portents of disaster pile up it becomes clear that a will to identify with (not adjust to) what Conrad calls the destructive element is what is really driving Ahab. Ahab has, Melville says, become a “Prometheus” with a vulture feeding on him. The axis image appears in the maelstrom or descending spiral (“vortex”) of the last few pages, and perhaps in a remark by one of Ahab’s crew: “The skewer seems loosening out of the middle of the world.” But the descent is not purely demonic, or simply destructive: like other creative descents, it is partly a quest for wisdom, however fatal the attaining of such wisdom may be. A relation reminiscent of Lear and the fool develops at the end between Ahab and the little black cabin boy Pip, who has been left so long to swim in the sea that he has gone insane. Of him it is said that he has been “carried down alive to wondrous depths, where strange shapes of the unwarped primal world glided to and fro . . . and the miser-merman, Wisdom, revealed his hoarded heaps.” Moby Dick is as profound a treatment as modern literature affords of the leviathan symbolism of the Bible, the titanic-demonic force that raises Egypt and Babylon to greatness and then hurls them into nothingness; that is both an enemy of God outside the creation, and, as notably in Job, a creature within it of whom God is rather proud. The leviathan is revealed to Job as the ultimate mystery of God’s ways, the “king over all the children of pride” (41:34), of whom Satan himself is merely an instrument. What this power looks like depends on how it is approached. Approached by Conrad’s Kurtz through his Antichrist psychosis, it is an unimaginable horror: but it may also be a source of energy that man can put to his own use. There are naturally considerable risks in trying to do so: risks that Rimbaud spoke of in his celebrated lettre du voyant as a “dérèglement de tous les sens.” The phrase indicates the close connection between the titanic and the demonic that Verlaine expressed in his phrase poète maudit, the attitude of poets who feel, like Ahab, that the right worship of the powers they invoke is defiance.”

“The portraits, of more historical than artistic interest, had gone; and tapestry, full of the blue and bronze of peacocks, fell over the doors, and shut out all history and activity untouched with beauty and peace; and now when I looked at my Crevelli and pondered on the rose in the hand of the Virgin, wherein the form was so delicate and precise that it seemed more like a thought than a flower, or at the grey dawn and rapturous faces of my Francesca, I knew all a Christian's ecstasy without his slavery to rule and custom; when I pondered over the antique bronze gods and goddesses, which I had mortgaged my house to buy, I had all a pagan's delight in various beauty and without his terror at sleepless destiny and his labour with many sacrifices; and I had only to go to my bookshelf, where every book was bound in leather, stamped with intricate ornament, and of a carefully chosen colour: Shakespeare in the orange of the glory of the world, Dante in the dull red of his anger, Milton in the blue grey of his formal calm; and I could experience what I would of human passions without their bitterness and without satiety. I had gathered about me all gods because I believed in none, and experienced every pleasure because I gave myself to none, but held myself apart, individual, indissoluble, a mirror of polished steel: I looked in the triumph of this imagination at the birds of Hera, glowing in the firelight as though they were wrought of jewels; and to my mind, for which symbolism was a necessity, they seemed the doorkeepers of my world, shutting out all that was not of as affluent a beauty as their own; and for a moment I thought as I had thought in so many other moments, that it was possible to rob life of every bitterness except the bitterness of death; and then a thought which had followed this thought, time after time, filled me with a passionate sorrow.”

“I believe in love at first sight, But I also believe in evolution. Love at first sight is real love, but it's an infant love. As love matures, we meet again and again, and discover new parts of our partners for the first time. I'd like to think that Rosalind and Orlando will cycle back to meet each other for the rest of their lives.”

“I have often noticed that we are inclined to endow our friends with the stability of type that literary characters acquire in the reader's mind. No matter how many times we reopen 'King Lear,' never shall we find the good king banging his tankard in high revelry, all woes forgotten, at a jolly reunion with all three daughters and their lapdogs. Never will Emma rally, revived by the sympathetic salts in Flaubert's father's timely tear. Whatever evolution this or that popular character has gone through between the book covers, his fate is fixed in our minds, and, similarly, we expect our friends to follow this or that logical and conventional pattern we have fixed for them.”

“Shrewd Shakespeare understood that the paradox of drama also ticks at the heart of life itself: we can't truly bear, understand or transcend tragedy without humour and we definitely appreciate levity more when unburdened from pitch darkness. Deepest drama often demands a sudden crash of laughter's lightning bolt. Surgically-wielded comic relief, used with acute awareness of audience and moment, doesn't merely lighten a heavy scene; it provides the critical human counterpoint, a vital exhale allowing the audience to bear the weight, and feel it all the more intensely when tension returns, effectively disproving the literally-minded misconception that to laugh at something is to disrespect it or not take it seriously. This profound effect isn't just theatrical technique; it taps into a timeless human impulse—gallows humour, whistling past the graveyard—a deep-seated capacity to find release and digest life's bitterest truths, even in the face of overwhelming gravity.”

“Why should we place Christ at the top and summit of the human race? Was he kinder, more forgiving, more self-sacrificing than Buddha? Was he wiser, did he meet death with more perfect calmness, than Socrates? Was he more patient, more charitable, than Epictetus? Was he a greater philosopher, a deeper thinker, than Epicurus? In what respect was he the superior of Zoroaster? Was he gentler than Lao-tsze, more universal than Confucius? Were his ideas of human rights and duties superior to those of Zeno? Did he express grander truths than Cicero? Was his mind subtler than Spinoza’s? Was his brain equal to Kepler’s or Newton’s? Was he grander in death – a sublimer martyr than Bruno? Was he in intelligence, in the force and beauty of expression, in breadth and scope of thought, in wealth of illustration, in aptness of comparison, in knowledge of the human brain and heart, of all passions, hopes and fears, the equal of Shakespeare, the greatest of the human race?”

“He folds the board and says “It’s because violent desires have violent ends. “ “Quoting Shakespeare, my dear. That’s sounds more like me. “ “Yet most of us will eventually end up like his characters, won’t we? What’s more dangerous is we act upon those desires with the clear mind the outcome will be disastrous.” I smile sadly at him and at the reality of his words.”

“Not for Fun, Why so Hilarious? [Part 3] If someone wants you to be bad, you have every right to make him feel bad; If someone wants you to bend, you have every right to make him to take you a bow; If someone wants to lock you, you have every right to keep his key with you; If someone wants to shout at you, you have every right to slip your tongue with him; If someone wants to disbelief you, you have every right to cheat him; If someone wants to blop you, you have every right to make him clap for you; If someone wants to know your potent, you have every right to make him impotent; If someone wants to slap you, you have every right to make his mind block; If someone wants to make you weak, you have every right to pull him down; If someone wants to point at you, you have every right to cut his tail; If someone wants to define you, you have every right to refine him; If someone wants to enmity you, you have every right to make him die for you; If someone wants to threaten you, you have every right to disclose his secrets; If someone wants to play with your bad time, you have every right to make him as your comedy time; If someone wants to scold you, you have every right to talk with him in your mother slang; If someone wants to see your downfall, you have every right to fuck him off; If someone wants to kill you, you have every right to fix his funeral; Afterall, our life is full of air with a body full of hair …. !!! ‘Indian Shakespeare”

“Not for Fun, Why so Hilarious? [Part 1] If someone wants to shut your mouth, you have every right to show him your middle finger; If someone wants to rag you, you have every right to show him your rage; If someone wants to spy you, you have every right to hack him; If someone wants to fake you, you have every right to flirt with him; If someone wants to rank you, you have every right to prank him; If someone wants to question you, you have every right to irritate him with your answers; If someone wants to know your value, you have every right to reveal his worth; If someone wants to call you a psycho, you have every right to shock him with your treatment; If someone wants to test you, you have every right to prepare him for your exam; If someone wants to spoil you, you have every right to damage him; If someone wants to stop you, you have every right to hit him; If someone wants to flop you, you have every right to spoof him; If someone wants to touch you, you have every right to hunt him; If someone wants to bar you, you have every right to crush him; If someone wants you to beg, you have every right to toss him; If someone wants you to wait, you have every right to waste his time; If someone wants you to be silent, you have every right to test his patience; ‘Indian Shakespeare”

“Not for Fun, Why so Hilarious? [Part 2] If someone wants to shut your mouth, you have every right to show him your middle finger; If someone wants to rag you, you have every right to show him your rage; If someone wants to spy you, you have every right to hack him; If someone wants to fake you, you have every right to flirt with him; If someone wants to rank you, you have every right to prank him; If someone wants to question you, you have every right to irritate him with your answers; If someone wants to know your value, you have every right to reveal his worth; If someone wants to call you a psycho, you have every right to shock him with your treatment; If someone wants to test you, you have every right to prepare him for your exam; If someone wants to spoil you, you have every right to damage him; If someone wants to stop you, you have every right to hit him; If someone wants to flop you, you have every right to spoof him; If someone wants to touch you, you have every right to hunt him; If someone wants to bar you, you have every right to crush him; If someone wants you to beg, you have every right to toss him; If someone wants you to wait, you have every right to waste his time; If someone wants you to be silent, you have every right to test his patience; ‘Indian Shakespeare”

“Not for Fun, Why so Hilarious? [Part 2] If someone wants to laugh at you, you have every right to make fun of him; If someone wants to act with you, you have every right to play with his emotions; If someone wants to irritate you, you have every right to stress him; If someone wants to hate you, you have every right to date him; If someone wants to reject you, you have every right to make him hopeless; If someone wants to blackmail you, you have every right to piss him off; If someone wants to order you, you have every right to be disobedient to him; If someone wants to be hot with you, you have every right to boil him; If someone wants to fade you, you have every right to make him know his fate; If someone wants to betray you, you have every right to ill-treat him; If someone wants to crime you, you have every right to punish him; If someone wants to destroy you, you have every right to fight him; If someone wants to tease you, you have every right to make him know your punch; If someone wants to kick you, you have every right to make him kick your goal; If someone wants to hang you, you have every right to make him your bottleneck; If someone wants to show you his anger, you have every right to make him know your temperament; If someone wants you to be his slave, you have every right to make him serve you; ‘Indian Shakespeare”

“How stand I, then, That have a father killed, a mother stained, Excitements of my reason and my blood, And let all sleep, while to my shame I see The imminent death of twenty thousand men That for a fantasy and trick of fame Go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause, Which is not tomb enough and continent To hide the slain? O, from this time forth My thoughts be bloody or be nothing worth! He exits.”