Nagesh Belludi

Today, we present inspirational quotations from the works of English poet and playwright, William Shakespeare (1564—1616.)

“The Bard of Avon” is widely regarded as the best English language writer ever. Shakespeare is believed to have been born on 23 April 1564 and passed away on his 52nd birthday, on 23 April 1616. Shakespeare produced most of his famous works, viz., Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, King Lear, Macbeth, Julius Caesar, and others, between the ages of 25 and 49. His authorship consists of about 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and several other poems.

Not many particulars of Shakespeare’s private life are documented. There is much speculation of various aspects of Shakespeare’s life, including the authorship and chronology of his works, his physical appearance, and religious affiliation. Countless literary scholars and historians have dedicated their careers to throw light on the mystery of Shakespeare.

Shakespeare’s epitaph reads,

Good friend, for Jesus’ sake forbeare
To dig the dust enclosed here.
Blessed be the man that spares these stones,
And cursed be he that moves my bones.

Suggested Resources

• William Shakespeare Complete Works (Modern Library)
• The Comedy of Errors – The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition]
• The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (MIT)
• Annotated guide to the scholarly Shakespeare resources available on the Internet
• Plays by William Shakespeare

Quotations by William Shakespeare

If all the year were playing holidays, to sport would be as tedious as to work: but when they seldom come, they wished for come, and nothing pleaseth but rare accidents.
—William Shakespeare (British Playwright)

The lunatic, the lover, and the poet, are of imagination all compact.
—William Shakespeare (British Playwright)

Thieves for their robbery have authority when judges steal themselves.
—William Shakespeare (British Playwright)

Do you not know I am a woman? when I think, I must speak.
—William Shakespeare (British Playwright)

The jury, passing on the prisoner’s life, may have in the sworn twelve a thief or two guiltier than him they try.
—William Shakespeare (British Playwright)

How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world.
—William Shakespeare (British Playwright)

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.
—William Shakespeare (British Playwright)

Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind,|And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.
—William Shakespeare (British Playwright)

Striving to better, oft we mar what’s well.
—William Shakespeare (British Playwright)

Foul cankering rust the hidden treasure frets,|But gold that’s put to use more gold begets.
—William Shakespeare (British Playwright)

People are lucky and unlucky … according to the ratio between what they get and what they have been led to expect.
—Samuel Butler

It is always possible to be thankful for what is given rather than to complain about what is not given.
—Elisabeth Elliot (American Christian Author)

Respect for the truth is an acquired taste.
—Mark Van Doren

Exchange the words ‘have to’ with ‘get to.’ Exchange the word ‘can’t’ with ‘unwilling.’
—Jamie Lee Curtis (American Children’s Books Writer)

Industry need not wish, and he that lives upon hopes will die fasting. There are no gains without pains. He that hath a trade hath an estate, and he that hath a calling hath an office of profit and honor; but then the trade must be worked at, and the calling followed, or neither the, estate nor the office will enable us to pay our taxes. If we are industrious, we shall never starve; for, at the workingman’s house hunger looks in, but dares not enter. Nor will the bailiff or the constable enter, for industry pays debts, while idleness and neglect increase them.
—Benjamin Franklin (American Political leader)

Every now and then, when the world sits just right, a gentle breath of heaven fills my soul with delight … .
—Hazelmarie ‘Mattie’ Elliott

We would frequently be ashamed of our good deeds if people saw all of the motives that produced them.
—Francois de La Rochefoucauld

I am only one; but still I am one. I cannot do everything; but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.
—Edward Everett Hale (American Unitarian Clergyman)

Perfect courage is to do without witnesses what one would be capable of doing with the world looking on.
—Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Always imitate the behavior of the winners when you lose.
—George Meredith

Look up and not down, look forward and not back, look out and not in, and lend a hand!
—Edward Everett Hale (American Unitarian Clergyman)

So much of our time is spent in preparation, so much in routine, and so much in retrospect, that the amount of each person’s genius is confined to a very few hours.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (American Philosopher)

No man is quick enough to enjoy life to the full.
—Spanish Proverb

That it will never come again is what makes life so sweet.
—Emily Dickinson (American Poet)

The word ”Christianity” is already a misunderstanding—in reality there has been only one Christian, and he died on the Cross.
—Friedrich Nietzsche (German Philosopher, Scholar)

Enjoy yourself–it’s later than you think.
—Chinese Proverb

Catch, then, oh catch the transient hour;|Improve each moment as it flies!|Life’s a short summer, man a flower;|He dies – alas! how soon he dies.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

Enjoy yourself. It’s later than you think.
—Chinese Proverb

Be happy while you’re living, for you’re a long time dead.
—Scottish Proverb

We’re fools whether we dance or not, so we might as well dance.
—Japanese Proverb

Fear not that thy life shall come to an end, but rather fear that it shall never have a beginning.
—John Henry Newman (British Catholic Clergyman)

Use your health, even to the point of wearing it out. That is what it is for. Spend all you have before you die; do not outlive yourself.
—George Bernard Shaw (Irish Playwright)

Tears are the silent language of grief.
—Voltaire (French Philosopher)

Good things, when short, are twice as good.
—Baltasar Gracian

Happiness seems to require a modicum of external prosperity.
—Aristotle (Ancient Greek Philosopher)

It is not the magnitude of the task that matters, it is the magnitude of our courage that counts.
—Matthieu Ricard (French Buddhist Monk)

Few of us write great novels; all of us live them.
—Mignon McLaughlin (American Journalist)

The greatest crimes are caused by surfeit, not by want.
—Aristotle (Ancient Greek Philosopher)

To add a library to a house is to give that house a soul.
—Cicero (Roman Philosopher)

I find four great classes of students: The dumb who stay dumb. The dumb who become wise. The wise who go dumb. The wise who remain wise.
—Martin H. Fischer

I’d rather be a few pounds heavier and enjoy life than be worried all the time.
—Drew Barrymore (American Actor)

I am coming to feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than the people of goodwill. We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people. We must come to see that human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability. It comes through the tireless efforts and persistent work of men willing to be co-workers with God, and without this hard work time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time creatively, and forever realize that the time is always ripe to do right. Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy, and transform our pending national elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity.
—Martin Luther King, Jr. (American Civil Rights Leader)

Just as clouds form, last for a while, and then dissolve back into the empty sky, so deluded thoughts arise, remain for a while and then vanish in the voidness of mind; in reality nothing at all has happened.
—Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche (Tibetan Buddhist Religious Leader)

The distance between insanity and genius is measured only by success.
—Bruce Feirstein

An earnest purpose finds time, or makes it. It seizes on spare moments, and turns fragments to golden account.
—William Ellery Channing

The world needs dreamers and the world needs doers. But above all, the world needs dreamers who do.
—Sarah Ban Breathnach

The world needs anger. The world often continues to allow evil because it isn’t angry enough.
—Bede Jarrett

I hope you have not been leading a double life, pretending to be wicked, and being really good all the time. That would be hypocrisy.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)

Never regret yesterday. Life is in you today, and you make your tomorrow.
—L. Ron Hubbard (American Scientologist Religious Leader)

A good style should show no signs of effort. What is written should seem a happy accident.
—W. Somerset Maugham (French Playwright)

Oh! that you could turn your eyes towards the napes of your necks, and make but an interior survey of your good selves.
—William Shakespeare (British Playwright)

The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.
—Hans Hofmann

Friendship is like money, easier made than kept.
—Samuel Butler

Feel like Christ and you will be a Christ; feel like Buddha and you will be a Buddha. It is feeling that is the life, the strength, the vitality, without which no amount of intellectual activity can reach God.
—Swami Vivekananda (Indian Hindu Mystic)

Change will not come if we wait for some other person, or if we wait for some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.
—Barack Obama (American Head of State)

As none can see the wind but in its effects on the trees, neither can we see the emotions but in their effects on the face and body.
—Nathaniel LeTonnerre

It is not the employer who pays the wages. He only handles the money. It is the product that pays the wages.
—Henry Ford (American Businessperson)

Courage can’t see around corners, but goes around them anyway.
—Mignon McLaughlin (American Journalist)

In your thirst for knowledge, be sure not to drown in all the information.
—Anthony J. D’Angelo

We catch frightful glimpses of ourselves in the hostile eyes of others.
—Mignon McLaughlin (American Journalist)

Riches have never fascinated me, unless combined with the greatest charm or distinction.
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (American Novelist)

It isn’t that they can’t see the solution. It is that they can’t see the problem.
—G. K. Chesterton (English Journalist)

Today is the 201st birthday of American physician, professor, lecturer, and author Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (August 29, 1809—October 7, 1894.)

Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and educated at Harvard, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. briefly studied law before turning to the medical profession. As a teacher of medicine at Dartmouth and Harvard, he initiated and advocated far-reaching medical reforms. He is the father of the renowned American jurist and Civil War officer, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Throughout his life, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. wrote poetry, novels, and essays. His peers, including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and James Russell Lowell, regarded Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. as one of the best writers of the 19th century. His most famous works include The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table (1858), The Professor of the Breakfast-Table (1860,) and The Poet of the Breakfast-Table (1872) and the biography of Ralph Waldo Emerson (1884.)

Inspirational Quotations by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Men are idolaters and want something to look at and kiss and hug, or throw themselves down before; they always did, they always will; and if you don’t make it out of wood, you must make it out of words.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (American Physician)

The sound of a kiss is not so loud as that of a cannon, but its echo lasts a deal longer.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (American Physician)

Knowledge and timber shouldn’t be much used, till they are seasoned.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (American Physician)

Laughter and tears are meant to turn the wheels of the same machinery of sensibility; one is wind-power, and the other water-power; that is all.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (American Physician)

Now habit is a labor-saving invention which enables a man to get along with less fuel.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (American Physician)

Be polite and generous, but don’t undervalue yourself. You will be useful, at any rate; you may just as well be happy, while you are about it.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (American Physician)

He must be a poor creature that does not often repeat himself. Imagine the author of the excellent piece of advice, “Know thyself,” never alluding to that sentiment again during the course of a protracted existence!
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (American Physician)

I talk half the time to find out my own thoughts, as a school-boy turns his pockets inside out to see what is in them. One brings to light all sorts of personal property he had forgotten in his inventory.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (American Physician)

A thought is often original, though you have uttered it a hundred times. It has come to you over a new route, by a new and express train of associations.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (American Physician)

Knowledge—it excites prejudices to call it science—is advancing as irresistibly, as majestically, as remorselessly as the ocean moves in upon the shore.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (American Physician)