English playwright, actor and poet whose dramatic characters speak from particular circumstances. Read the anthology’s lines with their speakers and scenes, rather than as a single collection of personal maxims.
William Shakespeare (1564–1616) worked as an actor and playwright in London and maintained family and property connections in Stratford-upon-Avon. His baptism is recorded in April 1564; the precise day of his birth is not known. The profile therefore uses life years rather than presenting a traditional birthday as a documented birth date.
His theatre work included acting, writing and partnership in the company that became the King’s Men in 1603. He also wrote poetry: Venus and Adonis appeared in 1593. These different forms matter when reading a historical anthology that gathers short passages under his name.
Hamlet places speech within a court troubled by the old king’s death and a demand for revenge. Its advice, questions and final words belong to different dramatic situations: Polonius addresses Laertes in Act I, scene III, while Hamlet’s concluding words appear in Act V, scene II. Treat a selected line as part of that exchange before deciding what lesson it offers.
The selected passages below are from Hamlet, while the wider archive includes many other plays and poems. A character’s statement is not automatically Shakespeare’s own belief or a universal rule. Bartlett’s 1891 wording, punctuation and selections remain intact and may differ from the linked electronic text. The archive’s approximate 1590 placement uses the midpoint of 1564–1616; it is not the date when a passage was composed. Gutenberg’s 1998 release and 2025 update describe this electronic file, not the play’s first publication or a verified print edition.
Subjects to explore
Editorial reading connections, distinct from the archive’s word matching.
Original agent-assisted editorial profile, checked 2026-10-04. No human review is recorded. Life dates are recorded to the year; they do not date individual quotations.
Factual reference for life years, documented baptism, uncertainty about exact birthdate, locations and theatre/poetry work; original limited paraphrase, no article or portrait reproduced. Reference checked 2026-10-04.
Reference for dramatic context and the revenge-tragedy framework; no modern edition text or popularity claims reproduced. Reference checked 2026-10-04.
Catalogue reference for author, title, English language, electronic release/update and US-only public-domain notice. Automatic summary and reading-ease score not used as editorial evidence. Reference checked 2026-10-04.
External primary text consulted for actual character/scene relationships and selected passages; no play text or cover imported into the archive. Reference checked 2026-10-04.
English text with 154 numbered sonnets; Project Gutenberg eBook 1041, released 1997 and updated 2024. The linked text does not identify its underlying print edition.
Related work by the same author; the linked edition is separate from the anthology source.