The Very Quick Shakespeare

Histories

Richard II: I hate the murderer, love him murdered.
Richard III: And therefore, — since I cannot prove a lover,
To entertain these fair well-spoken days, —
I am determined to prove a villain,
And hate the idle pleasures of these days.
Henry IV Part 1: Can Honour set to a leg? No. Or an arm? No. Or take away the grief of a wound? No. Honour hath no skill in surgery then? No. What is Honour? a word. What is that word, Honour? Air. A trim reckoning! — Who hath it? He that died o' Wednesday. Doth he feel it? No. Doth he hear it? No. Is it sensible then? Yes, to the dead. But will it not live with the living? No. Why? Detraction will not suffer it: therefore I'll none of it. Honour is a mere 'scutcheon, and so ends my catechism.
Henry IV Part 2: Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.
Henry V: Would I were in an alehouse in London! I would give all my fame for a pot of ale, and safety.
Henry VI Part 1: Unbidden guests
Are often welcomest when they are gone.
Henry VI Part 2: The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.
Henry VI Part 3: Why, what is pomp, rule, reign, but earth and dust?
And, live we how we can, yet die we must.

Hamlet: No, faith, not a jot. But to follow him thither with modesty enough, and likelihood to lead it, as thus: Alexander died, Alexander was buried, Alexander returneth to dust, the dust is earth, of earth we make loam—and why of that loam, whereto he was converted, might they not stop a beer barrel?
Hamlet: Imperious Caesar, dead and turned to clay,
Might stop a hole to keep the wind away.
Oh, that that earth, which kept the world in awe,
Should patch a wall t' expel the winter’s flaw!
MacBeth: 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.
King Lear: Thou hast seen a farmer’s dog bark at a beggar? And the creature run from the cur? There thou mightst behold the great image of authority: a dog’s obeyed in office.
Othello: The robb’d that smiles, steals something from the thief.
Romeo and Juliet: Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs.
Coriolanus: Action is eloquence.
Antony and Cleopatra: There's beggary in the love that can be reckoned.
Julius Caesar: The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream: O, hell! to choose love by another's eyes.
As You Like It: For your brother and my sister no sooner
met, but they looked; no sooner looked, but they
loved; no sooner loved, but they sighed; no sooner
sighed, but they asked one another the reason; no
sooner knew the reason but they sought the remedy.
Love’s Labor Lost: They have been at a great feast of languages, and stol’n the scraps.
The Merchant of Venice: If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?
Much Ado About Nothing: ‘I can see he's not in your good books,’ said the messenger.
‘No, and if he were I would burn my library.’
Twelfth Night: We are such stuff as dreams are made of
And our little life is rounded with sleep.
The Comedy of Errors: Since mine own doors refuse to entertain me,
I'll knock elsewhere, to see if they'll disdain me
The Taming of the Shrew: I burn, I pine, I perish.

All’s Well That Ends Well: Many a man’s tongue shakes out his master’s undoing.
Cymbeline: Golden lads and girls all must, as chimney-sweepers, come to dust.
Henry VIII: Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot
That it do singe yourself.
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.
Measure For Measure: Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall.
Pericles: Who makes the fairest show means the most deceit.
The Tempest: Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.
The Winter’s Tale: Though I am not naturally honest, I am sometimes so by chance.