William Shakespeare Quotes About Humanity

• Is man no more than this? Consider him well. Thou ow'st the worm no silk, the beast no hide, the sheep no wool, the cat no perfume. Here's three on's are sophisticated. Thou art the thing itself; unaccommodated man is no more than such a poor, bare, forked animal as thou art.

  William Shakespeare

  Art, Cat, Animal

  William Shakespeare (2005). “The Tragedy of King Lear”, p.189, Cambridge University Press

• I am as vigilant as a cat to steal cream.

  William Shakespeare

  Cat, Animal, Humanity

  'Henry IV, Part 1' (1597) act 4, sc. 2, l. [64]

• A rarer spirit never Did steer humanity; but you gods will give us Some faults to make us men.

  William Shakespeare

  Men, Giving, Humanity

  'Antony and Cleopatra' (1606-7) act 5, sc. 1, l. 31

• But we have reason to cool our raging motions, our carnal stings, our unbitted lusts; whereof I take this that you call love to bea sect or scion.... It is merely a lust of the blood and a permission of the will.

  William Shakespeare

  Blood, Humanity, Lust

  William Shakespeare, James Boswell, Samuel Johnson, Alexander Pope, George Steevens (1821). “The Plays and Poems of William Shakspeare”, p.284

• They told me I was everything. 'Tis a lie, I am not ague-proof.

  William Shakespeare

  Lying, Humanity, Flattery

  'King Lear' (1605-6) act 4, sc. 6, l. [107]

• His words are bonds, his oaths are oracles; his love sincere, his thoughts immaculate; his tears pure messengers sent from his heart; his heart as far from fraud, as heaven from earth

  William Shakespeare

  Heart, Heaven, Humanity

  William Shakespeare (1996). “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare”, p.199, Wordsworth Editions

• I have thought some of Nature's journeymen had made men and not made them well, they imitated humanity so abominably.

  William Shakespeare

  Men, Humanity, Made

  'Hamlet' (1601) act 3, sc. 2, l. [19]

• My father compounded with my mother under the Dragon's tail, and my nativity was under Ursa Major, so that it follows, I am roughand lecherous. Tut, I should have been that I am, had the maidenliest star in the firmament twinkled on my bastardizing.

  William Shakespeare

  Mother, Stars, Father

  'King Lear' (1605-6) act 1, sc. 2, l. [132]

• What should such fellows as I do crawling between earth and
  heaven?

  William Shakespeare

  Heaven, Humanity, Hamlet And Ophelia

  William Shakespeare (1823). “The Dramatic Works of William Shakspeare: From the Text of Johnson, Stevens, and Reed; with Glossarial Notes, His Life, and a Critique on His Genius & Writings”, p.920

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