The Personal Website of Mark W. Dawson

Famous Shakespeare Quotes of Wisdom

As the most quoted English writer, Shakespeare created more than his fair share of famous quotes.  We often talk about Shakespeare’s quotes as things the wise Bard is saying to us, but we should remember that some of his wisest words are spoken by his biggest fools. For example, both “neither a borrower nor a lender be,’ and “to thine own self be true’ are from the foolish, garrulous and quite disreputable Polonius in Hamlet.The following quotes are my most favorite quotes of wisdom by Shakespeare:

“A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!“
    - Shakespeare,Richard III, Act 5, Scene 4

“A man can die but once.”
    - Shakespeare,Henry IV, Part 2, Act 3, Part 2

“All that glisters is not gold.“
    - Shakespeare,The Merchant of Venice, Act 2, Scene 7

“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts.”
    - Shakespeare,As You Like It, Act 2, Scene 7

“Beware the Ides of March.“
    - Shakespeare,Julius Caesar, Act 1, Scene 2

“Brevity is the soul of wit.“
    - Shakespeare,Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2

“But, for my own part, it was Greek to me.”
    - Shakespeare,Julius Caesar, Act 1, Scene 2

“Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once.”
    - Shakespeare,Julius Caesar, Act 2, Scene 2

“Cry “havoc!” and let slip the dogs of war“
    - Shakespeare,Julius Caesar, Act 3, Scene 1

“Et tu, Brute?“
    - Shakespeare,Julius Caesar, Act 3, Scene 1

“Frailty, thy name is woman.”
    - Shakespeare,Hamlet Act 1, Scene 2

“Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears: I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.”
    - Shakespeare,Julius Caesar, Act 3, Scene 2

“Full fathom five thy father lies, of his bones are coral made. Those are pearls that were his eyes. Nothing of him that doth fade, but doth suffer a sea-change into something rich and strange.”
    - Shakespeare,The Tempest, Act 1, Scene 2

“Get thee to a nunnery.“
    - Shakespeare,Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 1

“How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child!”
    - Shakespeare,King Lear, Act 1, Scene 4

“I am a man more sinned against than sinning.”
    - Shakespeare,King Lear, Act 3, Scene 2

“I am one who loved not wisely but too well.”
    - Shakespeare,Othello, Act 5, Scene 2

“I cannot tell what the dickens his name is.”
    - Shakespeare,The Merry Wives of Windsor, Act 3, Scene 2

“If music be the food of love play on.“
    - Shakespeare,Twelfth Night, Act 1, Scene 1

“If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?”
    - Shakespeare,The Merchant of Venice, Act 3, Scene 1

“Is this a dagger which I see before me, the handle toward my hand?’
    - Shakespeare,Macbeth, Act 2, Scene 1

“It is a tale, told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
    - Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act 5, scene 5

“Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments.”
    - Shakespeare,Sonnet 116

“Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more; it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
    - Shakespeare,Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 5

“Lord, what fools these mortals be!”
    - Shakespeare,A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 1, Scene 1

“Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind; and therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.”
    - Shakespeare,A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 1, Scene 1

“Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.”
    - Shakespeare,The Tempest, Act 2, Scene 2

“Neither a borrower nor a lender be; for loan oft loses both itself and friend, and borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.”
    - Shakespeare,Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 3

“Nothing will come of nothing.”
    - Shakespeare,King Lear, Act 1, Scene 1

“Now is the winter of our discontent’
    - Shakespeare,Richard III, Act 1, Scene 1

“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate.”
    - Shakespeare,Sonnet 18

“Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.”
    - Shakespeare,Twelfth Night, Act 2, Scene 5

“Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps.”
    - Shakespeare,Much Ado About Nothing, Act 3, Scene 1

"Something is rotten in the state of Denmark."
    - Shakespeare, Hamlet Act I, Scene 4

“The better part of valor is discretion“
    - Shakespeare,Henry IV, Part 1, Act 5, Scene 4

“The course of true love never did run smooth.”
    - Shakespeare,A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 1, Scene 1

“The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interrèd with their bones.”
    - Shakespeare,Julius Caesar, Act 3, Scene 2

“The fault, dear Brutus, lies not within the stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.”
    - Shakespeare,Julius Caesar, Act 1, Scene 2

“The lady doth protest too much, methinks“
    - Shakespeare,Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 2

“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
    - Shakespeare,Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 5

“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”
    - Shakespeare,Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2

“This is very midsummer madness.”
    - Shakespeare,Twelfth Night, Act 3, Scene 4

“This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle… This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.”
    - Shakespeare,Richard II, Act 2, Scene 1

“To be, or not to be: that is the question’
    - Shakespeare,Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 1

“To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.”
    - Shakespeare,Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 3

“Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.“
    - Shakespeare,Henry IV, Part 2, Act 3, Scene 1

“We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep.”
    - Shakespeare,The Tempest, Act 4, Scene 1

“We have seen better days.”
    - Shakespeare,Timon of Athens, Act 4, Scene 2

“We know what we are, but know not what we may be.”
    - Shakespeare,Hamlet, Act 4, Scene 5

“What light through yonder window breaks.”
    - Shakespeare,Romeo and Juliet, Act 2, Scene 2

“What’s in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”
    - Shakespeare,Romeo and Juliet, Act 2, Scene 2

What do you think – any famous Shakespeare Quotes of Wisdom missing from the above list? If so, email me your favorite William Shakespeare Quotes of Wisdom.