What is your favorite Shakespeare quote and why?

Question

I had a fantastic professor who believed everyone should have a little Shakespeare at their disposal at all times. I personally love the St.Crispin's day speech, but what are some other great ones?

Answer 1

Our revels now are ended.
These, our players, as I fortold you
Were merely spirits, and have melted into air
Into thin air.
And like the baseless fabric of this vision.
The cloud-capped towers, the golden palaces
The solemn temple, the great globe itself
Yea, all which it inherits shall disolve,
And like this insubstantial pageant faded
Leave not a rack behind
We are such stuff as dreams are made of
And our little life is rounded with a sleep.

Answer 2

I was going to say St. Crispin's Day, as well, but since you already said it it, I'll quote a sonnet.

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

Answer 3

Tough call. So many to choose from:

"Oh, I am fortune's fool!"


"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,
His acts being seven ages."

"What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! how infinite in faculties! in form and moving, how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension, how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me; no, nor woman neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so."


"I am but mad north-northwest: when the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw."

Answer 4

The following quote is by Jacques in As you like it.I think it is very apt.

'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 5

It's a great speech, but not very practical for everyday use. My favorite is Hamlet's, "There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." (Act II, S. 2)

Hamlet is saying that you're responsible for your feelings and point of view. If you see evil in the world, the evil exists in your point of view. (Which doesn't mean your point of view is wrong--it just means you need to take responsibility for your judgments, and remember that you made them up.)

P.S. Your professor is right--but that's just my point of view!

Answer 6

"There are more things under heaven and earth Horatio, then are dreamt of in your philosophy." - Hamlet

I love that one for the sense of wonder it conveys.

For sheer graphic imagery...

"Over thy wounds I now do prophesy
(which like ruby lips to ope to beg
the voice and utterance of my tongue)..." - Julius Caesar

and lastly Shakespeare's ultimate comment on the state of humanity...

"Oh what fools these mortals be..." - A Midsummer Nights Dream

Answer 7

One that sticks with me...is "Beware the ides of March" from Julius Caesar. Ever since reading that in tenth grade...every time March 15th comes around...I have to proclaim "Beware the Ides of March"... :)

Answer 8

Shakespeare on "brains":

"Not even Hercules,
could have knocked out his brains.
For he had none."

[Why: Because when a person is as dumb as a freaking rock .... there 'aint NOTHING there to begin with. Your efforts will ALWAYS be futile.]
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Shakespeare on "death":

To, die ...
To sleep, nothing more.
And by a sleep to say we end
To the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is err to ...
'Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished.

Answer 9

"Oh, what fools these mortals be." I think of this line from Puck in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" everytime someone does something stupid, like our president.

Answer 10

"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers."
--Henry IV

Who said Shakespeare wasn't relevant anymore?