Goodreads is not only an amazing social media site to track reading progress and share book recommendations with friends, it is also a great source for literature quotes.
Users are able to upload quotes and vote for what quotes are the best.
Here are the top lines from each Shakespeare play that have been rated as the best by Goodreads users.
[Gathered by Regina Kenney]
Antony and Cleopatra
“The breaking of so great a thing should make
A greater crack: the round world
Should have shook lions into civil streets,
And citizens to their dens.”
1,096 Votes
Othello
“O, beware, my lord, of jealousy;
It is the green-ey’d monster, which doth mock
The meat it feeds on.”
392 Votes
Troilus and Cressida
“For to be wise and love exceeds man’s might.”
27 Votes
Hamlet
“Doubt thou the stars are fire;
Doubt that the sun doth move;
Doubt truth to be a liar;
But never doubt I love.”
7,739 Votes
Coriolanus
“More of your conversation would infect my brain.”
51 Votes
Richard III
“Dispute not with her: she is lunatic.”
1,534 Votes
King Lear
“When we are born, we cry that we are come to this great stage of fools.”
360 Votes
Merry Wives of Windsor
“Better three hours too soon than a minute too late.”
167 Votes
Love’s Labour’s Lost
“From women’s eyes this doctrine I derive:
They sparkle still the right Promethean fire;
They are the books, the arts, the academes,
That show, contain and nourish all the world.”
70 Votes
Much Ado about Nothing
“Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more,
Men were deceivers ever,-
One foot in sea and one on shore,
To one thing constant never.”
1,426 Votes
All’s Well That Ends Well
“Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.”
31,389 Votes
Twelfth Night
“Be not afraid of greatness. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them.”
14,240 Votes
Romeo and Juliet
“My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
My love as deep; the more I give to thee,
The more I have, for both are infinite.”
2,647 Votes
Henry IV, Part II
“Presume not that I am the thing I was.”
915 Votes
Measure for Measure
“Our doubts are traitors,
and make us lose the good we oft might win,
by fearing to attempt.”
1,347 Votes
Cymbeline
“Fear no more the heat o’ the sun,
Nor the furious winter’s rages;
Thou thy worldly task hast done,
Home art gone, and ta’en thy wages;
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.”
78 Votes
Taming of the Shrew
“My tongue will tell the anger of my heart, or else my heart concealing it will break.”
3,071 Votes
Henry VI, Part III
“To weep is to make less the depth of grief.”
1,101 Votes
Two Gentlemen of Verona
“They do not love that do not show their love.”
985 Votes
Henry VI, Part II
“Presume not that I am the thing I was.”
915 Votes
Julius Caesar
“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.”
7,890 Votes
Henry IV, Part I
“[Thou] mad mustachio purple-hued maltworms!”
195 Votes
As You Like It
“The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.”
39,086 votes
Timon of Athens
“Like madness is the glory of this life.”
191 Votes
Henry V
“From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered-
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.”
303 Votes
Winter’s Tale
“Exit, pursued by a bear.”
253 Votes
Henry VIII
“Men’s evil manners live in brass; their virtues we write in water.”
185 Votes
Henry VI, Part I
“No, no, I am but shadow of myself:
You are deceived, my substance is not here;”
151 Votes
Macbeth
“By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes.”
2,696 Votes
Pericles
“For death remembered should be like a mirror,
Who tells us life’s but breath, to trust it error.”
13 Votes
Merchant of Venice
“You speak an infinite deal of nothing.”
3,459 Votes
Tempest
“Hell is empty and all the devils are here.”
5,449 Votes
Comedy of Errors
“A wretched soul, bruised with adversity,
We bid be quiet when we hear it cry;
But were we burdened with light weight of pain,
As much or more we should ourselves complain.”
67 Votes
Titus Andronicus
“Demetrius: Villain, what hast thou done?
Aaron: That which thou canst not undo.
Chiron: Thou hast undone our mother.
Aaron: Villain, I have done thy mother.”
82 Votes
Richard II
“I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.”
191 Votes
King John
“Be great in act, as you have been in thought.”
338 Votes
Midsummer Night’s Dream
“Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind,
And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.”
21,302 Votes
Literati Pulp 