William Shakespeare on Character
← Back to William Shakespeare Profile
“The trick of singularity.”
“What a frosty-spirited rogue is this!”
“There's neither honesty, manhood, nor good fellowship in thee.”
“Though I am not splenitive and rash, Yet have I something in me dangerous.”
“I am no proud Jack, like Falstaff; but a Corinthian, glad of mettle, a good boy.”
“There is a kind of character in thy life, That to the observer doth thy history Fully unfold.”
“What thou wouldst highly, That wouldst thou holily; wouldst not play false, And yet wouldst wrongly win.”
“When he is best, he is a little worse than a man, and when he is worst, he is little better than a beast.”
“Why, now I see there's mettle in thee, and even from this instant do build on thee a better opinion than ever before.”
“I grant him bloody, Luxurious, avaricious, false, deceitful, Sudden, malicious, smacking of every sin That has a name.”
“Thou art most rich, being poor; Most choice, forsaken; and most lov'd, despis'd! Thee and thy virtues here I seize upon.”
“You are thought here to be the most senseless and fit man for the constable of the watch; therefore bear you the lantern.”
“His words are bonds, his oaths are oracles; His love sincere, his thoughts immaculate; * * * * * * His heart as far from fraud as heaven from earth.”
“O, he sits high in all the people's hearts: And that which would appear offence in us. His countenance, like richest alchemy, Will change to virtue and to worthiness.”
“He is deformed, crooked, old, and sere, Ill-faced, worse-bodied, shapeless everywhere; Vicious, ungentle, foolish, blunt, unkind, Stigmatical in making, worse in mind.”
“How this grace Speaks his own standing! what a mental power This eye shoots forth! How big imagination Moves in this lip! to the dumbness of the gesture One might interpret.”
“I know him a notorious liar, Think him a great way fool, solely a coward; Yet these fix'd evils sit so fit in him, That they take place, when virtue's steely bones Look bleak i' the cold wind.”
“I do profess to be no less than I seem; to serve him truly that will put me in trust; to love him that is honest; to converse with him that is wise, and says little; to fear judgment; to fight when I cannot choose; and to eat no fish.”