“To be, or not to be: that is the question:Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to sufferThe slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;No more; and by a sleep to say we endThe heart-ache and the thousand natural shocksThat flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummationDevoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;For in that sleep of death what dreams may comeWhen we have shuffled off this mortal coil,Must give us pause: there's the respectThat makes calamity of so long life;For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,The insolence of office and the spurnsThat patient merit of the unworthy takes,When he himself might his quietus makeWith a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,To grunt and sweat under a weary life,But that the dread of something after death,The undiscover'd country from whose bournNo traveller returns, puzzles the willAnd makes us rather bear those ills we haveThan fly to others that we know not of?Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;And thus the native hue of resolutionIs sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,And enterprises of great pith and momentWith this regard their currents turn awry,And lose the name of action.--Soft you now!The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisonsBe all my sins remember'd!”
William Shakespeare“William Shakespeare: You will never age for me, nor fade, nor die.”
Marc Norman, Shakespeare in Love: A Screenplay“All men who repeat a line from Shakespeare are William Shakespeare”
Jorge Luis Borges, Labyrinths: Selected Stories and Other Writings“We will meet; and there we may rehearse mostobscenely and courageously.Shakespeare, Midsummer Night's Dream. Spoken by Bottom, Act I Sc. 2”
William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream“I have always derived great comfort from William Shakespeare. After a depressing visit to the mirror or an unkind word from a girlfriend or an incredulous stare in the street, I say to myself: 'Well. Shakespeare looked like shit.' It works wonders.”
Martin Amis, Money“Since Shakespeare had a feel for revolutionary rhetoric, let’s all cry: “Peace, freedom and liberty!”
Carl William Brown, Aforismi geniali di William Shakespeare.“Thou of thyself thy sweet self dost deceive.”
William Shakespeare, Shakespeare's Sonnets“Be not self-willed, for thou art much too fairTo be death’s conquest and make worms thine heir.”
William Shakespeare, Shakespeare's Sonnets“LXXVSo are you to my thoughts as food to life,Or as sweet-season'd showers are to the ground;And for the peace of you I hold such strifeAs 'twixt a miser and his wealth is found.Now proud as an enjoyer, and anonDoubting the filching age will steal his treasure;Now counting best to be with you alone,Then better'd that the world may see my pleasure:Sometime all full with feasting on your sight,And by and by clean starved for a look;Possessing or pursuing no delightSave what is had, or must from you be took. Thus do I pine and surfeit day by day, Or gluttoning on all, or all away.”
William Shakespeare, Shakespeare's Sonnets“Then, were not summer's distillation leftA liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass,Beauty's effect with beauty were bereft,Nor it nor no remembrance what it was.But flowers distilled, though they with winter meet,Leese but their show; their substance still lives sweet.”
William Shakespeare, Shakespeare's Sonnets“Then of thy beauty do I question make,That thou among the wastes of time must go,Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake,And die as fast as they see others grow.”
William Shakespeare, Shakespeare's Sonnets