If you’re looking for William Shakespeare quotes about love, you’ve come to the right place. Here at Inspiring Lizard we collect thought-provoking quotes from interesting people. And in this article we share a list of the 152 most interesting quotes about love by William Shakespeare. Let’s get inspired!
William Shakespeare quotes about love
Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.
— William Shakespeare, All’s Well That Ends Well
Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.
— William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream
This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.
— William Shakespeare, Hamlet
The course of true love never did run smooth.
— William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream
O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo? Deny thy father refuse thy name, thou art thyself thou not a montegue, what is montegue? tis nor hand nor foot nor any other part belonging to a man What is in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, So Romeo would were he not Romeo called retain such dear perfection to which he owes without that title, Romeo, Doth thy name! And for that name which is no part of thee, take all thyself.
— William Shakespeare
Don’t waste your love on somebody, who doesn’t value it.
— William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
Good night, good night! parting is such sweet sorrow, That I shall say good night till it be morrow.
— William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
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 wand’ring barque, 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.
— William Shakespeare, Great Sonnets
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer’s lease hath all too short a date: Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines, And too often is his gold complexion dimm’d: And every fair from fair sometimes declines, By chance or natures changing course untrimm’d; By thy eternal summer shall not fade, Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest; Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou growest: So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this and this gives life to thee.
— William Shakespeare, Shakespeare’s Sonnets
Love is heavy and light, bright and dark, hot and cold, sick and healthy, asleep and awake- its everything except what it is! (Act 1, scene 1)
— William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
They do not love that do not show their love.
— William Shakespeare, The Two Gentlemen of Verona
Do not swear by the moon, for she changes constantly. then your love would also change.
— William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
Love is not loveWhich alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove.O no, it is an ever-fixed markThat looks on tempests and is never shaken;It is the star to every wand’ring bark, Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.”
— William Shakespeare, Shakespeare’s Sonnets
And yet, to say the truth, reason and love keep little company together nowadays.
— William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream
I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow, than a man swear he loves me.
— William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing
Lovers and madmen have such seething brains, Such shaping fantasies, that apprehendMore than cool reason ever comprehends.The lunatic, the lover and the poetAre of imagination all compact:One sees more devils than vast hell can hold, That is, the madman: the lover, all as frantic, Sees Helen’s beauty in a brow of Egypt:The poet’s eye, in fine frenzy rolling, Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;And as imagination bodies forthThe forms of things unknown, the poet’s penTurns them to shapes and gives to airy nothingA local habitation and a name.
— William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream
O serpent heart hid with a flowering face!Did ever a dragon keep so fair a cave? Beautiful tyrant, feind angelical, dove feather raven, wolvish-ravening lamb! Despised substance of devinest show, just opposite to what thou justly seemest – A dammed saint, an honourable villain!
— William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
…Who could refrain, That had a heart to love, and in that heart Courage to make love known?
— William Shakespeare, Macbeth
Sweets to the sweet.
— William Shakespeare, Hamlet
See how she leans her cheek upon her hand. O, that I were a glove upon that hand That I might touch that cheek!
— William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
I do love nothing in the world so well as you- is not that strange?
— William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing
For she had eyes and chose me.
— William Shakespeare, Othello
For which of my bad parts didst thou first fall in love with me?
— William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing
Love comforteth like sunshine after rain.
— William Shakespeare, The Complete Sonnets and Poems
O, here Will I set up my everlasting rest, And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars From this world-wearied flesh. Eyes, look your last! Arms, take your last embrace! and, lips, O you The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss A dateless bargain to engrossing death!
— William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
If music be the food of love, play on.
— William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
I’ll follow thee and make a heaven of hell, To die upon the hand I love so well.
— William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Under loves heavy burden do I sink.–Romeo
— William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
love is blindand lovers cannot see the pretty follies that themselves commit
— William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice
Love is merely a madness; and, I tell you, deserves as well a dark house and a whip as madmen do; and the reason why they are not so punish’d and cured is that the lunacy is soordinary that the whippers are in love too.
— William Shakespeare, As You Like It
Love moderately. Long love doth so.Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow.*Love each other in moderation. That is the key to long-lasting love. Too fast is as bad as too slow.*
— William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
I pray you, do not fall in love with me, for I am falser than vows made in wine.
— William Shakespeare, As You Like It
If love be rough with you, be rough with love. Prick love for pricking and you beat love down.
— William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
I love you with so much of my heart that none is left to protest.
— William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing
Journeys end in lovers meeting, Every wise man’s son doth know.
— William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Yes, faith; it is my cousin’s duty to make curtsy and say ‘Father, as it please you.’ But yet for all that, cousin, let him be a handsome fellow, or else make another curtsy and say ‘Father, as it please me.
— William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing
When I saw you, I fell in love, and you smiled because you knew
— William Shakespeare
If music be the food of love, play on, Give me excess of it; that surfeiting, The appetite may sicken, and so die.
— William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Men’s eyes were made to look, let them gaze, I will budge for no man’s pleasure.
— William Shakespeare
Why should you think that I should woo in scorn?Scorn and derision never come in tears:Look, when I vow, I weep; and vows so born, In their nativity all truth appears.How can these things in me seem scorn to you, Bearing the badge of faith, to prove them true?
— William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream
That time of year thou mayst in me beholdWhen yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hangUpon those boughs which shake against the cold, Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.In me thou seest the twilight of such dayAs after sunset fadeth in the west, Which by and by black night doth take away, Death’s second self, that seals up all in rest.In me thou see’st the glowing of such fireThat on the ashes of his youth doth lie, As the death-bed whereon it must expireConsumed with that which it was nourish’d by.This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong, To love that well which thou must leave ere long.
— William Shakespeare, Shakespeare’s Sonnets
O my love, my wife!Death, that hath suck’d the honey of thy breathHath had no power yet upon thy beauty.
— William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
Zu früh, befürcht ich; denn mein Herz erbangtUnd ahnet ein Verhängnis, welches, nochVerborgen in den Sternen, heute NachtBei dieser Lustbarkeit den furchtbarn ZeitlaufBeginnen und das Ziel des läst’gen Lebens, Das meine Brust verschließt, mir kürzen wirdDurch irgendeinen Frevel frühen Todes.Doch er, der mir zur Fahrt das Steuer lenkt, Richt’ auch mein Segel!I fear, too early. For my mind misgivesSome consequence, yet hanging in the stars, Shall bitterly begin his fearful dateWith this night’s revels, and expire the termOf a despisèd life, closed in my breast, By some vile forfeit of untimely death.But He that hath the steerage of my courseDirect my sail!Romeo: Act I, Scene 4
— William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
Love is holy.
— William Shakespeare, All’s Well That Ends Well
A lover goes toward his beloved as enthusiastically as a schoolboy leaving his books, but when he leaves his girlfriend, he feels as miserable as the schoolboy on his way to school. (Act 2, scene 2)
— William Shakespeare
All days are nights to see till I see thee, And nights bright days when dreams do show thee me.
— William Shakespeare, Shakespeare’s Sonnets
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 delightThan in the breath that from my mistress reeks.I love to hear her speak, yet well I knowThat 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.
— William Shakespeare, Shakespeare’s Sonnets
O, how this spring of love resemblethThe uncertain glory of an April day, Which now shows all the beauty of the sun, And by and by a cloud takes all away!
— William Shakespeare, The Two Gentlemen of Verona
I take thee at thy word:Call me but love, and I’ll be new baptized;Henceforth I never will be Romeo.
— William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly.
— William Shakespeare, As You Like It
Love is not loveWhich alters when alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove:Oh, no, it is an ever-fixèd mark, that looks on tempests and is never shaken.
— William Shakespeare, The Complete Sonnets and Poems
Time goes on crutches till love have all his rites.
— William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing
…what care I for words? Yet words do wellWhen he that speaks them pleases those that hear.
— William Shakespeare, As You Like It
Give me that man that is not passion’s slave, and I will wear him in my heart’s core, in my heart of heart, as I do thee.
— William Shakespeare, Hamlet
O hell! to choose love by another’s eye.
— William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream
DON PEDROCome, lady, come; you have lost the heart of Signior Benedick.BEATRICEIndeed, my lord, he lent it me awhile; and I gave him use for it, a double heart for his single one: marry, once before he won it of me with false dice, therefore your grace may well say I have lost it.DON PEDROYou have put him down, lady, you have put him down.BEATRICESo I would not he should do me, my lord, lest I should prove the mother of fools.
— William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing
Friendship is constant in all other thingsSave in the office and affairs of love.Therefore all hearts in love use their own tongues.Let every eye negotiate for itself, And trust no agent; for beauty is a witchAgainst whose charms faith melteth into blood.
— William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing
A right fair mark, fair coz, is soonest hit.
— William Shakespeare
This look of thine will hurl my soul from heaven.
— William Shakespeare, Othello
I can’t talk, or I will throw up!
— William Shakespeare
If there were a sympathy in choice, War, death, or sickness, did lay siege to it, Making it momentary as a sound, Swift as a shadow, short as any dream, Brief as the lightning in the collied nightThat, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth, And ere a man hath power to say ‘Behold!’The jaws of darkness do devour it up;So quick bright things come to confusion.
— William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper, Thy head, thy sovereign, one that cares for thee, And for thy maintenance; commits his bodyTo painful labor, both by sea and land;To watch the night in storms, the day in cold, Whilst thou li’st warm at home, secure and safe;And craves no other tribute at thy handsBut love, fair looks, and true obedience-Too little payment for so great a debt.Such duty as the subject owes the prince, Even such a woman oweth to her husband;And when she is froward, peevish, sullen, sour, And no obedient to his honest will, What is she but a foul contending rebel, And graceless traitor to her loving lord?I asham’d that women are so simple‘To offer war where they should kneel for peace, Or seek for rule, supremacy, and sway, When they are bound to serve, love, and obey.Why are our bodies soft, and weak, and smooth, Unapt to toil and trouble in the world, But that our soft conditions, and our hearts, Should well agree with our external parts?
— William Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew
Wooing, wedding, and repenting is as a Scotch jig, a measure, and a cinque-pace: the first suit is hot and hasty like a Scotch jig–and full as fantastical; the wedding, mannerly modest, as a measure, full of state and ancientry; and then comes repentance and with his bad legs falls into the cinque-pace faster and faster, till he sink into his grave.
— William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing
I’ll have no husband, if you be not he.
— William Shakespeare, As You Like It
I will deny thee nothing: Whereon, I do beseech thee, grant me this, To leave me but a little to myself.
— William Shakespeare, Othello
Lorenzo: In such a night stood Dido with a willow in her hand upon the wild sea-banks, and waft her love to come again to Carthage Jessica: In such a night Medea gathered the enchanted herbs that did renew old Aeson. Lorenzo: In such a night did Jessica steal from the wealthy Jew, and with an unthrift love did run from Venice, as far as Belmont. Jessica: In such a night did young Lorenzo swear he lov’d her well, stealing her soul with many vows of faith, and ne’er a true one. Lorenzo: In such a night did pretty Jessica (like a little shrow) slander her love, and he forgave it her. Jessica: I would out-night you, did nobody come; but hark, I hear the footing of a man.
— William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice
ROMEOThere is thy gold, worse poison to men’s souls, Doing more murders in this loathsome world, Than these poor compounds that thou mayst not sell.I sell thee poison; thou hast sold me none.Farewell: buy food, and get thyself in flesh.Come, cordial and not poison, go with meTo Juliet’s grave; for there must I use thee.
— William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
Were I the Moor I would not be Iago.In following him I follow but myself;Heaven is my judge, not I for love and duty, But seeming so for my peculiar end.For when my outward action doth demonstrateThe native act and figure of my heartIn compliment extern, ’tis not long afterBut I will wear my heart upon my sleeveFor daws to peck at. I am not what I am
— William Shakespeare, Othello
Lovers and madmen have such seething brainsSuch shaping fantasies, that apprehendMore than cool reason ever comprehends.
— William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream
They do not love, that do not show their love.
— William Shakespeare, The Two Gentlemen of Verona
For to be wise and love exceeds man’s might.
— William Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida
This is the very ecstasy of love, Whose violent property fordoes itselfAnd leads the will to desperate undertakingsAs oft as any passion under heavenThat does afflict our natures.
— William Shakespeare, ഹാംലെറ്റ് | Hamlet
Then I defy you, stars!
— William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
Say a day without the ever.
— William Shakespeare, As You Like It
O, let my books be then the eloquenceAnd dumb presagers of my speaking breast;Who plead for love, and look for recompense, More than that tongue that more hath more express’d.O, learn to read what silent love hath writ:To hear with eyes belongs to love’s fine wit.
— William Shakespeare, Shakespeare’s Sonnets
To move wild laughter in the throat of death? It cannot be, it is impossible: Mirth cannot move a soul in agony.
— William Shakespeare, Love’s Labour’s Lost
Sebastian: By your patience, no. My stars shine darkly over me; the malignancy of my fate might, perhaps, distemper yours; therefore I shall carve of you your leave that I may bear my evils alone. It were a bad recompense for your love to lay any of them on you.
— William Shakespeare
Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly:Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly:Then, heigh-ho, the holly!This life is most jolly.
— William Shakespeare, As You Like It
Not marble, nor the gilded monuments Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme;But you shall shine more bright in these contents Than unswept stone, besmear’d with sluttish time. When wasteful war shall statues overturn, And broils root out the work of masonry, Nor Mars his sword nor war’s quick fire shall burnThe living record of your memory. ‘Gainst death and all-oblivious enmityShall you pace forth; your praise shall still find roomEven in the eyes of all posterity That wear this world out to the ending doom.So, till the judgment that yourself arise, You live in this, and dwell in lovers’ eyes.
— William Shakespeare, Shakespeare’s Sonnets
Thou art a votary to fond desire
— William Shakespeare, The Two Gentlemen of Verona
Self-love, my liege, is not so vile a sin as self-neglecting.
— William Shakespeare
Affliction is enamoured of thy parts, And thou art wedded to calamity.
— William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
Those lips that Love’s own hand did makeBreathed forth the sound that said, ‘I hate’To me that languished for her sake, But, when she saw my woeful state, Straight in her heart did mercy come, Chiding that tongue that ever sweetWas used in giving gentle doom, And taught it thus anew to greet:’I hate, ‘ she altered with an endThat followed it as gentle dayDoth follow night, who like a fiendFrom Heaven to Hell is flown away.’I hate’ from hate away she threwAnd saved my life, saying ‘not you’.
— William Shakespeare, The Sonnets and A Lover’s Complaint
Never durst a poet touch a pen to writeUntil his ink was tempered with love’s sighs.
— William Shakespeare, Love’s Labour’s Lost
Tis torture, and not mercy. Heaven is here Where Juliet lives, and every cat and dog And little mouse, every unworthy thing, Live here in heaven and may look on her, But Romeo may not.
— William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet: Plain Text: The Graphic Novel
Alas, that love, whose view is muffled still, Should, without eyes, see pathways to his will!Where shall we dine? O me! What fray was here?Yet tell me not, for I have heard it all.Here’s much to do with hate, but more with love.Why, then, O brawling love! O loving hate!O any thing, of nothing first create!O heavy lightness! Serious vanity!Mis-shapen chaos of well-seeming forms!Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health!Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is!This love feel I, that feel no love in this.Dost thou not laugh?
— William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
My only love sprung from my only hate.
— William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
Love me or hate me, both are in my favour. If you love me, I’ll always be in your heart… If you hate me, I’ll always be in your mind.
— William Shakespeare
Love me or hate me, both are in my favor. If you love me, I’ll always be in your heart. If you hate me, I’ll always be in your mind.
— William Shakespeare
Love is my sin, and thy dear virtue hate, Hate of my sin, grounded on sinful loving
— William Shakespeare, Sonnets
Love is not love which alters it when 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
— William Shakespeare, Shakespeare’s Sonnets
I might call him. A thing divine, for nothing natural. I ever saw so noble.
— William Shakespeare, The Tempest
Journeys end in lovers meeting.
— William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life, Whose misadventured piteous overthrows Doth with their death bury their parents’ strife. . . . O, I am fortune’s fool! . . . Then I defy you, stars.
— William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
O Hero, what a Hero hadst thou been.
— William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing
Beshrew me but I love her heartily, For she is wise, if I can judge of her, And fair she is, if that mine eyes be true, And true she is, as she hath proved herself: And therefore like herself, wise, fair, and true, Shall she be placed in my constant soul.
— William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice
What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet
— William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
Parting is such sweet sorrow
— William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
Alack, sir, no; her passions are made of nothing but the finest part of pure love. We cannot call her winds and waters sighs and tears; they are greater storms and tempests than almanacs can report: this cannot be cunning in her; if it be, she makes a shower of rain as well as Jove.
— William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra
For it falls outThat what we have we prize not to the worthWhiles we enjoy it, but being lacked and lost, Why, then we rack the value, then we findThe virtue that possession would not show usWhile it was ours.
— William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing
CLEOPATRA: My salad days, When I was green in judgment: cold in blood, To say as I said then! But, come, away;Get me ink and paper:He shall have every day a several greeting, Or I’ll unpeople Egypt.
— William Shakespeare
Orsino: For, boy, however we do praise ourselves, Our fancies are more giddy and unfirm, More longing, wavering, sooner lost and won, Than women’s are. …For women are as roses, whose fair flow’rBeing once display’d doth fall that very hour.Viola: And so they are; alas, that they are so!To die, even when they to perfection grow!
— William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
. . . I will not be sworn, but love may trans-form me to an oyster, but, I’ll take my oath on it, till hehave made an oyster of me, he shall never make me sucha fool.
— William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing
… and yet, to say the truth, reason and love keep little company together now-a-days…
— William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream
… reason andlove keep little company together now-a-days…
— William Shakespeare
The expedition of my violent love outrun the pauser, reason.
— William Shakespeare, Macbeth
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks within his bending sickle’s compass come.
— William Shakespeare, Love Poems and Sonnets
In faith, I do not love thee with mine eyes, For they in thee a thousand errors note; But ’tis my heart that loves what they despise, Who in despite of view is pleased to dote
— William Shakespeare
If I were to kiss you then go to hell, I would. So then I can brag with the devils I saw heaven without ever entering it.
— William Shakespeare
turn him into stars and form a constellation in his image. His face will make the heavens so beautiful that the world will fall in love with the night and forget about the garish sun.
— William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
Love is not loveWhich alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove.O no, it is an ever-fixed markThat looks on tempests and is never shaken;It is the star to every wand’ring bark, Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be t
— William Shakespeare, Shakespeare’s Sonnets
My story being done, She gave me for my pains a world of sighs:She swore, ––in faith, twas strange, ’twas passing strange;’Twas pitiful, ’twas wondrous pitiful:She wish’d she had not heard it, yet she wish’dThat heaven had made her such a man: she thank’d me, And bade me, if I had a friend that lov’d her, I should but teach him how to tell my story.And that would woo her.
— William Shakespeare, Othello
…and what’s his reason? I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us; do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example? Why, revenge! The villainy you teach me I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.
— William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice
Mislike me not for my complexion, The shadowed livery of the burnished sun, To whom I am a neighbor and near bred.Bring me the fairest creature northward born, Where Phoebus’ fire scarce thaws the icicles, And let us make incision for your loveTo prove whose blood is reddest, his or mine.
— William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice
ROMEO :’Tis torture and not mercy. Heaven is here, Where Juliet lives, and every cat and dogAnd little mouse, every unworthy thing, Live here in heaven and may look on her, But Romeo may not. More validity, More honorable state, more courtship livesIn carrion flies than Romeo. They may seizeOn the white wonder of dear Juliet’s handAnd steal immortal blessing from her lips, Who even in pure and vestal modesty, Still blush, as thinking their own kisses sin.But Romeo may not. He is banishèd.Flies may do this, but I from this must fly.They are free men, but I am banishèd.And sayst thou yet that exile is not death?Hadst thou no poison mixed, no sharp-ground knife, No sudden mean of death, though ne’er so mean, But “banishèd” to kill me?—“Banishèd”!O Friar, the damnèd use that word in hell.Howling attends it. How hast thou the heart, Being a divine, a ghostly confessor, A sin-absolver, and my friend professed, To mangle me with that word “banishèd”?
— William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
Doubt thou the stars are fire Doubt thou the sun doth moveDoubt truth to be a liar But never doubt I love
— William Shakespeare, Hamlet
When the devout religion of mine eyeMaintains such falsehood, then turn tears to fires, And these, who, often drowned, could never die, Transparent heretics, be burnt for liars!One fairer than my love? The all-seeing sunNe’er saw her match since first the world begun.
— William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
Beauty is bought by judgement of the eye.
— William Shakespeare, Love’s Labour’s Lost
Then must you speakOf one that loved not wisely but too well, Of one not easily jealous but, being wrought, Perplexed in the extreme; of one whose hand, Like the base Indian, threw a pearl awayRicher than all his tribe; of one whose subdued eyes, Albeit unused to the melting mood, Drop tears as fast as the Arabian treesTheir medicinable gum. Set you down this, And say besides that in Aleppo once, Where a malignant and a turbaned TurkBeat a Venetian and traduced the state, I took by th’ throat the circumcised dogAnd smote him thus.
— William Shakespeare, Othello
She gave me for my pains a world of sighs.
— William Shakespeare, Othello
The love that follows us sometime is our trouble, which still we thank as love.
— William Shakespeare, Macbeth
Sir, I love you more than words can wield the matter; dearer than eye-sight, space, and liberty, beyond waht can be valued, rich or rare; no less than life, with grace, health, beauty, honor; as much as child e’er loved, or father found; a love that makes breath poor, and speech unable; beyond all manner of so much I love you.
— William Shakespeare
I profess myself an enemy to all other joys, which the most precious square of sense possesses, and find I am alone felicitate in your dear highness love.
— William Shakespeare, King Lear
Therefore love moderately. Long love doth so. Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow.
— William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
I will live in thy heart, die in thy lap, and be buried in thyeyes—and moreover, I will go with thee to thy uncle’s.
— William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing
My noble father, I do perceive here a divided duty.To you I am bound for life and education.My life and education both do learn meHow to respect you. You are the lord of my duty, I am hitherto your daughter. But here’s my husband, And so much duty as my mother showedTo you, preferring you before her father, So much I challenge that I may professDue to the Moor my lord.
— William Shakespeare, Othello
Benvolio: What sadness lengthens Romeo’s hours?Romeo: Not having that, which, having, makes them short.
— William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
…and when he dies, cut him out in little stars, and the face of heaven will be so fine that all the world will be in love with night and pay no heed to the garish sun.
— William Shakespeare
Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds.
— William Shakespeare, Love Poems and Sonnets
Excellent wretch! Perdition catch my soul But I do love thee! and when I love thee not, Chaos is come again.
— William Shakespeare, Othello
To die, is to be banish’d from myself; And Silvia is myself: banish’d from her, Is self from self: a deadly banishment! What light is light, if Silvia be not seen? What joy is joy, if Silvia be not by? Unless it be to think that she is by, And feed upon the shadow of perfection.Except I be by Silvia in the night, There is no music in the nightingale; Unless I look on Silvia in the day, There is no day for me to look upon; She is my essence, and I leave to be, If I be not by her fair influence Foster’d, illumin’d, cherish’d, kept alive.
— William Shakespeare, The Two Gentlemen of Verona
How true a twain Seemeth this concordant one! Love hath reason, Reason none, If what parts, can so remain.
— William Shakespeare, The Phoenix and the Turtle
Then the conceit of this inconstant staySets you rich in youth before my sight, Where wasteful Time debateth with Decay, To change your day of youth to sullied night;And all in war with Time for love of you, As he takes from you I engraft you new.
— William Shakespeare, Shakespeare’s Sonnets
To give yourself away keep yourself still, And you must live drawn by your own sweet skill.
— William Shakespeare, Shakespeare’s Sonnets
I have more care to staythan will to go.
— William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
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
Of all mad matches never was the likeBeing mad herself, she’s madly mated.
— William Shakespeare
Hang there like a fruit, my soul, Till the tree die!-Posthumus LeonatusAct V, Scene V
— William Shakespeare, Cymbeline
Strike as thou didst at Caesar; for I know / When though didst hate him worst, thou loved’st him better / Than ever thou loved’st Cassius.
— William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar
Lucentio: I read that I profess, the Art of Love.Bianca: And may you prove, sir, master of your art!Lucentio: While you, sweet dear, prove mistress of my heart!
— William Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew
Then is courtesy a turncoat. But it is certain I am loved of all ladies, only you excepted: and I would I could find in my heart that I had not a hard heart; for, truly, I love none. Beatrice: A dear happiness to women: they would else have been troubled with a pernicious suitor. I thank God and my cold blood, I am of your humour for that: I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me. -Much Ado About Nothing
— William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing
Why then, O brawling love! O loving hate!O any thing, of nothing first create!O heavy lightness, serious vanity, Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms, Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health, Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is!This love feel I, that feel no love in this.
— William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
Out of her favour, where I am in love.
— William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
Oh why rebuke you him that loves you so? / Lay breath so bitter on your bitter foe.
— William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Make me a willow cabin at your gateAnd call upon my soul within the house;Write loyal cantons of contemned loveAnd sing them loud even in the dead of night;Hallo your name to the reverberate hillsAnd make the babbling gossip of the airCry out “Olivia!” O, you should not restBetween the elements of air and earthBut you should pity me
— William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Jack shall have Jill.Nought shall go ill.
— William Shakespeare
Men have died from time to time and worms have eaten them – but not for love.
— William Shakespeare
Ay me! for aught that I ever could read Could ever hear by tale or history The course of true love never did run smooth.
— William Shakespeare
Give me my Romeo and when he shall die. Take him and cut him out in little stars And he will make the face of heaven so fine That all the world will be in love with night And pay no worship to the garish sun.
— William Shakespeare
I to myself am dearer than a friend.
— William Shakespeare
Love looks not with the eyes but with the mind And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.
— William Shakespeare
I love thee I love but thee With a love that shall not die Till the sun grows cold And the stars grow old.
— William Shakespeare
Oh, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!It seems she hangs upon the cheek of nightLike a rich jewel in an Ethiope’s ear, Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear.So shows a snowy dove trooping with crowsAs yonder lady o’er her fellows shows.The measure done, I’ll watch her place of stand, And, touching hers, make blessèd my rude hand.Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight!For I ne’er saw true beauty till this night.
— William Shakespeare
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