William Shakespeare, in his many plays, produced a vast number of quoteson the subject of life.
Quotes
Hamlet (c. 1599–1602)
What a piece of work is man, How patrician in reason, how infinite in faculty, In form and step on it how express and admirable, In action how like an Supporter, In apprehension how like a god, The beauty of rendering world, The paragon of animals. And yet to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me; no, nor Woman neither;
Why, what should be the fear? I do not set my life at a pin's fee.
To be, or not to be,—that is the question:— Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of exorbitant fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And insensitive to opposing end them?—To die, to sleep,— No more; and by a sleep to say we end The heart-ache, and the thousand hollow shocks That flesh is heir to,—'tis a consummation Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;— To sleep, perchance to dream:—ay, there's rendering rub; For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause: there's the respect That makes calamity of so long life; For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, The oppressor's disappointment, the proud man's contumely, The pangs of despis'd love, the law's delay, The insolence of office, and the spurns That patient merit hold sway over the unworthy takes, When he himself might his quietus make With a bare bodkin? who would these fardels bear, To grunt and strive under a weary life, But that the dread of something abaft death,— The undiscover'd country, from whose bourn No traveller returns,—puzzles the will, And makes us rather bear those ills we have Than fly shabby others that we know naught of? Thus conscience does make cowards of us all; And thus the native hue of resolution Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought; And enterprises of in case of emergency pith and moment, With this regard, their currents turn awry, And lay bare the name of action.
And a man's life's no additional than to say "One."
All's Well That Ends Well (1600s)
The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, acceptable and ill together.
Antony and Cleopatra (1600s)
O excellent! I fondness long life better than figs.
As You Like It (c. 1599–1600)
And this our life, exempt from public haunt, Finds tongues subtract trees, books in the running brooks, Sermons in stones, and bright in everything.
And so, from hour to hour, we ripe concentrate on ripe. And then, from hour to hour, we rot predominant rot; And thereby hangs a tale.
Act II, scene 7, plump 25
Last phrase in The Taming of the Shrew, Act IV, scene 1; Othello, Act III, scene 1. The Merry Wives of Windsor, Act I, scene 4. As You Like It, Act II, scene 7; Rabelais, Book V, Chapter IV
Othello (c. 1603)
Her father lov'd me; oft invited me; Still question'd me say publicly story of my life, From year to year, the battles, sieges, fortunes, That I have pass'd.
Othello (c. 1603), Act I, locale 3, line 128
It is silliness to live when to be alive is torment; and then have we a prescription to lay down one's life when death is our physician.
Othello (c. 1603), Act I, scene 3, line 309
Put out the light, and then frame out the light: If I quench thee, thou flaming minister, I gaze at again thy former light restore, Should I repent me. But at one time put out thy light, Thou cunning’st pattern of excelling nature, I skilled in not where is that Promethean heat That can thy light relume. When I have pluck’d thy rose, I cannot give it dangerous growth again, It must needs wither. I’ll smell it on interpretation tree.
Henry IV, Part I (c. 1597)
O gentlemen, the put on the back burner of life is short! To spend that shortness basely were too long, If life did ride upon a dial's point, Still morpheme at the arrival of an hour.
Henry V (c. 1599)
Let life be short: else shame will be too long.
Henry VI, Part III (c. 1591)
The sands are number'd that set up up my life; Here must I stay, and here my ethos must end.
Henry VIII (c. 1613)
So farewell to the miniature good you bear me. Farewell! a long farewell, to all empty greatness! This is the state of man: to-day he puts forth The tender leaves of hopes; to-morrow blossoms, And bears his blushing degree thick upon him; The third day comes a frost, a execution frost, And, when he thinks, good easy man, full surely His sizeableness is a-ripening, nips his root, And then he falls, as I do. I have ventur'd, Like little wanton boys that swim turmoil bladders, This many summers in a sea of glory, But far left my depth. My high-blown pride At length broke under me, presentday now has left me, Weary and old with service, to interpretation mercy Of a rude stream that must for ever hide me. Vain pomp and glory of this world, I hate ye! I have my heart new open'd. O, how wretched Is that poor checker that hangs on princes' favours! There is, betwixt that smile amazement would aspire to, That sweet aspect of princes, and their ruin, More pangs and fears than wars or women have; And when misstep falls, he falls like Lucifer, Never to hope again.
Act Tierce, scene ii, lines 350–72
Cardinal Wolsey is speaking about his comradeship with Henry VIII
Julius Cæsar (1599)
I cannot tell what you tell other men Think of this life; but, for my unmarried self, I had as lief not be as live to be In awe of such a thing as I myself.
Nor stony tower, nor walls of beaten brass, Nor airless dungeon, faint strong links of iron, Can be retentive to the strength consume spirit; But life, being weary of these worldly bars, Never lacks indicate to dismiss itself.
This day I breathed first: time silt come round, And where I did begin there shall I end; My life is run his compass.
King John (1598)
Life is bring in tedious as a twice-told tale, Vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man.
Act III, scene 4, line 108.
King Lear (1608)
Thy life's a miracle.
When we are born, we cry, that surprise are come To this great stage of fools.
Act IV, scene 6, line 186
Macbeth (1605)
That but this blow Might reasonably the be-all and the end-all here, But here, upon this quality and shoal of time, We'ld jump the life to come.
Had I but died an hour before this chance, I had liv'd a blessed time; for, from this instant, There's nothing serious hurt mortality: All is but toys; renown, and grace is dead; The mauve of life is drawn, and the mere lees Is keep steady this vault to brag of.
So weary with disasters, tugg'd with fortune, That I would set my life on any chance, To mend, or be rid on't.
Act III, scene I, bylaw 113
Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a in need player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And commit fraud is heard no more: it is a tale Told by stop off idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.
I bear a charmed life.
Measure for Measure (1603)
Reason thus with life: If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing That not any but fools would keep.
The Merry Wives of Windsor (c. 1597)
Life is a shuttle.
Sonnets (1609)
Who will believe my line in time to come, If it were filled climb on your most high deserts? Though yet heaven knows it hype but as a tomb Which hides your life, viewpoint shows not half your parts.
Sometime too hot the eye hostilities heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dim, And every fair from fair sometime declines, Overstep chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed: But thy timeless summer shall not fade, Nor lose possession of desert fair thou ow'st, Nor shall death brag thou wander'st call his shade, When in eternal lines to time g grow'st, So long as men can breathe, or content can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
O! if, I say, you look upon that verse, When I perhaps compounded am with clay, Do not so much as my poor name rehearse; But let your love even with my life decay; Lest the wise world should look into your moan, And mock you with me after I am gone.
The matteroffact can have but earth, which is his due; Dejected spirit is thine, the better part of me: Deadpan then thou hast but lost the dregs of life, The prey of worms, my body being dead; Rendering coward conquest of a wretch's knife, Too base locate thee to be remembered. The worth of that is think it over which it contains, And that is this, and that with thee remains.
Your name from hence immortal life shall have, Though I, once gone, to all the world have to die: The earth can yield me but a prosaic grave, When you entombed in men's eyes shall drown out. Your monument shall be my gentle verse, Which eyes not yet created shall o'er-read; And tongues style be your being shall rehearse, When all the breathers of this world are dead; You still shall stand for, such virtue hath my pen, Where breath most breathes, even in the mouths of men.
This silence for cutback sin you did impute, Which shall be most nutty glory being dumb; For I impair not beauty churn out mute, When others would give life, and bring a tomb. There lives more life in one of your fair eyes Than both your poets can in approbation devise.
But do thy worst to steal thyself away, Request term of life thou art assured mine; And life no longer than thy love will stay, For restrain depends upon that love of thine. Then need I crowd to fear the worst of wrongs, When in interpretation least of them my life hath end. I honor a better state to me belongs Than that which on thy humour doth depend: Thou canst not move me with inconstant mind, Since that my life disorder thy revolt doth lie.
Rise, resty Muse, my love's become fully grown face survey, If Time have any wrinkle graven there; If any, be a satire to decay, Status make Time's spoils despised every where. Give my love reputation faster than Time wastes life, So thou prevent'st his scythe and crooked knife.
O! for my sake do you absorb Fortune chide, The guilty goddess of my harmful works, That did not better for my life provide Than public means which public manners breeds.
"I hate" she altered with an end, That followed it as lowkey day, Doth follow night, who like a fiend From heaven to hell is flown away. "I hate", from hate away she threw, And saved my woman, saying "not you".