Playwright and poet William Shakespeare gave the world some of its most memorable and quotable words and phrases in literature and everyday language:
”To be, or not to be — that is the question”
”That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet”
”All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players”
”Beware the ides of March”
In honor of Shakespeare, here’s a look at some of his phrases that haven’t, perhaps, caught on quite as much as those listed above...
Read on, thou saucy minion.
- “Thou full dish of fool!” — Troilus and Cressida
- “I had rather be a tick in a sheep than such a valiant ignorance” — Troilus and Cressida
- “Thy mother’s name is ominous to children” — Richard III
- “You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things!” — Julius Caesar
- “When there is nothing living but thee, thou shalt be welcome” — Timon of Athens
- “(His brain) is as dry as the remainder biscuit after a voyage” — As You Like It
- “Four of his five wits went halting off, and now is the whole man governed with one” —Much Ado About Nothing
- “‘Tis such fools as you that make the world full of ill-favour’d children” — As You Like It
- “(His) face is not worth sunburning” — Henry V
- “Where wilt thou find a cavern dark enough to mask thy monstrous visage?” — Julius Caesar
- “Thou hast no more brain than I have in mine elbows” — Troilus and Cressida
- “There’s a dainty madwoman . . . as mad as a March hare” — The Two Noble Kinsmen
- “Your face, my thane, is a book, where men may read strange matters” — Macbeth
- “Your heart is cramm’d with arrogancy, spleen and pride” — Henry VIII
- “There’s no more faith in thee than in a stewed prune” — Henry V
- “To say nothing, to do nothing, to know nothing, and to have nothing, is to be a great part of your title, which is within a very little of nothing” — All’s Well That Ends Well
- “What a disgrace it is to me to remember thy name” — Henry IV, Part 2
- “Tempt not too much the hatred of my spirit, for I am sick when I do look on thee” — A Midsummer Night’s Dream
- “Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain!” — Hamlet
- “You are not worth another word, else I’d call you a knave” — All’s Well That Ends Well
- “Nothing in his life became him like the leaving it” — Macbeth
- “She hath more hair than wit, and more faults than hairs, and more wealth than faults” — Two Gentlemen of Verona
- “He has everything that an honest man should not have; what an honest man should have, he has nothing” — All’s Well That Ends Well