"Even if you do not realise it now, the time will come when you will be thankful that you were steeped in Shakespeare as boys. In him we not only have, as Sir Gerald Du Maurier said here not long ago, perhaps the greatest man the world has ever seen, but one who had a profound knowledge of human nature and of the world. Shakespeare was one of those few poets in whom we find the magic which comes straight from heaven, and which is the prerogative of the very greatest: such magic as we find in the poetry of Keats, in the first scene of the last act of The Merchant of Venice and throughout the sonnets."

"I am a man, More sinn'd against than sinning."

"Of one that lov'd not wisely but too well."

"The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne, Burnt on the water."

"We have seen better days."

"Shakespeare's drama, where ideal women walk in worship, and the baser sort find sympathy."

"How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is To have a thankless child!"

"Can you imagine if somebody told him in the 16th century, 'Listen, you're going to inspire a black girl in the 20th century in Arkansas, who will be a mute"?"

"Nothing can come of nothing."

"All that glisters is not gold."

"Lord, what fools these mortals be!"

"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, heal'd by the same means, warm'd and cool'd 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?"

"Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind."

"O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?"

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

"Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon 'em."

"The course of true love never did run smooth."

"Off with his head!"

"A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!"

"What light through yonder window breaks?"

"There, Shakespeare, on whose forehead climb The crowns o' the world. Oh, eyes sublime With tears and laughter for all time."

"The passages of Shakespeare that we most prize were never quoted until within this century."

"Reputation is an idle and most false imposition; oft got without merit and lost without deserving."

"It is a wise father that knows his own child."

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose, By any other name would smell as sweet."

"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers."

"Thou hast most traitorously corrupted the youth of the realm in erecting a grammar-school; and whereas, before, our forefathers had no other books but the score and the tally, thou hast caused printing to be used; and, contrary to the king, his crown, and dignity, thou hast built a paper-mill."

"The smallest worm will turn, being trodden on."

"The fox barks not, when he would steal the lamb."

"Is she not passing fair?"

"O God! methinks, it were a happy life, To be no better than a homely swain; To sit upon a hill, as I do now, To carve out dials quaintly, point by point, Thereby to 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."

"How use doth breed a habit in a man!"

"Hung be the heavens with black, yield day to night!"

"Crabbed age and youth cannot live together: Youth is full of pleasure, age is full of care"

"I gyve unto my wief my second best bed with the furniture"

"Good frend for Jesus sake forbeare To digg the dust encloased heare Blese be the man that spares these stones And curst be he that moves my bones"

"On a day — alack the day! — Love, whose month is ever May, Spied a blossom passing fair Playing in the wanton air"

"Down, down to hell; and say I sent thee thither."

"That deep torture may be called a hell, When more is felt than one hath power to tell."

"I was in love with my bed."

"Defer no time, delays have dangerous ends."

"Over the past two centuries, there has hardly been an author, certainly in the English-speaking world, who has commanded greater reverence than Shakespeare. … There is only one text in the English language that carries comparable prestige to the works of Shakespeare: the Bible, in particular in its most renowned version, the King James Bible, otherwise known as the Authorized Version, of 1611. … In view of the persistent juxtaposition of these two Anglophone cultural icons … it is hardly surprising that they also feature together in a number of fictions of Shakespeare's life, in the form of the fantasy of the Bard as co-translator of the Authorized Version. The originator of this motif seems to have been Rudyard Kipling. In his story "Proofs of Holy Writ," Kipling imagines Shakespeare in the process of revising parts of the Authorized Version with the help of Ben Jonson."

"What cannot be eschewed must be embraced"

"Burgess's Shakespeare is not a patient empire builder or visionary, but rather an unhappy man caught in an unenviable position, at the midlife crisis age of forty-six. … Burgess's point may well be that literary quality is not always recognized during one's lifetime … due to an ill-advised display of his wit in the presence of the king, Shakespeare is currently out of favor. … Particularly ingenious in Burgess's story is the way Shakepeare even hides his name in the text of the psalm. As he is forty-six years of age, he chooses Psalm 46; he counts to the forty-sixth word, replaces it by "shake"' then he starts at the end, counts forty-six words backwards (leaving out of the account the cadential "'"), and changes that word into "speare." The surprising thing is, that the evidence shoring up this highly unlikely scenario is in itself authentic: in Psalm 46 AV, the forty-sixth word really is "shake", the forty-sixth word from the end (not counting "selah") being spear. Although Burgess's Shakespeare revises the psalm for wholly selfish ends, out of defiance and sinful pride, he does not thereby lose our sympathy. Unlike Kiping's self-confident sahib, he is not a superman that can lead nations; rather, in his everyday struggle with political realities, an unhappy marriage, and uncomprehending neighbors, he is a modern antihero whom we cannot begrudge his one moment of triumph. … For Burgess, art is the result of suffering between the hammer of what is and the anvil of what should be. He projects that vision on Shakespeare, whose drive for self-realization, impeded by his surroundings, finds an outlet in this act of creativity."

"To me, Shakespeare lives if we keep performing his plays. He dies, when we stop performing them."

"Shikspur, Shikspur! Who wrote it? No, I never read Shikspur. Then you have an immense pleasure to come."

"Scorn not the Sonnet. Critic, you have frowned, Mindless of its just honours; with this key Shakespeare unlocked his heart."

"God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea; Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof. There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the most High. God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved: God shall help her, and that right early. The heathen raged, the kingdoms were moved: he uttered his voice, the earth melted. The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Come, behold the works of the LORD, what desolations he hath made in the earth. He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth; he breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder; he burneth the chariot in the fire. Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth. The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge."

"Few of the university pen plaies well, they smell too much of that writer Ovid and that writer Metamorphosis and talk too much of Proserpina and Jupiter. Why, here's our fellow Shakespeare puts them all down. Aye, and Ben Jonson too. O that B. J. is a pestilent fellow, he brought up Horace giving the poets a pill, but our fellow, Shakespeare, hath given him a purge that made him beray his credit."

"What needs my Shakespeare for his honored bones The labors of an age in piled stones? Or that his hallowed reliques should be hid Under a starre-y-pointing pyramid? Dear son of Memory, great heir of fame, What need'st thou such weak witness of thy name? Thou in our wonder and astonishment Hath built thyself a livelong monument."