William Shakespeare Flower Quotations

What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

He was met even now As mad as the vex'd sea; singing aloud; Crown'd with rank fumiter and furrow-weeds, With bur-docks, hemlock, nettles, cuckoo-flowers, Darnel, and all the idle weeds that grow In our sustaining corn.

'Tis dangerous to take a cold, to sleep, to drink; but I tell you, my lord fool, out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.

There is a willow grows aslant a brook, That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream; There with fantastic garlands did she come Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples That liberal shepherds give a grosser name, But our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them: There, on the pendent boughs her coronet weeds Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke; When down her weedy trophies and herself Fell in the weeping brook.

The tempter or the tempted, who sins most? Ha! Not she: nor doth she tempt: but it is I That, lying by the violet in the sun, Do as the carrion does, not as the flower, Corrupt with virtuous season.

The lily I condemned for thy hand, And buds of marjoram had stol'n thy hair: The roses fearfully on thorns did stand, One blushing shame, another white despair; A third, nor red nor white, had stol'n of both And to his robbery had annex'd thy breath; But, for his theft, in pride of all his growth A vengeful canker eat him up to death. More flowers I noted, yet I none could see But sweet or colour it had stol'n from thee.

Yet nor the lays of birds nor the sweet smell Of different flowers in odour and in hue Could make me any summer's story tell, Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew; Nor did I wonder at the lily's white, Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose; They were but sweet, but figures of delight, Drawn after you, you pattern of all those.

I have seen roses damask'd, red and white, But no such roses see I in her cheeks...

What, no more ceremony? See, my women! Against the blown rose may they stop their nose That kneel'd unto the buds.

Lawn as white as driven snow; Cyprus black as e'er was crow; Gloves as sweet as damask roses.

Here's flowers for you; Hot lavender, mints, savoury, marjoram; The marigold, that goes to bed wi' the sun And with him rises weeping: these are flowers Of middle summer, and I think they are given To men of middle age.

Yet mark'd I where the bolt of Cupid fell: It fell upon a little western flower, Before milk-white, now purple with love's wound, And maidens call it love-in-idleness.

Look what thy soul holds dear, imagine it To lie that way thou goest, not whence thou com'st. Suppose the singing birds musicians, The grass whereon thou tread'st the presence strewed, The flowers fair ladies, and thy steps no more Than a delight measure or a dance; For gnarling sorrow hath less power to bite The man that mocks at it and sets it light.

Sir, the year growing ancient, Not yet on summer's death nor on the birth Of trembling winter, the fairest flowers o' th' season Are our carnations and streaked gillyvors, Which some call nature's bastards.

O Prosperina, For the flowers now that, frighted, thou let'st fall From Dis's wagon; daffodils, That come before the swallow dares, and take The winds of March with beauty; violets dim, But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes Or Cytherea's breath; pale primroses, That die unmarried, ere they can behold Bright Phoebus in his strength--a malady Most incident to maids; bold oxlips and The crown imperial; lilies of all kinds, The flower-de-luce being one.

Fairies use flowers for their charactery.

All things that we ordained festival Turn from their office to black funeral-- Our instruments to melancholy bells, Our wedding cheer to a sad burial feast; Our solemn hymns to sullen dirges change; Our bridal flowers serve for a buried corse; And all things change them to the contrary.

The plants look up to heaven, from whence they have their nourishment.

Women are as roses, whose fair flower, being once displayed, doth fall that very hour.

Then will I raise aloft the milk-white rose. For whose sweet smell the air shall be perfumed.

The seasons alter: hoary-headed frosts Fall in the fresh lap of the crimson rose.

He wears the rose Of youth upon him.

But earthlier happy is the rose distill'd Than that which withering on the virgin thorn Grows, lives, and dies in single blessedness.

Flower of this purple dye, Hit with Cupid's archery, Sink in apple of his eye.

Their lips were four red roses on a stalk.

Who are the violets now That strew the lap of the new-come spring?

These flowers are like the pleasures of the world.

Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea, But bad mortality o'ersways their power, How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea, Whose action is no stronger than a flower?

Sweet flowers are slow and weeds make haste.

This bud of love, by summer's ripening breath, May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet

Out of this nettle - danger - we pluck this flower - safety.

Of all the flowers, me thinks a rose is best.

Make use of time, let not advantage slip; Beauty within itself should not be wasted: Fair flowers that are not gather'd in their prime Rot and consume themselves in little time.

I know a place where the wild thyme blows, where oxlips and the nodding violet grows.

Her blood is settled, and her joints are stiff; Life and these lips have long been separated: Death lies on her like an untimely frost Upon the sweetest flower of all the field.

Look like the innocent flower, But be the serpent under it.

The summer's flower is to the summer sweet Though to itself it only live and die

Where souls do couch on flowers we’ll hand in hand...

Now stand you on the top of happy hours, And many maiden gardens yet unset, With virtuous wish would bear you living flowers, Much liker than your painted counterfeit: So should the lines of life that life repair Which this, Time's pencil, or my pupil pen Neither in inward worth nor outward fair Can make you live your self in eyes of men.

You'd be so lean, that blast of January Would blow you through and through. Now, my fair'st friend, I would I had some flowers o' the spring that might Become your time of day.

Beauty is but a vain and doubtful good; a shining gloss that fadeth suddenly; a flower that dies when it begins to bud; a doubtful good, a gloss, a glass, a flower, lost, faded, broken, dead within an hour.

Come away, come away, Death, And in sad cypress let me be laid; Fly away, fly away, breath, I am slain by a fair cruel maid. My shroud of white stuck all with yew, O prepare it! My part of death no one so true did share it. Not a flower, not a flower sweet, On my black coffin let there be strewn: Not a friend, not a friend greet My poor corpse, where my bones shall be thrown. A thousand thousand sighs to save, lay me O where Sad true lover never find my grave, to weep there!

Your face, my thane, is as a book where men May read strange matters. To beguile the time, Look like the time; bear welcome in your eye, Your hand, your tongue: look like the innocent flower, But be the serpent under't.

This bud of love, by summer's ripening breath,May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet.