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.

I see a man's life is a tedious one.

A man should be what he seems.

What can be happier than for a man, conscious of virtuous acts, and content with liberty, to despise all human affairs?

Wisdom cries out in the streets, and no man regards it.

O momentary grace of mortal men, Which we more hunt for than the grace of God!

There's daggers in men's smiles.

They say, the tongues of dying men Enforce attention, like deep harmony; Where words are scarce, they're seldom spent in vain; For they breathe truth, that breathe their words in pain.

It is certain that either wise bearing or ignorant carriage is caught as men take diseases, one of another.

The undeserver may sleep when the man of action is called on.

Do not cast away an honest man for a villain's accusation.

The fortune of us that are the moon's men doth ebb and flow like the sea, being governed, as the sea is, by the moon.

O jest unseen, inscrutable, invisible, As a nose on a man's face, or a weathercock on a steeple.

A man in all the world's new fashion planted, That hath a mint of phrases in his brain.

Beware Of entrance to a quarrel; but being in, Bear't that the opposed may beware of thee. Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice; Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment. Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy, But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy; For the apparel oft proclaims the man.

O, how wretched is that poor man that hangs on princes' favors.

Let each man do his best.

Wilt thou whip thine own faults in other men?

Cowards die many times; a brave man dies but once.

There is a willow grows aslant a brook, That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream; There with fantastic garlands did she come Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples That liberal shepherds give a grosser name, But our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them: There, on the pendent boughs her coronet weeds Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke; When down her weedy trophies and herself Fell in the weeping brook.

Here's flowers for you; Hot lavender, mints, savoury, marjoram; The marigold, that goes to bed wi' the sun And with him rises weeping: these are flowers Of middle summer, and I think they are given To men of middle age.

A man I am cross'd with adversity.

If reasons were as plentiful as blackberries, I would give no man a reason upon compulsion.

For there's no motion That tends to vice in man, but I affirm It is the woman's part.

Think'st thou it honourable for a noble man Still to remember wrongs?

We must every one be a man of his own fancy.

A woman impudent and mannish grown Is not more loath'd than an effeminate man.

Wise men ne'er sit and wail their woes, but presently prevent the ways to wail.

Slanders, sir, for the satirical rogue says here that old men have grey beards, that their faces are wrinkled, their eyes purging think amber and plum-tree gum, and that they have a plentiful lack of wit, together with most weak hams.

The will of man is by his reason sway'd.

If she be not honest, chaste, and true, there's no man happy.

Now all the youth of England are on fire, And silken dalliance in the wardrobe lies; Now thrive the armorers, and honor's thought Reigns solely in the breast of every man.

Now, my masters, happy man be his dole, say I; every man to his business.

Virtue's office never breaks men's troth.

Thanks to men Of noble minds, is honorable meed.

I have heard of some kind of men that put quarrels purposely on others, to taste their valor.

Indeed, sir, he that sleeps feels not the toothache; but a man that were to sleep your sleep, and a hangman to help him to bed, I think he would change places with his officer; for look you, sir, you know not which way you shall go.

O villains, vipers, dogs, easily won to fawn on any man!

Ingrateful man with liquorish draughts, and morsels unctuous, greases his pure mind that from it all consideration slips.

Men have marble, women waxen, minds.

An old man, broken with the storms of state, Is come to lay his weary bones among ye; Give him a little earth for charity!

For oaths are straws, men's faiths are wafer-cakes, And hold-fast is the only dog.

Opinion's but a fool, that makes us scan The outward habit by the inward man.

I'll never Be such a gosling to obey instinct, but stand As is a man were author of himself And knew no other kin.

Look what thy soul holds dear, imagine it To lie that way thou goest, not whence thou com'st. Suppose the singing birds musicians, The grass whereon thou tread'st the presence strewed, The flowers fair ladies, and thy steps no more Than a delight measure or a dance; For gnarling sorrow hath less power to bite The man that mocks at it and sets it light.

An honest man, sir, is able to speak for himself, when a knave is not.

Greatness, once fallen out with fortune, must fall out with men too.

To some kind of men their graces serve them but as enemies.

However wickedness outstrips men, it has no wings to fly from God.

Every man has a bag hanging before him, in which he puts his neighbour's faults, and another behind him in which he stows his own.

Best men oft are moulded out of faults.

I profess not talking: only this, Let each man do his best.

There is nothing but roguery to be found in villainous men.

But since the affairs of men rests still incertain, Let's reason with the worst that may befall.

The devil knew what he did when he made men politic; he crossed himself by it.

Press not a falling man too far; 'tis virtue: His faults lie open to the laws; let them, Not you, correct him.

As a walled town is more worthier than a village, so is the forehead of a married man more honorable than the bare brow of a bachelor.

The king is but a man, as I am; the violet smells to him as it doth to me; the element shows to him as it doth to me; all his senses have but human conditions; his ceremonies laid by, in his nakedness he appears but a man; and though his affections are higher mounted than ours, yet, when they stoop, they stoop with the like wing.

By a divine instinct, men's minds mistrust ensuing danger; as, by proof, we see the waters swell before a boisterous storm.

No man means evil but the devil, and we shall know him by his horns.

A plague of sighing and grief! It blows a man up like a bladder.

Men that hazard all Do it in hope of fair advantages: A golden mind stoops not to shows of dross.

There are a sort of men, whose visages Do cream and mantle, like a standing pond; And do a willful stillness entertain, With purpose to be dressed in an opinion Of wisdom, gravity profound conceit; As who should say, I am sir Oracle, And when I ope my lips, let no dog bark!

Chain me with roaring bears; Or shut me nightly in a charnel-house, O'er-covered quite with dead men's rattling bones, With reeky shanks and yellow chapless skulls; Or bid me go into a new-made grave, And hide me with a dead man in his shroud; Things that, to hear them told, have made me tremble; And I will do it without Fear or Doubt, To live an unstain'd Wife of my sweet Love.

How slow This old moon wanes! she lingers my desires, Like to a stepdame, or a dowager, Long withering out a young man's revenue.

What man dare, I dare. Approach thou like the rugged Russian bear, The armed rhinoceros, or th' Hyrcan tiger; Take any shape but that, and my firm nerves Shall never tremble.

Villains, vipers, damn'd without redemption; Dogs, easily won to fawn on any man; Snakes in my heart-blood warm'd, that sing my heart; Three Judases, each one thrice worse than Judas.

Foul deeds will rise, Though all the earth o'erwhelm them, to men's eyes.

Milk-livered man, That bear'st a cheek for blows, a head for wrongs; Who hast not in thy brows an eye discerning Thine honor from thy suffering; [that not know'st Fools do those villains pity who are punished Ere they have done their mischief. Where's thy drum? France spreads his banners in our noiseless land, With plumed helm thy state begins to threat, Whilst thou, a moral fool, sits still and cries 'Alack, why does he so?']

Foul fiend of France and hag of all despite, Encompassed with thy lustful paramours, Becomes it thee to taunt his valiant age And twit with cowardice a man half dead?

Women are angels, wooing: Things won are done; joy's soul lies in the doing: That she beloved knows naught, that knows not this-- Men prize the thing ungained more than it is.

O constancy, be strong upon my side, Set a huge mountain 'tween my heart and tongue! I have a man's mind, but a woman's might.

Tis a blushing shame-faced 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.

Conscience is a blushing, shamefaced spirit than mutinies in a man's bosom; it fills one full of obstacles.

He that hath a beard is more than a youth, and he that hath no beard is less than a man. He that is more than a youth is not for me, and he that is less than a man, I am not for him.

This rudeness is a sauce to his good wit, Which gives men stomach to digest his words With better appetite.

But, indeed, words are very rascals, since bonds [vows] disgraced them." Viola: "Thy reason, man?" Feste: "Troth [Truthfully], sir, I can yield you none without words, and words are grown so false, I am loathe to prove reason with them.