Hast thou a favourite quote by the bard Shakespeare?

I really like that "Goodnight sweet Prince and may flights of angels sing thee to thy rest". Sigh!

And I like "Hell is empty and all the devils are here". feel like saying it on threads sometimes

I like 'Lay on, McDuff!' from Macbeth [an exhortation to get moving, but I always think of piles of people all squashing poor McDuff.]

"Double double toil and trouble...." I think I have used that and it got deleted. Can't imagine why.

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

From Love’s Labour’s Lost:

How well (s)he's read, to reason against reading!

(Spoken by Ferdinand in Act 1 Scene 1)

This was levelled at me by my English teacher when I failed (again) to hand in my homework

She sat like patience on a monument
Smiling at grief

12th Night Act 2 scene 4

I would not wish any companion in the world but you.

The Tempest

Shall I compare thee to summers day? (Whatever that is?)

"Parting is such sweet sorrow" because Romeo and Juliet was one of the few plays that actually resonated with me when I was at school, but since then "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day" and I love these lines from Richard II "this precious stone set in the silver sea" and "this blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England" such beautiful words about our country.

To thine own self be true - because it is our family's motto. And, consequently, I have various bits of Mottoware saying the same thing and I love my Mottoware.

This from McBeth

"Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak; whispers the o’er-fraught heart and bids it break.”

Too often we keep it all inside because our culture deems it best that way.

Aka, that is wonderful.

Here's my favourite:

Full fathom five thy father lies
Of his bones are coral made
Those are pearls that were his eyes.
Nothing of him doth fade
But doth suffer a sea change
Into something rich and strange.

It's from The Tempest. It has helped me to embrace many a 'sea change' in my own life.

That book would make a nice Christening present.

That's not a Shakespeare quote. It was me.

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate,
Rough winds to shake the darling buds of May
And summer's lease hath all too short a date.

The last line is a bit of a bugger if you have a lisp.

Exit! pursued by a bear.

Nellie

Fear no more the heat o' th' sun
Nor the furious winter's rages;
Thou thy worldly task hast done,
Home art gone and ta'en thy wages.
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.

There is something reassuring about that.

Or of course there is always "Tennis balls, my liege" (from Henry V) - I was determined to get that into one of my answers in my A-level!

"The lady doth protest too much, methinks" from Hamlet.

Something I often think of when one of the GDs is attempting to convince me that she wasn't the one who hit her sister/tipped over the cat food bowl/drew all over the sofa etc.

Thou bottled spider, thou pois'nous bunchback toad.
(Richard III)

Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.

Lear, Act 5, Scene 3

Stand not upon the order of your going, but go at once" (The Scottish Play)

'The course of true love never did run smooth'

A Midsummer Night' Dream - and how true is that?