Quotes from Shakespeare's Sonnets

25 notable lines from William Shakespeare · 1609

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate.

Sonnet 18

Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments.
Sonnet 116
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun.
Sonnet 130
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
Sonnet 18, closing couplet
Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds.
Sonnet 116, opening lines
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun; Coral is far more red, than her lips red.
Sonnet 130, opening lines
From fairest creatures we desire increase, That thereby beauty's rose might never die.
Sonnet 1, opening lines
Not marble, nor the gilded monuments Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme.
Sonnet 55, opening lines
When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes I all alone beweep my outcast state.
Sonnet 29, opening lines
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle's compass come.
Sonnet 116
And yet by heaven, I think my love as rare, As any she belied with false compare.
Sonnet 130, closing couplet
That time of year thou mayst in me behold When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang Upon those boughs which shake against the cold.
Sonnet 73, opening lines
When to the sessions of sweet silent thought I summon up remembrance of things past.
Sonnet 30, opening lines
Haply I think on thee, and then my state, Like to the lark at break of day arising From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate.
Sonnet 29
Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
Sonnet 73
The expense of spirit in a waste of shame Is lust in action.
Sonnet 129, opening lines
Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore, So do our minutes hasten to their end.
Sonnet 60, opening lines
When my love swears that she is made of truth, I do believe her though I know she lies.
Sonnet 138, opening lines
This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong, To love that well, which thou must leave ere long.
Sonnet 73, closing couplet
For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds; Lilies that fester, smell far worse than weeds.
Sonnet 94, closing couplet
Two loves I have of comfort and despair, Which like two spirits do suggest me still: The better angel is a man right fair, The worser spirit a woman colour'd ill.
Sonnet 144, opening lines
Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea, But sad mortality o'ersways their power, How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea, Whose action is no stronger than a flower?
Sonnet 65, opening lines
Therefore I lie with her, and she with me, And in our faults by lies we flatter'd be.
Sonnet 138, closing couplet
My love is as a fever longing still, For that which longer nurseth the disease.
Sonnet 147, opening lines
Thus have I had thee, as a dream doth flatter, In sleep a king, but waking no such matter.
Sonnet 87, closing couplet