Penned by William Shakespeare early in his celebrated career, Romeo and Juliet endures as one of the Bard's best known, most frequently performed, and most quoted plays. Over the centuries, this tragic tale of star-crossed lovers from feuding Italian families—the Montagues and the Capulets—has inspired retellings from the modern classic West Side Story to a striking diversity of 21st-century takes, including These Violent Delights, When You Were Mine, Noughts and Crosses, Starry Eyes, Prince of Shadows, and Want. Yet when it comes to poetic words full of yearning, adoration, passion, heartache, devotion, and anguish, nothing comes close to the 16th-century original.
Here you'll find our favorite quotes from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet to inspire your inner romantic.
Quotes About Love
Love, a common theme throughout Shakespeare’s work, is at the heart of Romeo and Juliet. Whether you're in the throes of first love, seeking to rekindle the flame with your longtime sweetheart, or you just can't get enough of romance, these quotes will leave you swooning.
1. "But soft, what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun." -Romeo (act 2, scene 2)
2. "O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?" -Juliet (act 2, scene 2)
3. "One fairer than my love? The all-seeing sun ne’er saw her match since first the world begun." -Romeo (act 1, scene 2)
4. "Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven, having some business, do entreat her eyes to twinkle in their spheres till they return." -Romeo (act 2, scene 2)
5. "My bounty is as boundless as the sea, my love as deep. The more I give to thee, the more I have, for both are infinite." -Juliet (act 2, scene 2)
6. "See how she leans her cheek upon her hand! O, that I were a glove upon that hand, that I might touch that cheek!" -Romeo (act 2, scene 2)
7. "Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight, for I ne'er saw true beauty till this night." -Romeo (act 1, scene 5)
8. "My ears have not yet drunk a hundred words of that tongue’s uttering, yet I know the sound." -Juliet (act 2, scene 2)
9. "O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright." -Romeo (act 1, scene 5)
10. "O, swear not by the moon, th' inconstant moon, that monthly changes in her circled orb, Lest that thy love prove likewise variable." -Juliet (act 2, scene 2)
11. "With love's light wings did I o'erperch these walls, for stony limits cannot hold love out, And what love can do, that dares love attempt." -Romeo (act 2, scene 2)
12. "O, speak again, bright angel! For thou art as glorious to this night, being o'er my head, as is a winged messenger of heaven." -Romeo (act 2, scene 2)
13. "I am no pilot. Yet, wert thou as far as that vast shore washed with the farthest sea, I would adventure for such merchandise." -Romeo (act 2, scene 2)
14. "This bud of love, by summer's ripening breath, may prove a beauteous flower when we next meet." -Juliet (act 2, scene 2)
15. "Love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs; being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes; being vexed, a sea nourished with lovers’ tears. What is it else? A madness most discreet, a choking gall, and a preserving sweet." -Romeo (act 1, scene 1)
16. "You are a lover. Borrow Cupid's wings, and soar with them above a common bound." -Mercutio (act 1, scene 4)
17. "Love goes toward love as schoolboys from their books, but love from love, toward school with heavy looks." -Romeo (act 2, scene 2)
18. "Sin from my lips? O trespass sweetly urged! Give me my sin again." -Romeo (act 1, scene 5)
19. "You kiss by the book." -Juliet (act 1, scene 5)
20. "If love be blind, love cannot hit the mark." -Mercutio (act 2, scene 1)
21. "Give me my Romeo, and, when he shall die, take him and cut him out in little stars, and he will make the face of heaven so fine that all the world will be in love with night and pay no worship to the garish sun." -Juliet (act 3, scene 2)
21. "Call me but love, and I’ll be newly baptized." -Romeo (act 2, scene 2)
22. "If love be rough with you, be rough with love." -Mercutio (act 1, scene 4)
23. "Under love's heavy burden do I sink." -Romeo (act 1, scene 4)
24. "Parting is such sweet sorrow." -Juliet (act 2, scene 2)
Quotes About Fate and Destiny
As "star-crossed lovers," were Romeo and Juliet destined for heartbreak from their first spark? Throughout the play, the events that lead to the tragic ending certainly seem to be wrought by fate. Here are memorable quotes from Romeo and Juliet on two of life's most mysterious forces.
25. "What must be shall be." -Juliet (act 4, scene 1)
26. "Wisely and slow; they stumble that run fast." -Friar Lawrence (act 2, scene 3)
27. "A plague on both your houses!" -Mercutio (act 3, scene 1)
28. "Women may fall when there’s no strength in men." -Friar Lawrence (act 2, scene 3)
29. "O, I am Fortune's fool!" -Romeo (act 3, scene 1)
30. "'Tis but thy name that is my enemy ... O, be some other name! What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet." -Juliet (act 2, scene 2)
31. "He that is strucken blind cannot forget the precious treasure of his eyesight lost." -Romeo (act 1, scene 1)
32. "Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied, and vice sometime by action dignified." -Friar Lawrence (act 2, scene 3)
33. "Tempt not a desperate man." -Romeo (act 5, scene 3)
34. "Thou shalt not stir one foot to seek a foe." -Lady Montague (act 1, scene 1)
35. "The world is not thy friend, nor the world's law." -Romeo (act 5, scene 1)
36. "What, drawn, and talk of peace? I hate the word. As I hate hell, all Montagues, and thee." -Tybalt (act 1, scene 1)
37. "Care keeps his watch in every old man's eye, and, where care lodges, sleep will never lie." -Friar Lawrence (act 2, scene 3)
38. "These times of woe afford no time to woo." -Paris (act 3, scene 4)
39. "My only love sprung from my only hate, too early seen unknown, and known too late! Prodigious birth of love it is to me that I must love my enemy." -Juliet (act 1, scene 5)
40. "For never was a story of more woe than this of Juliet and her Romeo." -The Prince of Verona (act 5, scene 3)
Quotes About Death
Sadly, Romeo and Juliet doesn't have HEA ending—after all, it is a tragedy. Here are some of Shakespeare's enduring words on mortality, loss, and grief from the play.
41. "These violent delights have violent ends and in their triumph die, like fire and powder." -Friar Lawrence (act 2, scene 6)
42. "I must be gone and live, or stay and die." -Romeo (act 3, scene 5)
43. "Thus with a kiss I die." -Romeo (act 5, scene 3)
44. "Death, that hath sucked the honey of thy breath, hath had no power yet upon thy beauty." -Romeo (act 5, scene 3)
45. "Can vengeance be pursued further than death?" -Paris (act 5, scene 3)
46. "Some grief shows much of love, but much of grief shows still some want of wit." -Lady Capulet (act 3, scene 5)
47. "O happy dagger, this is my sheath; there rust, and let me die." -Juliet (act 5, scene 3)
48. "Ready to go, but never to return." -Capulet (act 4, scene 5)
49. "Death lies on her like an untimely frost upon the sweetest flower of all the field." -Capulet (act 4, scene 5)
50. "Thus with a kiss I die." -Romeo (act 5, scene 3)
51. "A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life." -Chorus (prologue)
