William Shakespeare Quotes
How many cowards whose hearts are all as false As stairs of sand, wear yet upon their chins The beards of Hercules and frowning Mars, Who inward searched, have livers white as milk!
Shakespeare, William. The Merchant of Venice. The Riverside Shakespeare, edited by G. Blakemore Evans, Houghton Mifflin, 1974.
Sometimes paraphrased as “the coward dies a thousand deaths, but the brave man dies but once.”
William Shakespeare was an English playwright, poet, and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's greatest dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon" (or simply "the Bard"). His extant works, including collaborations, consist of some 39 plays, 154 sonnets, three 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 those of any other playwright. They also continue to be studied and reinterpreted.
