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
Nature her custom holds, Let shame say what it will.
Refrain to-night; And that shall lend a kind of easiness To the next abstinence, the next more easy; For use almost can change the stamp of nature, And either master the devil or throw him out With wondrous potency.
Thou know'st 'tis common; all that lives must die, Passing through nature to eternity.
The deep of night is crept upon our talk, And Nature must obey necessity.
It will have blood, they say; blood will have blood.
I have heard it said There is an art which in their piedness shares With great creating nature.
To hold, as 't were, the mirror up to nature.
How hard it is to hide the sparks of Nature!
Diseased Nature oftentimes breaks forth In strange eruptions.
How sometimes nature will betray its folly, Its tenderness, and make itself a pastime To harder bosoms!
In nature's infinite book of secrecy A little I can read.
And nature must obey necessity.
O sleep! O gentle sleep! Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee, That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down And steep my senses in forgetfulness? Why rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs, Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee, And hush'd with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber, Than in the perfum'd chambers of the great, Under the canopies of costly state, And lull'd with sound of sweetest melody?
My nature is subdued to what it works in, like the dyer's hand.