50 Most Famous Quotes of Shakespeare

Few writers have shaped the English language as profoundly as William Shakespeare. More than four centuries after his death, his words continue to inspire, challenge, and resonate with readers around the world. From reflections on love and ambition to observations about human nature, power, fate, and mortality, Shakespeare’s quotations remain among the most memorable lines ever written.

Here are 50 of Shakespeare’s most famous quotes, along with the plays and scenes in which they appear.

1. “To be, or not to be: that is the question.”

(Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 1)

2. “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.”

(As You Like It, Act 2, Scene 7)

3. “Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo?”

(Romeo and Juliet, Act 2, Scene 2)

4. “Now is the winter of our discontent.”

(Richard III, Act 1, Scene 1)

5. “Is this a dagger which I see before me, the handle toward my hand?”

(Macbeth, Act 2, Scene 1)

6. “Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.”

(Twelfth Night, Act 2, Scene 5)

7. “Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once.”

(Julius Caesar, Act 2, Scene 2)

8. “Full fathom five thy father lies; of his bones are coral made; those are pearls that were his eyes.”

(The Tempest, Act 1, Scene 2)

9. “A man can die but once.”

(Henry IV, Part 2, Act 3, Scene 2)

10. “How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child!”

(King Lear, Act 1, Scene 4)

11. “Frailty, thy name is woman.”

(Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 2)

12. “If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die?”

(The Merchant of Venice, Act 3, Scene 1)

13. “I am one who loved not wisely but too well.”

(Othello, Act 5, Scene 2)

14. “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”

(Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 2)

15. “We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep.”

(The Tempest, Act 4, Scene 1)

16. “Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage.”

(Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 5)

17. “Beware the Ides of March.”

(Julius Caesar, Act 1, Scene 2)

18. “Get thee to a nunnery.”

(Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 1)

19. “If music be the food of love, play on.”

(Twelfth Night, Act 1, Scene 1)

20. “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”

(Romeo and Juliet, Act 2, Scene 2)

21. “The better part of valour is discretion.”

(Henry IV, Part 1, Act 5, Scene 4)

22. “To thine own self be true.”

(Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 3)

23. “All that glisters is not gold.”

(The Merchant of Venice, Act 2, Scene 7)

24. “Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears.”

(Julius Caesar, Act 3, Scene 2)

25. “Nothing will come of nothing.”

(King Lear, Act 1, Scene 1)

26. “The course of true love never did run smooth.”

(A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 1, Scene 1)

27. “Lord, what fools these mortals be!”

(A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 3, Scene 2)

28. “Cry ‘Havoc!’ and let slip the dogs of war.”

(Julius Caesar, Act 3, Scene 1)

29. “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”

(Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2)

30. “A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!”

(Richard III, Act 5, Scene 4)

31. “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

(Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 5)

32. “Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind.”

(A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 1, Scene 1)

33. “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.”

(Julius Caesar, Act 1, Scene 2)

34. “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”

(Sonnet 18)

35. “Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments.”

(Sonnet 116)

36. “The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.”

(Julius Caesar, Act 3, Scene 2)

37. “It was Greek to me.”

(Julius Caesar, Act 1, Scene 2)

38. “Neither a borrower nor a lender be.”

(Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 3)

39. “We know what we are, but know not what we may be.”

(Hamlet, Act 4, Scene 5)

40. “Off with his head!”

(Richard III, Act 3, Scene 4)

41. “Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.”

(Henry IV, Part 2, Act 3, Scene 1)

42. “Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.”

(The Tempest, Act 2, Scene 2)

43. “This is very midsummer madness.”

(Twelfth Night, Act 3, Scene 4)

44. “Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps.”

(Much Ado About Nothing, Act 3, Scene 1)

45. “I cannot tell what the dickens his name is.”

(The Merry Wives of Windsor, Act 3, Scene 2)

46. “We have seen better days.”

(Timon of Athens, Act 4, Scene 2)

47. “I am a man more sinned against than sinning.”

(King Lear, Act 3, Scene 2)

48. “Brevity is the soul of wit.”

(Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2)

49. “This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle… This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.”

(Richard II, Act 2, Scene 1)

50. “But, soft! What light through yonder window breaks?”

(Romeo and Juliet, Act 2, Scene 2)