The Wisdom of Shakespeare

Have you ever read Shakespeare….without, that is, a teacher standing over you?  If you were to go out and buy a play - one of those with a translation, of sorts, accompanying it is especially nice - you might just fall in love.

After a few plays, you won’t even need the translation.  You’ll catch on quickly to the language of the time - and be blown away by its beauty.

If I were to recommend a play to start with, I think I’d suggest A Midsummer Night’s Dream (adorably fun), Othello (my first) or Julius Caesar (one of the easier ones to follow).  Taming of the Shrew is another fave, but it might be nice to have a few under your mental belt first - it’s kind of all over the place!  The first time I tried to read it, I threw it in the closet to punish it.  Then I HAD to prove to myself that I could read it, so I dug it out from under my shoes and stuffed bears and tried again.

I ended up becomming a lifelong fan of his writings and have even considered a Shakespeare blog - as a resource to help others who are reading his work(s), either for school or pleasure.  Yes, pleasure! - I promise!

Shakespeare was one of the wisest men to ever live.  When you read his writings, you can’t help but realize that you’re in the presence of brilliance.  Below are a few of my favorite Shakespeare-isms to give you an idea of what I’m talking about.

“The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and evil together.” (All’s Well that Ends Well)

“Brevity is the soul of wit.”  (Hamlet)

“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”  (Hamlet)

“Society is no comfort to one not sociable.” (Cymbeline)

“When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions!”  (Hamlet)

“Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once.”  (Julius Caesar)

“He thinks too much.  Such men are dangerous.”  (Julius Caesar)

“Though patience be a tired mare, yet she will plod.”  (Henry V)

“Men of few words are the best men.”  (Henry V)

“I think the king is but a man as I am, the violet smells to him as it doth to me.”  (Henry V)

“Come what come may, time and the hour run through the roughest day.”  (Macbeth)

“The miserable have no other medicine but only hope.”  (Measure for Measure)

“The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.”  (The Merchant of Venice)

“I am a kind of burr, I shall stick.”  (Measure for Measure)

“Tis an ill cook that cannot lick his own fingers.”  (Romeo and Juliet)

“Lord, what fools these mortals be!” (A Midsummer Night’s Dream)

Btw, did you know that the saying “eating me out of house and home” comes from Shakespeare?  It was a line in Henry IV - “He hath eaten me out of house and home.”

Give Shakespeare a chance - you’ll wonder where he’d been all your life.  The answer is, in a lot of closets under a lot of shoes and stuffed bears!