If you can look into the seeds of time, and say which grain will grow and which will not, speak then unto me.
Meaning of the quote
This quote from William Shakespeare is asking you to imagine being able to see into the future and predict which things will succeed and which will fail. It's like being able to look at a seed and know which one will turn into a strong, healthy plant. The quote is saying that if you have this special ability to see the future, then you should share that knowledge with the speaker.
About William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English playwright, poet, and actor widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world’s pre-eminent dramatist. He produced most of his known works between 1589 and 1613, including famous plays like Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth.
More quotes from William Shakespeare
I may neither choose who I would, nor refuse who I dislike; so is the will of a living daughter curbed by the will of a dead father.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Men’s vows are women’s traitors!
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Virtue itself scapes not calumnious strokes.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
But men are men; the best sometimes forget.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Fortune brings in some boats that are not steered.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Teach not thy lip such scorn, for it was made For kissing, lady, not for such contempt.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
The most peaceable way for you, if you do take a thief, is, to let him show himself what he is and steal out of your company.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
‘Tis better to bear the ills we have than fly to others that we know not of.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Hell is empty and all the devils are here.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Alas, I am a woman friendless, hopeless!
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
O thou invisible spirit of wine, if thou hast no name to be known by, let us call thee devil.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
It is neither good nor bad, but thinking makes it so.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
I like not fair terms and a villain’s mind.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Nothing can come of nothing.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Love is not love that alters when it alteration finds.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Now, God be praised, that to believing souls gives light in darkness, comfort in despair.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
I never see thy face but I think upon hell-fire.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
In a false quarrel there is no true valor.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
The wheel is come full circle.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Reputation is an idle and most false imposition; oft got without merit, and lost without deserving.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Where every something, being blent together turns to a wild of nothing.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
O’ What may man within him hide, though angel on the outward side!
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
To be, or not to be: that is the question.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Women may fall when there’s no strength in men.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
An overflow of good converts to bad.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Our peace shall stand as firm as rocky mountains.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
If it be a sin to covet honor, I am the most offending soul.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Ignorance is the curse of God; knowledge is the wing wherewith we fly to heaven.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
By that sin fell the angels.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Modest doubt is called the beacon of the wise.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
‘Tis best to weigh the enemy more mighty than he seems.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Let no such man be trusted.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
My pride fell with my fortunes.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
O God, O God, how weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of this world!
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Sweet mercy is nobility’s true badge.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Lawless are they that make their wills their law.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
As he was valiant, I honour him. But as he was ambitious, I slew him.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Mind your speech a little lest you should mar your fortunes.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child!
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
I am not bound to please thee with my answer.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Truly, I would not hang a dog by my will, much more a man who hath any honesty in him.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot that it do singe yourself.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Is it not strange that desire should so many years outlive performance?
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Time and the hour run through the roughest day.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Well, if Fortune be a woman, she’s a good wench for this gear.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Use every man after his desert, and who should scape whipping?
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Better three hours too soon than a minute too late.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men’s cottage princes’ palaces.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
A man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
I see that the fashion wears out more apparel than the man.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
There’s place and means for every man alive.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
My crown is called content, a crown that seldom kings enjoy.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
The robbed that smiles, steals something from the thief.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
They say miracles are past.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Let every eye negotiate for itself and trust no agent.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
The lady doth protest too much, methinks.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Wisely, and slow. They stumble that run fast.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Like as the waves make towards the pebbl’d shore, so do our minutes, hasten to their end.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Words without thoughts never to heaven go.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
In time we hate that which we often fear.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Maids want nothing but husbands, and when they have them, they want everything.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Everyone ought to bear patiently the results of his own conduct.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Neither a borrower nor a lender be.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more; it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Desire of having is the sin of covetousness.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
No, I will be the pattern of all patience; I will say nothing.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Having nothing, nothing can he lose.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
For my part, it was Greek to me.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
False face must hide what the false heart doth know.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
They do not love that do not show their love.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
There is no darkness but ignorance.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Better a witty fool than a foolish wit.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Listen to many, speak to a few.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
God has given you one face, and you make yourself another.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
We cannot conceive of matter being formed of nothing, since things require a seed to start from… Therefore there is not anything which returns to nothing, but all things return dissolved into their elements.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
I will praise any man that will praise me.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
The love of heaven makes one heavenly.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
O! Let me not be mad, not mad, sweet heaven; keep me in temper; I would not be mad!
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat. And we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Who could refrain that had a heart to love and in that heart courage to make love known?
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Death is a fearful thing.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
It is the stars, The stars above us, govern our conditions.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
The valiant never taste of death but once.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
The course of true love never did run smooth.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Most dangerous is that temptation that doth goad us on to sin in loving virtue.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Praise us as we are tasted, allow us as we prove.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
I were better to be eaten to death with a rust than to be scoured to nothing with perpetual motion.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
‘Tis one thing to be tempted, another thing to fall.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
But O, how bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man’s eyes.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
The empty vessel makes the loudest sound.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
He that loves to be flattered is worthy o’ the flatterer.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Love is too young to know what conscience is.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
As soon go kindle fire with snow, as seek to quench the fire of love with words.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Come, gentlemen, I hope we shall drink down all unkindness.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Things won are done, joy’s soul lies in the doing.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
O! for a muse of fire, that would ascend the brightest heaven of invention.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
A peace is of the nature of a conquest; for then both parties nobly are subdued, and neither party loser.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
I was adored once too.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
We are time’s subjects, and time bids be gone.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
If you have tears, prepare to shed them now.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Men are April when they woo, December when they wed. Maids are May when they are maids, but the sky changes when they are wives.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Love sought is good, but given unsought, is better.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
And oftentimes excusing of a fault doth make the fault the worse by the excuse.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
How poor are they that have not patience! What wound did ever heal but by degrees?
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
O, had I but followed the arts!
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Fishes live in the sea, as men do a-land; the great ones eat up the little ones.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
There was never yet fair woman but she made mouths in a glass.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Sweet are the uses of adversity which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, wears yet a precious jewel in his head.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
He that is giddy thinks the world turns round.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
The man that hath no music in himself, Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Let me embrace thee, sour adversity, for wise men say it is the wisest course.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
If you prick us do we not bleed? If you tickle us do we not laugh? If you poison us do we not die? And if you wrong us shall we not revenge?
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
The undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
I dote on his very absence.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Such as we are made of, such we be.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Pleasure and action make the hours seem short.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
For I can raise no money by vile means.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
If you can look into the seeds of time, and say which grain will grow and which will not, speak then unto me.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Give me my robe, put on my crown; I have Immortal longings in me.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Farewell, fair cruelty.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Parting is such sweet sorrow.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Men shut their doors against a setting sun.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
No legacy is so rich as honesty.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Life every man holds dear; but the dear man holds honor far more precious dear than life.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
He is winding the watch of his wit; by and by it will strike.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Love to faults is always blind, always is to joy inclined. Lawless, winged, and unconfined, and breaks all chains from every mind.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
How far that little candle throws its beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Many a good hanging prevents a bad marriage.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
The fashion of the world is to avoid cost, and you encounter it.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
How oft the sight of means to do ill deeds makes ill deeds done!
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
What, man, defy the devil. Consider, he’s an enemy to mankind.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Words, words, mere words, no matter from the heart.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Absence from those we love is self from self – a deadly banishment.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Poor and content is rich, and rich enough.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Expectation is the root of all heartache.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano; A stage where every man must play a part, And mine is a sad one.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
So foul and fair a day I have not seen.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
There’s not a note of mine that’s worth the noting.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Things done well and with a care, exempt themselves from fear.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
The lunatic, the lover, and the poet, are of imagination all compact.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
When a father gives to his son, both laugh; when a son gives to his father, both cry.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
And this, our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
We know what we are, but know not what we may be.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
When words are scarce they are seldom spent in vain.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Brevity is the soul of wit.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
This above all; to thine own self be true.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
He does it with better grace, but I do it more natural.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Suit the action to the word, the word to the action.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
What is past is prologue.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Lord, Lord, how subject we old men are to this vice of lying!
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
There have been many great men that have flattered the people who ne’er loved them.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
I bear a charmed life.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
I had rather have a fool to make me merry than experience to make me sad and to travel for it too!
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
It is a wise father that knows his own child.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Exceeds man’s might: that dwells with the gods above.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
If music be the food of love, play on.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
The attempt and not the deed confounds us.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Boldness be my friend.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
It will have blood, they say; blood will have blood.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Faith, there hath been many great men that have flattered the people who ne’er loved them.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
There’s no art to find the mind’s construction in the face.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
There’s many a man has more hair than wit.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Nature hath framed strange fellows in her time.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
What’s done can’t be undone.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
I say there is no darkness but ignorance.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
The golden age is before us, not behind us.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Talking isn’t doing. It is a kind of good deed to say well; and yet words are not deeds.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods; they kill us for their sport.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
The stroke of death is as a lover’s pinch, which hurts and is desired.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Speak low, if you speak love.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Life is as tedious as twice-told tale, vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Now is the winter of our discontent.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
‘Tis not enough to help the feeble up, but to support them after.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
The very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
If we are marked to die, we are enough to do our country loss; and if to live, the fewer men, the greater share of honor.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
I shall the effect of this good lesson keeps as watchman to my heart.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Give thy thoughts no tongue.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Children wish fathers looked but with their eyes; fathers that children with their judgment looked; and either may be wrong.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
To do a great right do a little wrong.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
When we are born we cry that we are come to this great stage of fools.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
How well he’s read, to reason against reading!
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)
Go to you bosom: Knock there, and ask your heart what it doth know.
English playwright and poet (1564-1616)