William Shakespeare Love Quotes: William Shakespeare was an English playwright, poet, and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world’s greatest dramatist.¹ These William Shakespeare love quotes are curated from some of his famous books including Romeo and Juliet, and also from some of his short love poems and sonnets.
You can use any of these Shakespeare quotes on love and friendship as a poem to your loved ones to rekindle your love life. Below are some famous love quotes by William Shakespeare.
William Shakespeare Love Quotes
“Love all, trust a few, Do wrong to none”
“But love that comes too late, Like a remorseful pardon slowly carried, To the great sender turns a sour offence.”
“If thou remember’st not the slightest folly, That ever love did make thee run into, Thou hast not lov’d.”
“We that are true lovers run into strange capers; but as all is mortal in nature, so is all nature in love mortal in folly”
“It is as easy to count atomies as to resolve the propositions of a lover.”
“But are you so much in love as your rhymes speak? Neither rhyme nor reason can express how much.”
“O coz, coz, coz, my pretty little coz, that thou didst know how many fathom deep I am in love! But it cannot be sounded; my affection hath an unknown bottom, like the bay of Portugal.”
“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”
“Good shepherd, tell this youth what ’tis to love. It is to be all made of sighs and tears;—
It is to be all made of faith and service;—
It is to be all made of fantasy.”
“This is the very ecstasy of love, Whose violent property foredoes itself, And leads the will to desperate undertakings”
“Doubt thou the stars are fire. Doubt that the sun doth move. Doubt truth to be a liar. But never doubt I love.”
“He is far gone, far gone: and truly in my youth I suffered much extremity for love; very near this.”
“Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear; When little fears grow great, great love grows there”
“Forty thousand brothers Could not, with all their quantity of love, Make up my sum.”
“Love, whose month is ever May, Spied a blossom passing fair, Playing in the wanton air: Through the velvet leaves the wind, All unseen can passage find; That the lover, sick to death, Wish’d himself the heaven’s breath.”
“By heaven, I do love: and it hath taught me to rhyme, and to be melancholy.”
“You would for paradise break faith and troth, And Jove, for your love, would infringe an oath”
“A lover’s eyes will gaze an eagle blind. A lover’s ear will hear the lowest sound.”
“Love’s tongue proves dainty Bacchus gross in taste: For valour, is not Love a Hercules, Still climbing trees in the Hesperides?”
“And when Love speaks, the voice of all the gods Makes heaven drowsy with the harmony.”
“But love is good, and lovers cannot view themselves unto thee. The pretty follies that themselves commit.”
“Yet I have not seen
So likely an ambassador of love;
A day in April never came so sweet,
To show how costly summer was at hand,
As this fore-spurrer comes before his lord.”
“And swearing till my very roof was dry
With oaths of love.”
“Good night, sweet friend: thy love ne’er alter, till thy sweet life end”
“Ay me! for aught that I ever could read,
Could ever hear by tale or history,
The course of true love never did run smooth.”
“Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind;
And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.”
“Love, therefore, and tongue-tied simplicity
In least speak most, to my capacity.”
“Upon this hint I spake;
She lov’d me for the dangers I had pass’d,
And I lov’d her, that she did pity them.
This only is the witchcraft I have us’d:
Here comes the lady; let her witness it.”
“Perdition catch my soul,
But I do love thee! and when I love thee not,
Chaos is come again.”
“What! keep a week away? seven days and nights?
Eight score eight hours? and lovers’ absent hours,
More tedious than the dial eight score times?
O, weary reckoning!”
“If heaven would make me such another world
Of one entire and perfect chrysolite,
I’ld not have sold her for it”
“Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate
Nor set down aught in malice: then must you speak
Of one that loved not wisely, but too well;
Of one not easily jealous, but, being wrought,
Perplexed in the extreme: of one, whose hand
Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away,
Richer than all his tribe: of one, whose subdued eyes,
Albeit unused to the melting mood,
Drop tears as fast as the Arabian trees
Their medicinal gum.”
“Love is a smoke rais’d with the fume of sighs;
Being purg’d, a fire sparkling in a lover’s eyes;
Being vex’d, a sea nourish’d with lovers’ tears:
What is it else? a madness most discreet,
A choking gall and a preserving sweet.”
“Speak but one rhyme, and I am satisfied;
Cry but—”Ay me!” pronounce but “love” and “dove.”
“See, how she leans her cheek upon her hand!
O, that I were a glove upon that hand,
That I might touch that cheek!”
“For stony limits cannot hold love out,
And what love can do that dares love attempt.”
“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”
“Love goes toward love, as school-boys from their books,
But love from love, toward school with heavy looks.”
“It is my soul that calls upon my name;
How silver-sweet sound lovers’ tongues by night,
Like soft music to attending ears.”
“‘Tis almost morning; I would have thee gone:
And yet no further than a wanton’s bird;
Who lets it hop a little from her hand,
Like a poor prisoner in his twisted gyves,
And with a silk thread plucks it back again,
So loving-jealous of his liberty.”
“Good night, good night! parting is such sweet sorrow,
That I shall say good night till it be morrow.’
“Love’s heralds should be thoughts,
Which ten times faster glide than the sun’s beams,
Driving back shadows over louring hills;
Therefore do nimble-pinion’d doves draw love,
And therefore hath the wind-swift Cupid wings.”
“Therefore love moderately; long love doth so;
Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow.”
“Give me my Romeo; and, when he shall die,
Take him, and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine,
And all the world will be in love with night,
And pay no worship to the garish sun.”
“They say all lovers swear more performance than they are able, and yet reserve an ability that they never perform.”
“For to be wise, and love
Exceeds man’s might; that dwells with gods above.”
“The noblest hateful love that e’er I heard of”
“When you depart from me sorrow abides, and happiness takes his leave.”
“If music be the food of love, play on;
Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.”
“O spirit of love! how quick and fresh art thou,
That notwithstanding thy capacity
Receiveth as the sea, nought enters there,
Of what validity and pitch soe’er,
But falls into abatement and low price,
Even in a minute!”
“Journeys end in lovers meeting,
Every wise man’s son doth know.”
“Then let thy love be younger than thyself,
Or thy affection cannot hold the bent.”
“She never told her love,
But let concealment, like a worm i’ the bud,
Feed on her damask cheek; she pin’d in thought,
And with a green and yellow melancholy
She sat like patience on a monument,
Smiling at grief.”
“Love sought is good, but giv’n unsought is better.”
“For he was more than over shoes in love.’
“Love is your master, for he masters you;
And he that is so yoked by a fool,
Methinks, should not be chronicled for wise.”
“And writers say, as the most forward bud
Is eaten by the canker ere it blow,
Even so by love the young and tender wit
Is turn’d to folly, blasting in the bud,
Losing his verdure even in the prime.”
“How wayward is this foolish love,
That, like a testy babe, will scratch the nurse
And presently, all humbled, kiss the rod.”
“O, how this spring of love resembleth
Th’ uncertain glory of an April day,
Which now shows all the beauty of the sun,
And by and by a cloud takes all away!”
“Didst thou but know the inly touch of love,
Thou wouldst as soon go kindle fire with snow,
As seek to quench the fire of love with words.”
“I do not seek to quench your love’s hot fire,
But qualify the fire’s extreme rage,
Lest it should burn above the bounds of reason.”
“Except I be by Sylvia in the night,
There is no music in the nightingale.”
“They do not love that do not show their love.”
“I know not why
I love this youth; and I have heard you say,
Love’s reason’s without reason.”
“Which of you shall we say doth love us most?
That we our largest bounty may extend
Where nature doth with merit challenge.”
“Love like a shadow flies when substance love pursues;
Pursuing that that flies, and flying what pursues.”
“Let me not to the marriage of true minds
admit impediments. Love is not love
which alters when it alteration finds,
or bends with the remover to remove;
O no! It is an ever-fixèd mark
that looks on tempests and is never shaken;
it is the star to every wand’ring bark
whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool. Though rosy lips and cheeks
within his bending sickle’s compass come
love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
but bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me prov’d,
I never writ, nor no man ever lov’d.”
William Shakespeare Short Love Poems
“Sweet, above thought I love thee.”
“Speak low, if you speak love.”
“Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps.”
“From love’s weak childish bow she lives unharmed.”
“Steal love’s sweet bait from fearful hooks.”
“O, Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou, Romeo?’
“At lovers’ perjuries,
They say, Jove laughs”
“Love keeps his revels where there are but twain.”
“What ’tis to love? how want of love tormenteth?”
“Love comforteth like sunshine after rain”
“Love’s gentle spring doth always fresh remain”
“There’s beggary in the love that can be reckoned.”
“I can express no kinder sign of love, than this kind kiss.”
“Love for thy love, and hand for hand I give.”
“For where thou art, there is the world itself, and where thou art not, desolation”
“Love thyself last: cherish those hearts that hate thee.”
“Not that I lov’d Caesar less, but that I lov’d Rome more.”
“Though last, not least in love!”
“Upon thy cheek I lay this zealous kiss,
As seal to the indenture of my love”
“There is no creature loves me,
And if I die, no soul shall pity me.”
“Love that well which thou must leave ere long”
With these William Shakespeare love quotes and love poems, you can make a loved one feel loved. Are you his Juliet or is he your Romeo, you can make that friendship stronger by sending them some of these famous short love poems as a text message. Most of these
Shakespeare’s love sonnets can give meaning to your love life and friendship. Don’t forget to share these William Shakespeare love quotes on social by using the share buttons below.
