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Overview
Have you ever wanted to quote the most quoted writer in the English language? Deliver the most inventive and debasing Shakespearean insult (“Would thou wert clean enough to spit upon!”)? Recite titillating love poetry like a modern-day Romeo to his (or her) Juliet? Or commit a learned wisdom about life’s woes to memory? The Smart Words and Wicked Wit of William Shakespeare is the perfect pocket book to carry around in your arsenal. Laugh, cry, rage, and muse along with beloved (or not so beloved) Shakespeare characters like Hamlet, Lady Macbeth, King Lear, and Cleopatra on the topics of love, art, beauty—as well as life’s most irreverently relevant insights.
Full of savvy wisdoms from works such as Twelfth Night, Othello, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, As You Like It, and many others, this inspiring collection compiles the wisest and wittiest Shakespearean quotations that speak of the writer’s enduring legacy—even in contemporary pop culture.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781510747005 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Skyhorse Publishing |
| Publication date: | 01/25/2019 |
| Pages: | 160 |
| Sales rank: | 432,603 |
| Product dimensions: | 4.30(w) x 6.50(h) x 1.00(d) |
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Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
LOVE'S LIGHT WINGS
Doubt thou the stars are fire; Doubt that the sun doth move; Doubt truth to be a liar; But never doubt I love.
POLONIUS, READING HAMLET'S LETTER TO OPHELIA, HAMLET
* * *
Love is a spirit all compact of fire.
VENUS AND ADONIS
* * *
With love's light wings did I o'er-perch these walls; For stony limits cannot hold love out.
ROMEO, ROMEO AND JULIET
Whoever loved that loved not at first sight.
PHEBE. AS YOU LIKE IT
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
SONNET 18
* * *
Eternity was in our lips and eyes.
CLEOPATRA, ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA
* * *
But soft, what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.
ROMEO, ROMEO AND JULIET
All days are nights to see, till I see thee, And nights, bright days, when dreams do Show thee me.
SONNET 43
Good night, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow That I shall say good night till it be morrow.
JULIET, ROMEO AND JULIET
* * *
Men have died from time to time, and worms have eaten them, but not for love.
ROSALIND, AS YOU LIKE IT
* * *
Love comforteth, like sunshine after rain.
VENUS AND ADONIS
See, how she leans her cheek upon her hand! O, that I were a glove upon that hand. That I might touch that cheek!
ROMEO, ROMEO AND JULIET
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
SONNET 116
* * *
Love sought is good, but given unsought is better.
OLIVIA, TWELFTH NIGHT
* * *
Not marble, nor the gilded monuments Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme; But you shall shine more bright in these contents.
SONNET 55
Love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs;Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes.
ROMEO, ROMEO AND JULIET
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.
JULIET, ROMEO AND JULIET
* * *
The sight of lovers feedeth those in love.
ROSALIND, AS YOU LIKE IT
* * *
And when love speaks, the voice of all the gods Makes heaven drowsy with the harmony.
BIRON, LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST
One half of me is yours, the other half yours, Mine own, I would say; but if mine, then yours, And so all yours.
PORTIA, THE MERCHANT OF VENICE
O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright.
ROMEO, ROMEO AND JULIET
* * *
This is the very ecstasy of love, Whose violent property fordoes itself, And leads the will to desperate undertakings.
POLONIUS, HAMLET
* * *
Love is not love, Which alters when it alteration finds.
SONNET 116
You have witchcraft in your lips.
KING HENRY, THE LIFE OF KING HENRY V
So, till the judgement that yourself arise, You live in this, and dwell in lovers' eyes.
SONNET 55
* * *
The course of true love never did run smooth.
LYSANDER, A MIDSUMMER NIGHTS DREAM
* * *
But here's the joy; my friend and I are one; Sweet flattery! Then she loves but me alone.
CHAPTER 2FORTUNE'S WHEEL
Now is the visnel of our discontent Made glorious summer by this son of York; And all the clouds that loured upon our house In the deep bosom of the ocean buried
RICHARD, DUKE OF GLUOCESTER. THE TRAGEDY OF KING RICHARD III
There is seen the baby figure of the giant mass Of things to come.
NESTOR, TROILUS AND CRESSIDA
* * *
Thy end is truth's and beauty's doom and date.
SONNET 14
* * *
My fate cries out, And makes each petty artery in this body As hardy as the Nemean lion's nerve.
HAMLET, HAMLET
Giddy Fortune's furious fickle wheel, That goddess blind, That stands upon the rolling restless stone.
PISTOL, THE LIFE OF KING HENRY V
O, I am fortune's fool!
ROMEO, ROMEO AND JULIET
* * *
Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie, Which we ascribe to heaven: the fated sky.
HELENA, ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL
* * *
If it be now, 'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come: the readiness is all.
HAMLET, HAMLET
What's past is prologue; what to come, In yours and my discharge.
ANTONIA, THE TEMPEST
When Fortune means to men most good, She looks upon them with a threatening eye.
CARDINAL PANDULPH, THE LIFE AND DEATH OF KING JOHN
* * *
If chance will have me king, why, Chance may crown me.
MACBETH, MACBETH
* * *
Fortune brings in some boats, that are not steer'd.
PISANIO, CYMBELINE
O God! That one might read the book of fate, And see the revolution of the times.
KING HENRY, THE SECOND PART OF KING HENRY IV
Men at some time are masters of their fates: The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves, that we are underlings.
CASSIUS, JULIUS CAESAR
* * *
What fates impose, that men must needs abide; It boots not to resist both wind and tide.
KING EDWARD, THE THIRD PART OF KING HENRY VI
* * *
The stars above us govern our conditions.
EARL OF KENT, KING LEAR
If you can look into the seeds of time, And say which grain will grow, and which will not, Speak then to me
BANQUO, MACBETH
There's a divinity that shapes our ends, Rough-hew them how we will.
HAMLET, HAMLET
* * *
Think you, I bear the shears of destiny? Have I commandment on the pulse of life?
KING JOHN, THE LIFE AND DEATH OF KING JOHN
* * *
Out, out, thou strumpet, Fortune! All you gods, In general synod take away her power.
FIRST PLAYER, HAMLET
As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods; They kill us for their sport.
EARL OF GLOUCESTER, KING LEAR
CHAPTER 3GO WISELY AND SLOW
When sorrows come, they come not single spies, But in battalions.
CLAUDIUS, HAMLET
* * *
Blow, blow, thou winter wind, Thou art not so unkind As man's ingratitude.
AMIENS, AS YOU LIKE IT
* * *
Our doubts are traitors, And make us lose the good we oft might win By fearing to attempt.
LUCIO, MEASURE FOR MEASURE
The better part of valour is discretion
FALSTAFF, THE FIRST PART OF KING HENRY IV
The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.
TOUCHSTONE, AS YOU LIKE IT
* * *
My salad days, When I was green in judgement, cold in blood, To say as I said then.
CLEOPATRA, ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA
* * *
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?
SHYLOCK, THE MERCHANT OF VENICE
Ignorance is the curse of God, Knowledge the wing wherewith we fly to heaven.
SAY, THE SECOND PART OF KING HENRY VI
Wisely and slow, they stumble that run fast.
FRIAR LAWRENCE, ROMEO AND JULIET
* * *
Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice.
POLONIUS, HAMLET
* * *
It is a wise father, that knows his own child.
LAUNCELOT GOBBO, THE MERCHANT OF VENICE
The common curse of mankind, folly and ignorance.
THERSITES, TROILUS AND CRESSIDA
Nothing will come of nothing.
KING LEAR, KING LEAR
* * *
Tempt not a desperate man.
ROMEO, ROMEO AND JULIET
* * *
Words, without thoughts, never to heaven go.
CLAUDIUS, HAMLET
Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind.
RICHARD, DUKE OF GLOUCESTER, THE THIRD PART OF KING HENRY VI
Things without all remedy Should be without regard; what's done is done.
LADY MACBETH, MACBETH
* * *
Action is eloquence.
VOLUMNIA, CORIOLANUS
* * *
Live a little; comfort a little; cheer thyself a little.
ORLANDO, AS YOU LIKE IT
CHAPTER 4GET THEE A WIFE OR HUSBAND
Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments.
SONNET 116
* * *
Rosalind: Now tell me, how long you would have her after you have possessed her.
Orlando: For ever and a day.
AS YOU LIKE IT
* * *
Who wooed in haste and means to wed at leisure.
KATHERINA, THE TAMING OF THE SHREW
Marriage is a matter of more worth Than to be dealt in by attorneyship.
EARL OF SUFFOLK, THE FIRST PART OF KING HENRY VI
If men could be contented to be what they are, there were no fear in marriage.
CLOWN, ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL
* * *
Men are April when they woo, December when they wed.
ROSALIND, AS YOU LIKE IT
* * *
The fittest time to corrupt a man's wife is when she's fallen out with her husband.
ROMAN, CORIOLANUS
A young man married is a man that's marr'd.
PAROLLES, ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL
Thou art sad; get thee a wife, get thee a wife.
BENEDICK TO DON PEDRO, MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING
* * *
O, curse of marriage!
That we can call these delicate creatures ours, And not their appetites!
OTHELLO, OTHELLO
* * *
What's mine is yours, and what is yours is mine.
VINCENTIO, MEASURE FOR MEASURE
Yet hasty marriage seldom proveth well.
RICHARD, DUKE OF GLOUCESTER, THE THIRD PART OF KING HENRY VI
For what is wedlock forced but a hell.
EARL OF SUFFOLK, THE FIRST PART OF KING HENRY VI
* * *
Get thee a good husband, and use him as he uses thee.
PAROLLES, ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL
* * *
They shall be married tomorrow, and I will bid the duke to the nuptial. But, O, how bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man's eyes!
ORLANDO, AS YOU LIKE IT
Many a good hanging prevents a bad marriage.
FESTE, TWELFTH NIGHT
What should such a fool Do with so good a wife?
EMILIA, OTHELLO
* * *
Wife and child, Those precious motives, those strong knots of love.
MALCOLM, MACBETH
* * *
And kiss me, Kate, we will be married o' Sunday.
PETRUCHIO, THE TAMING OF THE SHREW
CHAPTER 5TH' ABUSE OF GREATNESS
Therefore doth heaven divide The state of man in divers functions.
ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY, THE LIFE OF KING HENRY V
* * *
The smallest worm will turn, being trodden on.
CLIFFORD, THE THIRD PART OF KING HENRY VI
* * *
Power into will, will into appetite.
ULYSSES, TROILUS AND CRESSIDA
Man, proud man, Drest in a litte brief authority Most ignorant of wvhat he's most assured.
ISABELLA, MEASURE FOR MEASURE
King Lear: Thou hast seen a farmer's dog bark at a beggar?
Earl of Gloucester: Ay, sir.
King Lear: And the creature run from the cur? There thou might'st behold the great image of authority: a dog's obeyed in office.
KING LEAR
* * *
And though authority be a stubborn bear, yet he is oft led by the nose with gold.
CLOWN, THE WINTER'S TALE
* * *
There is no fettering of authority.
PAROLLES, ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL
Thus can the demigod AuthorityMake us pay down for our offence by weight.
CLAUDIO, MEASURE FOR MEASURE
And, by his light, Did all the chivalry of England move To do brave acts.
LADY PERCY, THE SECOND PART OF KING HENRY IV
* * *
Reputation, reputation, reputation! O, I have lost my reputation! I have lost the immortal part of myself.
CASSIO, OTHELLO
* * *
In the corrupted currents of this world Offence's gilded hand may shove by justice.
CLAUDIUS, HAMLET
Bell, book and candle shall not drive be back, When gold and silver becks me to tome on.
PHILIP FAULCONBRIDGE, THE LIFE AND DEATH OF KING JOHN
Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.
MALVOLIO, TWELFTH NIGHT
* * *
The heavens themselves, the planets and this centre Observe degree, priority and place.
ULYSSES, TROILUS AND CRESSIDA
* * *
Th' abuse of greatness is when it disjoins Remorse from power.
BRUTUS, JULIUS CAESAR
Nay, had I power, I should Pour the sweet milk of concord into hell, Uproar the universal peace, confound All unity on earth.
MALCOLM, MACBETH
Service is no heritage.
CLOWN, ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL
* * *
'Tis time to fear when tyrants seem to kiss.
PERICLES, PERICLES
* * *
There's place, and means, for every man alive.
PAROLLES, ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL
CHAPTER 6TIME,THAT OLD ARIBTRATOR
Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once.
CAESAR, JULIUS CAESAR
* * *
To weep is to make less the depth of grief.
RICHARD, DUKE OF GLOUCESTER, THE THIRD PART OF KING HENRY VI
* * *
When we are born, we cry that we are come To this great stage of fools.
KING LEAR, KING LEAR
Good wombs have Borne bad sons.
MIRANDA, THE TEMPEST
To die, to sleep To sleep, perchance to dream.
HAMLET, HAMLET
* * *
Here's the smell of blood still: all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.
LADY MACBETH, MACBETH
* * *
The miserable have no other medicine, But only hope.
CLAUDIO, MEASURE FOR MEASURE
Defer no time, delays have dangerous ends.
DUKE OF ALENÇON, THE FIRST PART OF KING HENRY VI
Now cracks a noble heart. Goodnight sweet prince; And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.
HORATIO, HAMLET
* * *
'Tis a vile thing to die, my gracious lord, When men are unprepared and look not for it.
WILLIAM CATESBY, THE TRAGEDY OF KING RICHARD III
* * *
The end crowns all; And that old common arbitrator, time, Will one day end it.
HECTOR, TROILUS AND CRESSIDA
Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more.
MACBETH, MACBETH
This youth that you see here, I snatched one-half out of the jaws of death.
ANTONIO, TWELFTH NIGHT
* * *
Nothing in his life Became him, like the leaving it.
MALCOLM ON CAWDOR, MACBETH
* * *
When it pleaseth their deities to take the wife of a man from him, it shows to man the tailors of the earth; comforting therein, that when old robes are worn out, there are members to make new.
ENOBARBUS, ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA
Is this a dagger which I see before me, The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee.
MACBETH, MACBETH
What's gone and what's past help Should be past grief.
PAULINA, THE WINTER'S TALE
* * *
He that dies pays all debts.
STEPHANO, THE TEMPEST
* * *
How oft when men are at the point of death Have they been merry! Which their keepers call A lightning before death.
ROMEO, ROMEO AND JULIET
A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king; and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm.
HAMLET, HAMLET
CHAPTER 7WE, ARRANT KNAVES
But, if it be a sin to covet honour, I am the most offending soul alive.
KING HENRY, THE LIFE OF KING HENRY V
* * *
To thine own self be true.
POLONIUS, HAMLET
* * *
He will give the devil his due.
PRINCE HENRY, THE FIRST PART OF KING HENRY IV
Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more.
BRUTUS, JULIUS CAESAR
No legacy is so rich as honesty.
MARIANA, ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL
* * *
The quality of mercy is not strain'd; It droppeth, as the gentle rain from heaven.
PORTIA, THE MERCHANT OF VENICE
* * *
Nothing comes amiss, so money comes withal.
GRUMIO, THE TAMING OF THE SHREW
I would give all my fame for a pot of ale and safety.
BOY, THE LIFE OF KING HENRY V
Love all, trust a few, Do wrong to none.
COUNTESS OF ROUSILLON, ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL
* * *
Is it a world to hide virtues in?
SIR TOBY BELCH, TWELFTH NIGHT
* * *
The tempter, or the tempted, who sins most?
ANGELO, MEASURE FOR MEASURE
I must be cruel, only to be kind.
HAMLET, HAMLET
I have forgiven and forgotten all.
KING OF FRANCE, ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL
* * *
Pardon's the word to all.
CYMBELINE, CYMBELINE
* * *
They say, best men are moulded out of faults, And, for the most, become much more the better For being a little bad.
MARIANA, MEASURE FOR MEASURE
Do as adversaries do in law, Strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends.
TRANIO, THE TAMING OF THE SHREW
Here's a fish hangs in the net, like a poor man's right in the law; 'twill hardly come out.
SECOND FISHERMAN, PERICLES
* * *
Striving to better, oft we mar what's well.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "The Smart Words and Wicked Wit of William Shakespeare"
by .
Copyright © 2017 Summersdale Publishers Ltd.
Excerpted by permission of Skyhorse Publishing.
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Table of Contents
Love's Light Wings,
Fortune's Wheel,
Go Wisely and Slow,
Get Thee a Wife or Husband,
Th' Abuse of Greatness,
Time, That Old Arbitrator,
We, Arrant Knaves,
Base Insults,
There's Beggary in Love,
Hollowed Eyes and Wrinkled Brows,
Play On,
Speaking Daggers,
A Touch of Nature,
Witty Fools and Foolish Wit,
