Shakespeare contributed more phrases to the English language than any other individual. Here's a collection of well-known quotations coined by him.

   1. A countenance more in sorrow than in anger

Meaning

Literal meaning - a person or thing that is viewed more with sadness than with anger.

Origin

From Shakespeare's Hamlet, 1603. Horatio describes to Hamlet the appearance of his father's ghost:

Hamlet: What, look'd he frowningly?
Horatio: A countenance more in sorrow than in anger.

 

2. A Daniel come to judgement

Meaning

Someone who makes a wise judgment about something that has previously proven difficult to resolve.

Origin

This doubtless alludes to the biblical character Daniel, who was attributed with fine powers of judgment. In Daniel 5:14 (King James Version) we have:

I have even heard of thee, that the spirit of the gods is in thee, and that light and understanding and excellent wisdom is found in thee.

The first use of the phrase as we now know it is from Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, 1596:

SHYLOCK:
A Daniel come to judgment! yea, a Daniel!
O wise young judge, how I do honour thee!

 

3. A dish fit for the gods

Meaning

An offering of high quality.

Origin

From Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, 1601:

BRUTUS:

Our course will seem too bloody, Caius Cassius,
To cut the head off and then hack the limbs,
Like wrath in death and envy afterwards;
For Antony is but a limb of Caesar:
Let us be sacrificers, but not butchers, Caius.
We all stand up against the spirit of Caesar;
And in the spirit of men there is no blood:
O, that we then could come by Caesar's spirit,
And not dismember Caesar! But, alas,
Caesar must bleed for it! And, gentle friends,
Let's kill him boldly, but not wrathfully;
Let's carve him as a dish fit for the gods...

In the speech Brutus expresses the view that, although the conspirators are resolved to kill Caesar, they aren't mere butchers and should leave his body in a suitable state for the gods to view.

 

4. A fool's paradise

Meaning

A state of happiness based on false hope.

Origin

An early phrase, first recorded in the Paston Letters, 1462:

"I wold not be in a folis paradyce."

Shakespeare later used it in Romeo and Juliet.

Nurse:
Now, afore God, I am so vexed, that every part about
me quivers. Scurvy knave! Pray you, sir, a word:
and as I told you, my young lady bade me inquire you
out; what she bade me say, I will keep to myself:
but first let me tell ye, if ye should lead her into
a fool's paradise, as they say, it were a very gross
kind of behavior, as they say: for the gentlewoman
is young; and, therefore, if you should deal double
with her, truly it were an ill thing to be offered
to any gentlewoman, and very weak dealing.

 

 

5. A foregone conclusion

Meaning

A decision made before the evidence for it is known. An inevitable conclusion.

Origin

From Shakespeare's Othello, 1604:

OTHELLO:
But this denoted a foregone conclusion:
'Tis a shrewd doubt, though it be but a dream.

 

6. A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse

Meaning

One of Shakespeare's best known lines. The quotation is sometimes now repeated ironically when someone is is need of some unimportant item.

Origin

From Shakespeare's Richard III, 1591/2:

CATESBY:
Rescue, my Lord of Norfolk, rescue, rescue!
The king enacts more wonders than a man,
Daring an opposite to every danger:
His horse is slain, and all on foot he fights,
Seeking for Richmond in the throat of death.
Rescue, fair lord, or else the day is lost!

KING RICHARD III:
A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!

CATESBY:
Withdraw, my lord; I'll help you to a horse.

 

7. A ministering angel shall my sister be

Meaning

To minister is to serve, or act as a subordinate agent. So, a ministering angel is a kind-hearted person, providing help and comfort.

Origin

From Shakespeare's Hamlet, 1603:

LAERTES:
Lay her i' the earth:
And from her fair and unpolluted flesh
May violets spring! I tell thee, churlish priest,
A ministering angel shall my sister be,
When thou liest howling.

 

8. A plague on both your houses

Meaning

A frustrated curse on both sides of an argument.

Origin

From Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, 1594:

MERCUTIO:
I am hurt.
A plague o' both your houses! I am sped.
Is he gone, and hath nothing?

The houses are those of the feuding Montague and Capulet families, which caused Juliet so much grief and was the source of her 'O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo' speech.

Shakespeare was fond of the word plague and used it hundreds of times in his plays. Surprisingly, as the Bible is the other most prominent source of phrases that have entered the English language, there isn't a single use of the word 'Bible' in any of his plays.

 

9. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet

Meaning

What matters is what something is, not what it is called.

Origin

From Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, 1594:

JULIET:
      'Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
      Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
      What's Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,
      Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
      Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
      What's in a name? that which we call a rose
      By any other name would smell as sweet;
      So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd,
      Retain that dear perfection which he owes
      Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,
      And for that name which is no part of thee
      Take all myself.

A story, much favoured by tour guides, and as such highly suspect, is that in this line Shakespeare was also making a joke at the expense of the Rose Theatre. The Rose was a local rival to his Globe Theatre and is reputed to have had less than effective sanitary arrangements. The story goes that this was a coy joke about the smell. This certainly has the whiff of folk etymology about it, but it might just be true.

 

10. A sea change

Meaning

A radical, and apparently mystical, change.

Origin

From Shakespeare's The Tempest, 1610:

ARIEL [sings]:
Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell