What are some of your favorite Shakespeare quotes?

"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?" Merchant of Venice

O, for a muse of fire

I'm a big fan of this one. It's the opening line of Henry V and is the Chorus searching for the right words to describe the story that is about to unfold.

I find it's useful when events or sights are so wondrous that they're hard to describe.

Lear's venting in the storm:

Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!

You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout

Till you have drenched our steeples, drowned the birds!*

You sulphurous and thought-executing fires,

Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts,

Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder,

Smite flat the thick rotundity o' the world!

Crack nature's moulds, all germens spill at once,

That make ingrateful man!

Or, the old standby, Macbeth's resignation to damnation:

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,

To the last syllable of recorded time;

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!

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.

* Apparently Yahoo! thinks the 'c' word for 'rooster' is naughty, so I have substituted "birds".

If song be the food of love, play on. i'm guessing that's from the 12th night? i've got examine too many performs. My bounty is as boundless because of the fact the sea, My love as deep; the greater I supply to thee, The greater I actual have, for the two are infinite. - Romeo and Juliet, that quote is basically too romantic, haha.

"Et tu, Brute?"

This means betrayal by a close friend.

This scene, in which the conspirators in the Senate assassinate Caesar, is one of the most dramatic moments on the Shakespearean stage. I attended this play last week and totally moved by it.

Et tu Brute?

i am not a big shakespeare reader, so i know very few quotes of his. this particular 1-liner is used by many in our college and at home.. to tell sum one "oh, so u too hav cheated me".. usually its said in a light manner.. not in serious situations i mean

this quote appears in Julius Caesar..when hes murdered by Brutus... caesar asks unbelievingly.. "u too , brutus?"

Sonnet 29

When in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes,

I all alone beweep my outcast state,

And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,

And look upon myself, and curse my fate,

Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,

Featur'd like him, like him with friends possess'd,

Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,

With what I most enjoy contented least;

Yet in these thoughts myself most despising,

Haply I think on thee, and then my state,

Like to the lark at break of day arising

From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;

For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings

That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

I know you requested no entire sonnets, but I couldn't bare to cut it, and one could argue it is only one sentence. ; )

I love the way envy and self-pity are portrayed with such economy, but at the same time, such depth. And how in the end, amor vincit omnia.

"Holla, Clown!"

"Peace, fool; he's not thy kinsman."

From As you Like It.

The AP English class after mine put that on the back of shirts that said "Shakepseare was Ghetto". I just find it utterly hillarious.

False face must hide what the false heart doth know.

Macbeth, 1. 7

Is this perceptive or what?

"O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo"

Act II scene 2

To thine own self be true. That is the secret to life, MacBeth!