Quotes Shakespeare

• The world is your/one's oyster

The Merry Wives of Windsor

Act II, Scene II

Falstaff: I will not lend thee a penny.
Pistol: Why, then, the world's mine oyster, Which I with sword will open.

Meaning: The world is yours. You can take whatever you make out of it.

• All that glitters is not gold

The Merchant of Venice


Act II - Scene VII - Prince of Morocco

All that glisters is not gold;
Often have you heard that told:
Many a man his life hath sold
But my outside to behold:
Gilded tombs do worms enfold.
Had you been as wise as bold,
Young in limbs, in judgement old
Your answer had not been inscroll'd
Fare you well, your suit is cold.

• Break the ice

The Taming of the Shrew


ACT I. SCENE II. Padua. Before HORTENSIO'S house.

TRANIO.
If it be so, sir, that you are the man
Must stead us all, and me amongst the rest;
And if you break the ice, and do this feat,
Achieve the elder, set the younger free
For our access, whose hap shall be to have her
Will not so graceless be to be ingrate.

• Too much of a good thing

As You Like It


 Act IV, Scene 1 The forest
    Rosalind. Are you not good? 
    Orlando. I hope so. 
    Rosalind. Why then, can one desire too much of a good thing? Come, 1900
    sister, you shall be the priest, and marry us. Give me your hand,
    Orlando. What do you say, sister? 
    Orlando. Pray thee, marry us. 
    Celia. I cannot say the words. 
    Rosalind. You must begin 'Will you, Orlando'- 1905
    Celia. Go to. Will you, Orlando, have to wife this Rosalind? 
    Orlando. I will. 

• To thine own self be true

Hamlet

Act 1. Scene III

LORD POLONIUS
Yet here, Laertes! aboard, aboard, for shame!
The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail,
And you are stay'd for. There; my blessing with thee!
And these few precepts in thy memory
See thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportioned thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatch'd, unfledged comrade. Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel, but being in,
Bear't that the opposed may beware of thee.
Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice;
Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy;
For the apparel oft proclaims the man,
And they in France of the best rank and station
Are of a most select and generous chief in that.
Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all: to thine ownself be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Farewell: my blessing season this in thee!

The Cloud

                        By P.B.Shelley

I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers,
 From the seas and the streams;
I bear light shade for the leaves when laid 
 In their noon-day dreams.
From my wings are shaken the dews that waken
 The sweet buds every one,
When rocked to rest on their mother's breast,
 As she dances about the Sun. 
I wield the flail of the lashing hail,
 And whiten the green plains under,  10
And then again I dissolve it in rain,
 And laugh as I pass in thunder.

I sift the snow on the mountains below,
 And their great pines groan aghast;
And all the night 'tis my pillow white,
 While I sleep in the arms of the blast.
Sublime on the towers of my skiey bowers,
 Lightning my pilot sits;
In a cavern under is fettered the thunder,
 It struggles and howls at fits;   20
Over Earth and Ocean, with gentle motion,
 This pilot is guiding me, 
Lured by the love of the genii that move
 In the depths of the purple sea;
Over the rills, and the crags, and the hills,
 Over the lakes and the plains,
Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream,
 The Spirit he loves remains; 
And I all the while bask in Heaven's blue smile, 30
 Whilst he is dissolving in rains.

The sanguine Sunrise, with his meteor eyes,
 And his burning plumes outspread,
Leaps on the back of my sailing rack,
 When the morning star shines dead;
As on the jag of a mountain crag,
 Which an earthquake rocks and swings,
An eagle alit one moment may sit
 In the light of its golden wings.
And when Sunset may breathe, from the lit Sea beneath,
 Its ardours of rest and of love,  40
And the crimson pall of eve may fall
 From the depth of Heaven above,
With wings folded I rest, on mine äery nest,
 As still as a brooding dove.

That orbed maiden with white fire laden
 Whom mortals call the Moon,
Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor
 By the midnight breezes strewn;
And wherever the beat of her unseen feet,
 Which only the angels hear,   50
May have broken the woof, of my tent's thin roof,
 The stars peep behind her, and peer;
And I laugh to see them whirl and flee,
 Like a swarm of golden bees,
When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent, 
 Till the calm rivers, lakes, and seas,
Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high,
 Are each paved with the moon and these.

I bind the Sun's throne with a burning zone
 And the Moon's with a girdle of pearl;  60
The volcanos are dim and the stars reel and swim
 When the whirlwinds my banner unfurl. 
From cape to cape, with a bridge-like shape,
 Over a torrent sea,
Sunbeam-proof, I hang like a roof --
 The mountains its columns be!
The triumphal arch, through which I march
 With hurricane, fire, and snow,
When the Powers of the Air, are chained to my chair, 
 Is the million-coloured Bow;   70
The sphere-fire above its soft colours wove
 While the moist Earth was laughing below.

I am the daughter of Earth and Water,
 And the nursling of the Sky;
I pass through the pores, of the ocean and shores; 
 I change, but I cannot die --
For after the rain, when with never a stain 
 The pavilion of Heaven is bare,
And the winds and sunbeams, with their convex gleams, 
 Build up the blue dome of Air --  80
I silently laugh at my own cenotaph 
 And out of the caverns of rain,
Like a child from the womb, live a ghost from the tomb, 
 I arise, and unbuild it again. --