William Shakespeare’s greatest known play is a great tragedy of life, family loyalty, and star-crossed lovers. Here are the best-loved quotes from Shakespeare’s greatest work on love.
“One fairer than my love? The all-seeing sun
Ne’er saw her match since first the world begun.”
Act 1, Scene 2
“O! she doth teach the torches to burn bright”
Act 1, Scene 5
“Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight!/ For I ne’er saw true beauty till this night.”
Act 1, Scene 5
“It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night like a rich jewel in an Ethiope’s ear”
Act 1, Scene 5
“O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?
Deny thy father and refuse thy name.
Or if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love
And I’ll no longer be a Capulet.”
Act 2, Scene 2
“It is the east, and Juliet is the sun”
Act 2, Scene 2
“Good Night, Good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say good night till it be morrow.”
Act 2, Scene 2
“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet”
Act 2, Scene 2
“See, how she leans her cheek upon her hand!
O that I were a glove upon that hand,
that I might touch that cheek!”
Act 2, Scene 2
“These violent delights have violent ends
And in their triumph die, like fire and powder,
Which as they kiss consume.”
Act 2, Scene 3
“This day’s black fate on more days doth depend:
This but begins the woe others must end.”
Act 3, Scene 1
“Romeo is banished,
There is no end, no limit, measure, bound,
In that word’s death. No words can that woe sound.”
Act 3, Scene 2
“Tis torture, and not mercy. Heaven is here
Where Juliet lives, and every cat and dog
And little mouse, every unworthy thing,
Live here in heaven and may look on her,
But Romeo may not.”
Act 3, Scene 3
“Is there no pity sitting in the clouds
That sees into the bottom of my grief?
O sweet my mother, cast me not away!
Delay this marriage for a month, a week,
Or if you do not, make the bridal bed
In that dim monument where Tybalt lies.”
Act 3, Scene 5
“Or bid me go into a new-made grave,
And hide me with a dead man in his shroud –
Things that, to hear them told, have made me tremble –
And I will do it without fear or doubt,
To live an unstain’d wife to my sweet love.”
Act 4, Scene 1
“Then I defy you, stars!”
Act 5, Scene 1
“O my love, my wife!
Death, that hath suck’d the honey of thy breath
Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty.”
Act 5 Scene 3