What are your favorite lines from any piece by Shakespeare?

Answer 1

There are more things in heaven & earth , Horatio, than are ever dreamt of in your philosophy- Macbeth

Answer 2

Cry 'Havoc!' and let slip the dogs of war (Julius Caesar)

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow
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.

Life's but a poor player who 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 (Macbeth- I know the meter isn't right but that speech is from memory)

The quality of mercy is not strain'd.
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath.
It is twice blest:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes (The Merchent of Venice)

Love is a familiar. Love is a devil. There is no evil angel but Love.
(A Midsummer NIght's Dream)

Answer 3

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun ;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red :
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun ;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses, damask'd red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks ;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak,—yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound :
I grant I never saw a goddess go,—
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground :
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare !

Answer 4

Prospero's speech from "The Tempest", Act IV sc I

Our revels are now ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air;
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

A magnificent farewell from the weaver of enchantments himself; it makes me shiver with wonder as I read it again...

Answer 5

The following is part of Jacques's speech in As you like it.

All the world's a stage
And all the men and women merely players
They have their exits and their entrances
And each man in his time plays many parts

Answer 6

There are so many magnificent lines from this greatest of all writers that I could not choose one over at least 20 others. (As it is, it's hard enough typing this in a standing position).

Answer 7

"Better a witty fool then a foolish wit" or this segment from hamlet- (hamlet has just killed polonious)-
king: Now, Hamlet, where's Polonious?
Hamlet: At supper.
King: At supper? Where?
Hamlet: Not where he eats, but where ' a is eaten. A certain convocation of politi worms are e'en at him. Your worm is your only emperor for diet. We fat all creatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves for maggots. Your fat king and your lean beggeris not but variable service- two dishes, but to one table. That's the end.
King: Alas! Alas!
Hamlet: A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and eat of teh fish that hath fed of that worm.
King: What dost thou mean by this?
Hamlet: Nothing but to show you how a king may go a progress through the guts of a begger.
( it is longer but i won't go on...you should read it if you haven't its really funny...the comparisons are very clever in my opinion)

Answer 8

There are so many... "Doubt thou the stars are fire; Doubt that the sun doth move; Doubt truth to be a liar; But never doubt I love"--Hamlet

I also like-- "O, what men dare do! What men may do! What men daily
do, not knowing what they do!" - Much ado about Nothing

Answer 9

Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.
Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,
It seems to me most strange that men should fear;
Seeing that death, a necessary end,
Will come when it will come.--

Julius Caesar

Answer 10

I cannot choose so: every single line the Bard has written is my favorite!

Answer 11

"Has my heart loved 'till now? Forswear it, sight! For I never saw a true beauty 'till this night." Romeo and Juliet

"Et tu, Brute?" Caesar

it's a tie