William Shakespeare Men Quotations

Use every man after his desert, and who should scape whipping?

Faith, there hath been many great men that have flattered the people who ne'er loved them.

Fishes live in the sea, as men do a-land; the great ones eat up the little ones.

But men are men; the best sometimes forget.

Truly, I would not hang a dog by my will, much more a man who hath any honesty in him.

I see that the fashion wears out more apparel than the man.

Life every man holds dear; but the dear man holds honor far more precious dear than life.

If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men's cottage princes' palaces.

There's many a man has more hair than wit.

Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice.

Exceeds man's might: that dwells with the gods above.

The man that hath no music in himself, Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils.

Life is as tedious as twice-told tale, vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man.

There's place and means for every man alive.

But O, how bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man's eyes.

If we are marked to die, we are enough to do our country loss; and if to live, the fewer men, the greater share of honor.

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

I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano; A stage where every man must play a part, And mine is a sad one.

There have been many great men that have flattered the people who ne'er loved them.

What, man, defy the devil. Consider, he's an enemy to mankind.

O' What may man within him hide, though angel on the outward side!

I will praise any man that will praise me.

A man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age.

Men shut their doors against a setting sun.

If they make you not then the better answer, you may say they are not the men you took them for.

Men should be what they seem;Or those that be not, would they might seem none!

He is half of a blessed man. Left to be finished by such as she; and she a fair divided excellence, whose fullness of perfection lies in him.

He was a scholar, and a ripe and good one;Exceedingly wise, fair-spoken and persuading;Lofty and sour to them that loved him not;But to those men that sought him sweet as summer.

Let me have men about me that are fat, sleek-headed men and such as sleep a-nights. Yon Cassius has a lean and hungry look. He thinks too much. Such men are dangerous.

O! that a man might know The end of this day's business, ere it come; But it sufficeth that the day will end, And then the end is known.

Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him? - Lady Macbeth

Men must learn now with pity to dispense; For policy sits above conscience.

HAMLET [...] we fat all creatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves for maggots. Your fat king and your lean beggar is but variable service, two dishes, but to one table; that's the end. CLAUDIUS Alas, alas. HAMLET A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm. CLAUDIUS What dost thou mean by this? HAMLET Nothing but to show you how a king may go a progress through the guts of a beggar.

He jests at scars that never felt a wound.

All of Creation’s a farce. Man was born as a joke. In his head his reason is buffeted Like wind-blown smoke. Life is a game. Everyone ridicules everyone else. But he who has the last laugh Laughs longest.

I am a man more sinned against than sinning

That man that hath a tongue, I say is no man, if with his tongue he cannot win a woman.

Men of few words are the best men." (3.2.41)

Men have died from time to time, and worms have eaten them, but not for love.

They say best men are molded out of faults, And, for the most, become much more the better For being a little bad

Good name in man and woman is the immediate jewel of their souls.

A young man married is a man that's marred.

Olivia: What's a drunken man like, fool? Feste: Like a drowned man, a fool, and a madman: one draught above heat makes him a fool; the second mads him; and a third drowns him.

You common cry of curs! whose breath I hate As reek o' the rotten fens, whose loves I prize As the dead carcasses of unburied men That do corrupt my air, I banish you; And here remain with your uncertainty!

By my soul I swear, there is no power in the tongue of man to alter me.

Men must endure Their going hence, even as their coming hither. Ripeness is all.

Don't judge a man's conscience by looking at his face cause he may have a bad heart.

Men's eyes were made to look, let them gaze, I will budge for no man's pleasure.

A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm

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.

There is thy gold, worse poison to men's souls, Doing more murder in this loathsome world, Than these poor compounds that thou mayst not sell.

She never told her love, but let concealment, like a worm 'i th' bud, feed on her damask cheek. She pinned in thought; and, with a green and yellow melancholy, she sat like Patience on a monument, smiling at grief. Was not this love indeed? We men may say more, swear more; but indeed our shows are more than will; for we still prove much in our vows but little in our love.

By my troth, I care not; a man can die but once; we owe God a death and let it go which way it will he that dies this year is quit for the next

Thus play I in one person many people, And none contented: sometimes am I king; Then treasons make me wish myself a beggar, And so I am: then crushing penury Persuades me I was better when a king; Then am I king'd again: and by and by Think that I am unking'd by Bolingbroke, And straight am nothing: but whate'er I be, Nor I nor any man that but man is With nothing shall be pleased, till he be eased With being nothing.

There's no trust, No faith, no honesty in men; all perjured, All forsworn, all naught, all dissemblers.

He was a man, take him for all in all, I shall not look upon his like again.

Wherefore was I to this keen mockery born? When at your hands did I deserve this scorn? Is't not enough, is't not enough, young man, That I did never, no, nor never can, Deserve a sweet look from Demetrius' eye, But you must flout my insufficiency?

Glendower: I can call the spirits from the vasty deep. Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man; But will they come, when you do call for them?

He reads much; He is a great observer and he looks Quite through the deeds of men: he loves no plays, As thou dost, Antony; he hears no music; Seldom he smiles, and smiles in such a sort As if he mock'd himself and scorn'd his spirit That could be moved to smile at any thing. Such men as he be never at heart's ease Whiles they behold a greater than themselves, And therefore are they very dangerous.

Bassanio: Do all men kill all the things they do not love? Shylock: Hates any man the thing he would not kill? Bassanio: Every offence is not a hate at first.

To be now a sensible man, by and by a fool, and presently a beast!

My dear, dear Lord, The purest treasure mortal times afford Is spotless reputation; that away Men are but gilded loan or painted clay... Mine honor is my life; both grow in one; Take honor from me, and my life is done.

ROMEO There 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 me To Juliet's grave; for there must I use thee.

But men may construe things after their fashion, Clean from the purpose of the things themselves.

Tempt not a desperate man

I'll not meddle with it. It makes a man a coward: a man cannot steal but it accuseth him; a man cannot swear but it checks him; a man cannot lie with his neighbor's wife but it detects him. 'Tis a blushing, shamefaced spirit that mutinies in a man's bosom. It fills a man full of obstacles. It made me once restore a purse of gold that by chance I found. It beggars any man that keeps it. It is turned out of towns and cities for a dangerous thing, and every man that means to live well endeavors to trust to himself and live without it.

Don Pedro - (...)'In time the savage bull doth bear the yoke.' Benedick - The savage bull may, but if ever the sensible Benedick bear it, pluck off the bull's horns and set them in my forehead, and let me be vildly painted; and in such great letters as they writes, 'Here is good horse for hire', let them signify under my sign, 'Here you may see Benedick the married man.

O God, that men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains!" - Cassio (Act II, Scene iii)

Let me twine Mine arms about that body, where against My grained ash an hundred times hath broke And scarr'd the moon with splinters: here I clip The anvil of my sword, and do contest As hotly and as nobly with thy love As ever in ambitious strength I did Contend against thy valour. Know thou first, I loved the maid I married; never man Sigh'd truer breath; but that I see thee here, Thou noble thing! more dances my rapt heart Than when I first my wedded mistress saw Bestride my threshold.

RUMOUR: "Upon my tongues continual slanders ride, The which in every language I pronounce, Stuffing the ears of men with false reports.

Romeo: Courage, man; the hurt cannot be much. Mercutio: No, 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church-door; but 'tis enough, 'twill serve. Ask for me tomorrow, and you shall find me a grave man.

For man is a giddy thing, and this is my conclusion.

O Judgment ! Thou art fled to brutish beasts, and men have lost their reason !

Keep time! How sour sweet music is when time is broke and no proportion kept! So is it in the music of men's lives. I wasted time and now doth time waste me.

Sigh no more ladies, sigh no more, men were deceivers ever

Women may fail when there is no strength in man

Time's the king of men; he's both their parent, and he is their grave, and gives them what he will, not what they crave.

See the minutes, how they run, How many make the hour full complete; How many hours bring about the day; How many days will finish up the year; How many years a mortal man may live.

Men at sometime are the masters of their fate.

And a man's life's no more than to say "One."

I cannot tell what you and other men Think of this life; but, for my single self, I had as lief not be as live to be In awe of such a thing as I myself.

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 prov'd, I never writ, nor no man ever lov'd.

That which in mean men we entitle patience is pale cold cowardice in noble breasts.

A man cannot make him laugh; but that's no marvel; he drinks no wine.... If I had a thousand sons, the first human principle I would teach them should be, to forswear thin potations and to addict themselves to sack.

You see me here, you gods, a poor old man, As full of grief as age; wretched in both.

No, no; 'tis all men's office to speak patience To those that wring under the load of sorrow, But no man's virtue nor sufficiency To be so moral when he shall endure The like himself. Therefore give me no counsel: My griefs cry louder than advertisement.

Cry "havoc!" and let loose the dogs of war, That this foul deed shall smell above the earth With carrion men, groaning for burial.

Well could he ride, and often men would say, "That horse his mettle from his rider takes: Proud of subjection, noble by the sway, What rounds, what bounds, what course, what stop he makes!" And controversy hence a question takes, Whether the horse by him became his deed, Or he his manage by the well-doing steed.

Some men there are love not a gaping pig, some that are mad if they behold a cat, and others when the bagpipe sings I the nose cannot contain their urine.

O powerful love, that in some respects makes a beast a man, in some other, a man a beast.

I am a true laborer: I earn that I eat, get that I wear, owe no man hate, envy no man's happiness, glad of other men's good, content with my harm.

Such men as he be never at heart's ease Whiles they behold a greater than themselves, And therefore are they very dangerous.

The why is plain as way to parish church: He that a fool doth very wisely hit Doth very foolishly, although he smart, Not to seem senseless of the bob; if not, The wise man's folly is anatomiz'd Even by the squand'ring glances of the fool.

This man, lady, hath robb'd many beasts of their particular additions: he is as valiant as a lion, churlish as the bear, slow as the elephant-a man into whom nature hath so crowded humours that his valour is crush'd into folly, his folly sauced with discretion.

He's truly valiant that can wisely suffer The worst that man can breathe, and make his wrongs His outsides, to wear them like his raiment, carelessly, And ne'er prefer his injuries to his heart, To bring it into danger.

Wise men never sit and wail their loss, but cheerily seek how to redress their harms.

Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud; Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun, And loathsome canker lies in sweetest bud. All men make faults.

When holy and devout religious men are at their beads, 'tis hard to draw them thence; so sweet is zealous contemplation.

When daisies pied and violets blue And lady-smocks all silver-white And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue Do paint the meadows with delight, The cuckoo then, on every tree, Mocks married men; for thus sings he, Cuckoo; Cuckoo, cuckoo; O, word of fear, Unpleasing to a married ear.

We must love men, ere to us they will seem worthy of our love.