Quotes
Quotes about Shakespeare
Note 1.Altissima quæque flumina minimo sono labi (The deepest rivers flow with the least sound).--Q. Curtius, vii. 4. 13.
Smooth runs the water where the brook is deep.--William Shakespeare: 2 Henry VI. act iii. sc. i.
Soul of the age,
The applause, delight, the wonder of our stage,
My Shakespeare, rise! I will not lodge thee by
Chaucer or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie
A little further, to make thee a room.
Such sights as youthful poets dream
On summer eves by haunted stream.
Then to the well-trod stage anon,
If Jonson's learned sock be on,
Or sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy's child,
Warble his native wood-notes wild.
What needs my Shakespeare for his honour'd bones,--
The labour of an age in piled stones?
Or that his hallow'd relics should be hid
Under a star-y-pointing pyramid?
Dear son of memory, great heir of fame,
What need'st thou such weak witness of thy name?
But Shakespeare's magic could not copied be;
Within that circle none durst walk but he.
This is the Jew
That Shakespeare drew.
Note 29.See Shakespeare, King Richard III, Quotation 5.
They would talk of nothing but high life, and high-lived company, with other fashionable topics, such as pictures, taste, Shakespeare, and the musical glasses.
We must be free or die who speak the tongue
That Shakespeare spake, the faith and morals hold
Which Milton held.
The sightless Milton, with his hair
Around his placid temples curled;
And Shakespeare at his side,--a freight,
If clay could think and mind were weight,
For him who bore the world!
Scorn not the sonnet. Critic, you have frowned,
Mindless of its just honours; with this key
Shakespeare unlocked his heart.
Our myriad-minded Shakespeare.
Shakespeare is not our poet, but the world's,--
Therefore on him no speech! And brief for thee,
Browning! Since Chaucer was alive and hale,
No man hath walk'd along our roads with steps
So active, so inquiring eye, or tongue
So varied in discourse.
And rival all but Shakespeare's name below.
Nor sequent centuries could hit
Orbit and sum of Shakespeare's wit.
Raphael paints wisdom, Handel sings it, Phidias carves it, Shakespeare writes it, Wren builds it, Columbus sails it, Luther preaches it, Washington arms it, Watt mechanizes it.
When Shakespeare is charged with debts to his authors, Landor replies, "Yet he was more original than his originals. He breathed upon dead bodies and brought them into life."
There Shakespeare, on whose forehead climb
The crowns o' the world; oh, eyes sublime
With tears and laughter for all time!
"With this same key
Shakespeare unlocked his heart"once more!
Did Shakespeare? If so, the less Shakespeare he!
Attributed to Shakespeare.
If Shakespeare required a word and had not met it in civilised discourse, he unhesitatingly made it up
The important thing is to get yourself born. Youâre entitled to that. But youâre not entitled to life. Because if you were entitled to life, then the life would have to be quantified. How many years? Seventy? Sixty? Shakespeare was dead at fifty-two. Keats was dead at twenty-six. Thomas Chatterton at seventeen.
Shakespeare may have outshone him (Marlowe) but he dÃd not contain or supersede him. That inimitable voice sings on.
Rome's just a city like anywhere else. A vastly overrated city, I'd say. It trades on belief just as Stratford trades on Shakespeare.
Do you insist that a painter have a degree in painting before he starts to paint? Should Shakespeare have had a degree in dramatic literature?
