150+ Greatest Shakespeare Quotes: Timeless, Romantic, Witty & Inspirational Lines from the Bard

William Shakespeare remains one of history’s most celebrated writers. His words have shaped literature, theater, and everyday language for over 400 years. From Hamlet’s existential questioning to Romeo and Juliet’s passionate declarations, these timeless lines continue to inspire millions worldwide.

Whether you need romantic Shakespeare quotes for a special someone or inspirational words for motivation, this collection has you covered. We’ve gathered the best Shakespeare quotes from his most famous plays including Macbeth, Othello, Julius Caesar, The Tempest, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. These meaningful and deep Shakespeare quotes explore themes of love, life, ambition, jealousy, wisdom, truth, time, and fate.

Best Shakespeare Quotes for Students, Teachers and Adults

These classic Shakespeare quotes offer wisdom perfect for learning and personal growth.

• Be not afraid of greatness. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them.
• We know what we are, but know not what we may be.
• Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt.
• Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice.
• Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.
• How poor are they that have not patience! What wound did ever heal but by degrees?
• Nothing can come of nothing.
• How far that little candle throws its beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world.
• What’s done cannot be undone.
• Though she be but little, she is fierce.
• No legacy is so rich as honesty.
• This above all; to thine own self be true.
• I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.
• The robbed that smiles, steals something from the thief.
• The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.
• One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.
• What is past is prologue.
• Small cheer and great welcome makes a merry feast.
• Sweet mercy is nobility’s true badge.
• Modest doubt is called the beacon of the wise.

Shakespeare Quotes About Life and Success

The Bard of Avon understood human ambition and the pursuit of success deeply. These well-known lines reflect his observations on fate, time, and the human condition.

• It is not enough to help the feeble up, but to support them after.
• Neither a borrower nor a lender be.
• Ambition should be made of sterner stuff.
• I bear a charmed life.
• Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot that it do singe yourself.
• Talking is not doing. It is a kind of good deed to say well; and yet words are not deeds.
• In time, we hate that which we often fear.
• With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come.
• Boldness be my friend.
• Words without thoughts never to heaven go.
• Wisely, and slow. They stumble that run fast.
• Pleasure and action make the hours seem short.
• When words are scarce, they are seldom spent in vain.
• Such as we are made of, such we be.
• And oftentimes excusing of a fault doth make the fault the worse by the excuse.
• Reputation is an idle and most false imposition; oft got without merit, and lost without deserving.
• To be or not to be, that is the question.
• 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.
• All that glisters is not gold.
• Words are easy, like the wind; faithful friends are hard to find.
• The fault is not in our stars, but in ourselves.
• And this, our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones and good in everything.
• Expectation is the root of all heartache.
• I like this place and could willingly waste my time in it.
• Better three hours too soon than a minute too late.
• Life is 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.
• My tongue will tell the anger of my heart, or else my heart concealing it will break.
• Brevity is the soul of wit.
• Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak knits up o-er wrought heart and bids it break.
• Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under it.
• One may smile, and smile, be a villain.
• Conscience doth make cowards of us all.
• Let me be that I am and seek not to alter me.
• Et tu, Brute?
• O, beware, my lord, of jealousy; it is the green-eyed monster, which doth mock the meat it feeds on.
• If we are true to ourselves, we can not be false to anyone.
• Be great in act, as you have been in thought.
• Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind.
• All things are ready, if our mind be so.
• Many a true word hath been spoken in jest.
• For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds; lillies that fester smell far worse than weeds.
• The Devil hath power to assume a pleasing shape.
• Thought is free.
• April hath put a spirit of youth in everything.
• Summer’s lease hath all too short a date.
• Our bodies are our gardens to the which our wills are gardeners.
• The tempter or the tempted, who sins most?
• Men should be what they seem.
• He jests at scars that never felt a wound.

Famous William Shakespeare Quotes About Love and Romance

Shakespeare love quotes capture the beauty and complexity of romance. From Romeo and Juliet to Sonnet 18, these romantic Shakespeare quotes express the deepest emotions of the heart.

• I would not wish any companion in the world but you.
• Self-love, my liege, is not so vile a sin, as self-neglecting.
• Doubt thou the stars are fire, doubt that the sun doth move. Doubt truth to be a liar, but never doubt I love.
• I am one who loved not wisely but too well.
• A young woman in love always looks like patience on a monument smiling at grief.
• 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.
• They do not love that do not show their love.
• I love you with so much of my heart that none is left to protest.
• Love is heavy and light, bright and dark, hot and cold, sick and healthy, asleep and awake.
• Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
• Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.
• Kindness in women, not their beauteous looks, shall win my love.
• Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, and therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.
• Do not swear by the moon, for she changes constantly. Then your love would also change.
• If music be the food of love, play on.
• Love is too young to know what conscience is.
• Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight! For I never saw true beauty till this night.
• Do not waste your love on somebody who does not value it.
• And yet, to say the truth, reason and love keep little company together nowadays.
• Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs.
• Go to your bosom: Knock there, and ask your heart what it doth know.
• In black ink my love may still shine bright.
• Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, but bears it out even to the edge of doom.
• See how she leans her cheek upon her hand. O, that I were a glove upon that hand that I might touch that cheek!
• The course of true love never did run smooth.
• Love sought is good, but given unsought, is better.
• For which of my bad parts didst thou first fall in love with me?
• Speak low, if you speak love.
• Love comforteth like sunshine after rain.
• Good night, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say good night till it be morrow.
• So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, so long lives this and this gives life to thee.
• For you, in my respect, are all the world.
• Love is merely a madness.
• Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds.

Funny and Witty Shakespeare Quotes

The Bard had a sharp sense of humor. These funny Shakespeare quotes showcase his wit and clever observations about human nature.

• How art thou out of breath when thou hast breath to say to me that thou art out of breath?
• I wish my horse had the speed of your tongue.
• Do you not know I am a woman? When I think, I must speak.
• I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me.
• I can see that he’s not in your good books. No, and if he were, I would burn my library.
• God has given you one face, and you make yourself another.
• Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.
• He that loves to be flattered is worthy of the flatterer.
• Life is as tedious as twice-told tale, vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man.
• Maids want nothing but husbands, and when they have them, they want everything.
• O thou invisible spirit of wine, if thou hast no name to be known by, let us call thee devil.
• Lord, what fools these mortals be!
• I will praise any man that will praise me.
• My pride fell with my fortunes.
• Better a witty fool than a foolish wit.
• Is it not strange that desire should so many years outlive performance?
• I dote on his very absence.
• There’s many a man has more hair than wit.
• Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once.
• A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool.
• I am not bound to please thee with my answer.
• I do desire we may be better strangers.
• Thine face is not worth sunburning.
• I am sick when I do look on thee.

Shakespeare Quotes About Friendship and Loyalty

Friendship plays a vital role in William Shakespeare works. These quotes explore the bonds between friends and the value of true companionship.

• A friend is one that knows you as you are, understands where you have been, accepts what you have become, and still gently allows you to grow.
• Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel.
• Words are easy, like the wind; faithful friends are hard to find.
• Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.
• I count myself in nothing else so happy as in a soul remembering my good friends.
• Keep thy friend under thy own life’s key.
• Friendship is constant in all other things save in the office and affairs of love.
• The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, grapple them unto thy soul with hoops of steel.
• A true friend is one soul in two bodies.
• I had rather have a fool to make me merry than experience to make me sad.
• There is nothing in the world so much like prayer as music is.
• We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.
• Be slow to fall into friendship; but when thou art in, continue firm and constant.
• Hamlet: My excellent good friends! How dost thou?
• I am wealthy in my friends.

Shakespeare Quotes About Truth, Honesty and Wisdom

These meaningful and deep Shakespeare quotes reflect on truth, honesty, and the wisdom gained through life experience.

• This above all; to thine own self be true.
• No legacy is so rich as honesty.
• Honesty is the best policy.
• The truth will out.
• Speak the truth and shame the devil.
• Truth is truth to the end of reckoning.
• Men should be what they seem.
• If we are true to ourselves, we cannot be false to anyone.
• A true word hath been spoken in jest.
• O, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive.
• The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.
• Modest doubt is called the beacon of the wise.
• The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.
• It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.
• We know what we are, but know not what we may be.
• Listen to many, speak to a few.
• The empty vessel makes the loudest sound.
• Ignorance is the curse of God; knowledge is the wing wherewith we fly to heaven.
• There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.
• The robber that smiles, steals something from the thief.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the most famous Shakespeare quote? 

To be or not to be is arguably the most famous Shakespeare quote from Hamlet.

What are some romantic Shakespeare quotes? 

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day and My bounty is as boundless as the sea are popular romantic lines.

Which Shakespeare play has the best quotes? 

Hamlet contains many well-known lines including To be or not to be and brevity is the soul of wit.

What did Shakespeare say about love? 

Shakespeare wrote love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind and the course of true love never did run smooth.

Are Shakespeare quotes still relevant today? 

Yes, Shakespeare quotes about life, love, ambition, and human nature remain timeless and applicable to modern life.

What is the shortest Shakespeare quote? 

Et tu, Brute from Julius Caesar is one of the shortest yet most impactful lines.

Conclusion

William Shakespeare quotations continue to resonate across generations. His insights into love, life, friendship, ambition, truth, and human nature feel as fresh today as they did centuries ago. These inspirational Shakespeare quotes remind us of universal truths that transcend time and culture.

Whether you seek funny Shakespeare quotes to lighten your mood, romantic lines to express your feelings, or deep wisdom about fate and destiny, the Bard of Avon offers timeless guidance. His words from plays like Hamlet, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, Othello, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream remain essential reading for anyone seeking meaning, beauty, and truth in language.