
In Shakespeare's day, gaining greater access to his plays meant duking it out with the other "groundlings" for the best view of the stage. It took centuries for the modern printing press to bring plays like Hamlet to people all around the world and for the Bard to become one of the most quoted writers in history.
Now Shakespeare's oeuvre is even more accessible. Search within Hamlet for " to be or not to be" to read the rest of his famous soliloquy. Find out who called the world his " oyster" and why. Browse through a familiar play or follow your curiosity to discover a new one. And if you decide you want to buy a copy, "All editions" will show you every version in Google Book Search, many of which are available for purchase.
The Comedy of Errors
"Time is a very bankrupt, and owes more than he's worth, to season.
Nay, he's a thief too: have you not heard men say
That Time comes stealing on by night and day?"
All editions
Love's Labor's Lost
"O, they have lived long on the alms-basket of words.
I marvel thy master hath not eaten thee for a word;
for thou art not so long by the head as
honorificabilitudinitatibus: thou art easier
swallowed than a flap-dragon."
All editions
The Two Gentlemen of Verona
"O heaven! were man
But constant, he were perfect. That one error
Fills him with faults; makes him run through all the sins:
Inconstancy falls off ere it begins."
All editions
The Taming of the Shrew
"Content you, gentlemen. I will compound this strife.
‘Tis deeds must win the prize, and he of both
That can assure my daughter greatest dower
Shall have my Bianca’s love."
All editions
A Midsummer Night's Dream
"I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,
Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,
With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine."
All editions
The Merchant of Venice
"The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.
An evil soul producing holy witness
Is like a villain with a smiling cheek,
A goodly apple rotten at the heart:
O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!"
All editions
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Much Ado about Nothing
"That a woman conceived me, I thank her; that she
Brought me up, I likewise give her most humble thanks:
But that I will have a recheat winded in my forehead, or hang my bugle
In an invisible baldrick, all women shall pardon me."
All editions
The Merry Wives of Windsor
"Why then, the world's mine oyster,
Which I with sword will open.
I will retort the sum in equipage."
All editions
As You Like It
"All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts."
All editions
Twelfth Night; or What You Will
"Be not afraid of greatness.
Some are born great, some achieve greatness,
and some have greatness thrust upon 'em."
All editions
All's Well That Ends Well
"Moderate lamentation is the right of the dead,
excessive grief the enemy to the living."
All editions
Measure For Measure
"Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall:
Some run from breaks of ice, and answer none;
And some condemned for a fault alone."
All editions
Troilus and Cressida
"They say all lovers swear more performance than they are able
and yet reserve an ability that they never perform,
vowing more than the perfection of ten
and discharging less than the tenth part of one."
All editions
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Titus Andronicus
"The eagle suffers little birds to sing,
And is not careful what they mean thereby,
Knowing that with the shadow of his wings
He can at pleasure stint their melody;
Even so mayest thou the giddy men of Rome."
All editions
Romeo and Juliet
"O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?
Deny thy father and refuse thy name!
Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
And I'll no longer be a Capulet."
All editions
Julius Caesar
"Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Caesar."
All editions
Hamlet
"To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them?"
All editions
Othello
"O beware, my lord, of Jealousy!
It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock
The meat it feeds on."
All editions
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King Lear
"Down from the waist they are Centaurs,
Though women all above.
But to the girdle do the gods inherit;
Beneath is all the fiend's."
All editions
Macbeth
"Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death."
All editions
Timon of Athens
"The sun's a thief, and with his great attraction
Robs the vast sea; the moon's an arrant thief,
And her pale fire she snatches from the sun;
The sea's a thief, whose liquid surge resolves
The moon into salt tears."
All editions
Antony and Cleopatra
"Egypt, thou knew'st too well
My heart was to thy rudder tied by the strings,
And thou shouldst tow me after: o'er my spirit
Thy full supremacy thou knew'st."
All editions
Coriolanus
"Let me have war, say I;
it exceeds peace as far as day does night;
it's spritely, waking, audible, and full of vent.
Peace is a very apoplexy, lethargy:
mulled, deaf, sleepy, insensible;"
All editions
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Pericles
"O you gods!
Why do you make us love your goodly gifts,
And snatch them straight away? We here below
Recall not what we give, and therein may
Use honour with you."
All editions
Cymbeline
"If she be furnished with a mind so rare,
She is alone the Arabian bird, and I
Have lost the wager. Boldness be my friend!
Arm me, audacity."
All editions
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The Winter's Tale
"We were as twinned lambs that did frisk i' the sun,
And bleat the one at the other: what we changed
Was innocence for innocence; we knew not
The doctrine of ill-doing, nor dreamed
That any did."
All editions
The Tempest
"How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world
That has such people in't!"
All editions
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The First Part of King Henry the Sixth
"She's beautiful and therefore to be wooed;
She is a woman, therefore to be won."
All editions
The Second Part of King Henry the Sixth
"Is not this a lamentable thing, that of the skin
of an innocent lamb should be made parchment?
that parchment, being scribbled o'er, should undo a man?"
All editions
The Third Part of King Henry the Sixth
"My parks, my walks, my manors that I had,
Even now forsake me; and of all my lands
Is nothing left me but my body's length!
Why, what is pomp, rule, reign, but earth and dust?
And, live we how we can, yet die we must."
All editions
The Tragedy of King Richard the Third
"Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of York;
Amd all the clouds that lowered upon our house
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried."
All editions
The Life and Death of King John
"Well, whiles I am a beggar, I will rail,
And say, There is no sin, but to be rich:
And being rich, my virtue then shall be,
To say, There is no vice, but beggary."
All editions
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The Tragedy of King Richard the Second
"Not all the water in the rough rude sea
Can wash the balm from an anointed king;
The breath of worldly men cannot depose
The deputy elected by the Lord."
All editions
The First Part of King Henry the Fourth
"Tis dangerous to take a cold, to sleep, to drink;
but I tell you, my lord fool, out of this nettle,
danger, we pluck this flower, safety."
All editions
The Second Part of King Henry the Fourth
"I may justly say with the hook-nosed fellow of
Rome, 'I came, saw, and overcame.'"
All editions
The Life of King Henry the Fifth
"O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend
The brightest heaven of invention,
A kingdom for a stage, princes to act
And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!"
All editions
The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eighth
"Had I but served my God with half the zeal
I served my king, he would not in mine age
Have left me naked to mine enemies."
All editions
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