1610s

Hamlet · 1616

★ 8.7

Love and War are the same thing, and stratagems and policy are as allowable in the one as in the other.

Don Quixote · 1615

★ 7.3

What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable; in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god: the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals-And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?

Hamlet · 1616

★ 7.3

Come what come may, Time and the hour runs through the roughest day.

Macbeth · 1616

★ 7.2

Nothing emboldens sin so much as mercy.

Timon of Athens · 1616

★ 7.1

He’s loved of the distracted multitude, Who like not in their judgment, but their eyes.

Hamlet · 1616

★ 7.0

Frailty, thy name is woman!

Hamlet · 1616

★ 6.9

Good counselors lack no clients.

Measure for Measure · 1616

★ 6.9

Madness in great ones must not unwatched go.

Hamlet · 1616

★ 6.5

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more. It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.

Macbeth · 1616

★ 6.4

We know what we are but know not what we may be.

Hamlet · 1616

★ 6.1

My age is as a lusty winter, Frosty but kindly.

As You Like It · 1616

★ 5.6

Now blessings light on him that first invented this same sleep! It covers a man all over, thoughts and all, like a cloak; "Tis meat for the hungry, drink for the thirsty, heat for the cold, and cold for the hot." Tis the current coin that purchases all the pleasures of the world cheap; and the balance that sets the king and the shepherd, the fool and the wise man even.

Don Quixote · 1615

★ 5.5

Sweet are the uses of adversity, Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, Wears yet a precious jewel in his head. And this our life, exempt from public haunt, Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good in everything.

As You Like It · 1616

★ 5.5

The apparel oft proclaims the man.

Press not a falling man too far!

Hamlet · 1616

★ 5.4

Play · History (play)

Henry VIII · 1613

★ 5.4

Brevity is the soul of wit.

Hamlet · 1616

★ 5.3

The flow'ry way that leads to the broad gate and the great fire.

All's Well that Ends Well · 1616

★ 5.1

Doubt thou the stars are fire, Doubt that the sun doth move, Doubt truth to be a liar, But never doubt I love.

Hamlet · 1616

★ 4.8

And so from hour to hour we ripe and ripe, And then from hour to hour we rot and rot, And thereby hangs a tale.

As You Like It · 1616

★ 4.7

O, that this too, too sullied flesh would melt, Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew, Or that the Everlasting had not fixed His canon ’gainst self-slaughter! O God, God, How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable Seem to me all the uses of this world!

Hamlet · 1616

★ 4.7

The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff As dreams are made on, and our little life Is rounded with a sleep.

The Tempest · 1616

★ 4.7

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

Hamlet · 1616

★ 4.6

I must be cruel only to be kind.

Hamlet · 1616

★ 4.5

He's a muddle-headed fool, with frequent lucid intervals.

Don Quixote · 1615

★ 4.0

Blessed be he that invented sleep.

Don Quixote · 1615

★ 4.0

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

Hamlet · 1616

★ 4.0

But, to my mind, though I am native here And to the manner born, it is a custom More honored in the breach than the observance.

Hamlet · 1616

★ 4.0

Sure He that made us with such large discourse, Looking before and after, gave us not That capability and godlike reason To fust in us unused.

Hamlet · 1616

★ 4.0

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot That it do singe yourself.

Hamlet · 1616

★ 4.0

Play · History (play)

Henry VIII · 1613

★ 3.9

We cannot all be friars, and many are the ways by which God leads his own to eternal life. Knight-errantry is religion.

Don Quixote · 1615

★ 3.9

All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players.

As You Like It · 1616

★ 3.9

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

Measure for Measure · 1616

★ 3.9

Against self-slaughter There is a prohibition so divine That cravens my weak hand.

Cymbeline · 1611

★ 3.8

Though I am not naturally honest, I am so sometimes by chance.

It is one thing to praise discipline, and another to submit to it.

The Winter's Tale · 1611

★ 3.8

Short story

The Dialogue of the Dogs · 1613

★ 3.8

The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.

As You Like It · 1616

★ 3.8

Let me have war, say I. It exceeds peace as far as day does night. It's sprightly waking, audible, and full of vent. Peace is a very apoplexy, lethargy; mulled, deaf, sleepy, insensible.