William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare – 23 April 1616) was an English poet, playwright, and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet, and the "Bard of Avon". His extant works, including collaborations, consist of approximately 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionPlaywright
Date of Birth23 April 1564
Let me, if not by birth, have lands by wit; All with me's meet that I can fashion fit.
Woe to that land that's governed by a child.
Abate the edge of traitors, gracious Lord, That would reduce these bloody days again And make poor England weep in streams of blood! Let them not live to taste this land's increase That would with treason wound this fair land's peace! Now civil wounds are stopped, peace lives again: That she may long live here, God say amen!
In love the heavens themselves do guide the state; Money buys lands, and wives are sold by fate.
This blessèd plot, this earth, this realm, this England This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings, . . . This land of such dear souls, this dear dear land.
Rebellion in this land shall lose his sway, meeting the check of such another day.
Shall we upon the footing of our land Send fair-play orders, and make compromise, Insinuation, parley, and base truce, To arms invasive?
A hand as fruitful as the land that feeds us; His dew falls everywhere.
Men at some time are masters of their fates. The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.
Alas, the frailty is to blame, not we For such as we are made of, such we be
Enjoy'd no sooner but despised straight, Past reason hunted, and no sooner had Past reason hated
Thou shouldst not have been old till thou hadst been wise.
And thus I clothe my naked villainy With odd old ends stol'n out of holy writ; And seem a saint, when most I play the devil.
And all this day an unaccustomed spirit lifts me above the ground with cheerful thoughts.