William Shakespeare’s plays and poems place memorable language inside dramatic voices. A character’s words are not automatically Shakespeare’s personal advice; collection notes preserve the speaker, play, act and scene whenever that context matters.
Quotations are checked against Folger Shakespeare Library texts and linked to the relevant scene. Modern adaptations and screen dialogue are excluded.
Verified quotations
“This above all: to thine own self be true.”Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 3 · View source
“Sweet are the uses of adversity.”As You Like It, Act 2, Scene 1 · View source
“Kindness, nobler ever than revenge.”As You Like It, Act 4, Scene 3 · View source
“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.”As You Like It, Act 2, Scene 7 · View source
“I can no other answer make but thanks, and thanks, and ever thanks.”Twelfth Night, Act 3, Scene 3 · View source
“We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.”Henry V, Act 4, Scene 3 · View source
“One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.”Troilus and Cressida, Act 3, Scene 3 · View source
“Our doubts are traitors, and makes us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt.”Measure for Measure, Act 1, Scene 4 · View source
“Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds.”Shakespeare’s Sonnets, Sonnet 116 · View source
“With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come.”The Merchant of Venice, Act 1, Scene 1 · View source
“My bounty is as boundless as the sea, my love as deep.”Romeo and Juliet, Act 2, Scene 2 · View source
“Doubt truth to be a liar, but never doubt I love.”Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2 · View source
“Journeys end in lovers meeting.”Twelfth Night, Act 2, Scene 3 · View source
“I do love nothing in the world so well as you. Is not that strange?”Much Ado About Nothing, Act 4, Scene 1 · View source
“Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more.”Henry V, Act 3, Scene 1 · View source
“The quality of mercy is not strained.”The Merchant of Venice, Act 4, Scene 1 · View source
“Lord, we know what we are but know not what we may be.”Hamlet, Act 4, Scene 5 · View source
“So shines a good deed in a naughty world.”The Merchant of Venice, Act 5, Scene 1 · View source
“Self-love, my liege, is not so vile a sin as self-neglecting.”Henry V, Act 2, Scene 4 · View source
“I would not wish any companion in the world but you.”The Tempest, Act 3, Scene 1 · View source
“No legacy is so rich as honesty.”All’s Well That Ends Well, Act 3, Scene 5 · View source