Shakespeare Quote and Phrase Generator

How this Shakespeare generator works

You want a line from Shakespeare, or a batch of them. Maybe you are studying, teaching, writing, or just enjoy the fact that a playwright from 400 years ago still shapes how we talk. This tool gives you a quote or phrase in a tap, and the page below shows how much of everyday English traces back to him.

It runs on a hand-checked list of around 150 Shakespeare quotes and phrases. Press Generate for one, or set the Number box from 1 to 100 for a batch with no repeats. The handiest filter is Contains: type a word and the tool keeps only the lines that include it. The Copy button lifts the whole list at once.

Shakespeare's mark on everyday English

No single writer has left a bigger mark on English than William Shakespeare. Across his plays and poems he gave the language hundreds of phrases and turns of expression that we still use every day, usually without any idea we are quoting a 400-year-old play.

Say something is "a wild-goose chase", call jealousy "the green-eyed monster", "break the ice" with a stranger, or admit you "wear your heart on your sleeve", and you are speaking Shakespeare. His lines slipped into common speech so thoroughly that they stopped feeling like quotations at all and simply became English.

Phrases you use without knowing

A handful of everyday phrases, with the plays they come from:

• Break the ice, to ease social tension, from The Taming of the Shrew.
• Wild-goose chase, a hopeless search, from Romeo and Juliet.
• The green-eyed monster, jealousy, from Othello.
• Brave new world, from The Tempest.
• All that glitters is not gold, from The Merchant of Venice, where the original word was "glisters".
• What's done is done, from Macbeth.

There are hundreds more. Once you start noticing them, it is hard to get through a day without tripping over one.

Did he really invent them all?

Here is the honest version, because it is more interesting than the myth. Shakespeare is often credited with inventing over 1,700 words and countless phrases, and posters and T-shirts happily repeat the figure. The truth is more nuanced. He certainly coined a great many, but for others he was simply the first to write them down, and some he took from ordinary speech and made famous by putting them in a hit play.

Scholars keep finding earlier uses of phrases once credited entirely to him. That does not shrink his achievement, it explains it. Shakespeare's plays were so popular, so quoted and reprinted, that whatever he used tended to stick. He was as much the great populariser of English as its great inventor, and both are worth celebrating.

Ways people use this

• Learning and teaching. A brilliant way into Shakespeare for students: start from a phrase they already say, then show them the play it came from.
• Writing. A Shakespearean phrase or line adds weight to an essay, a speech, or a title.
• Trivia. Show the phrase and guess whether it is Shakespeare. People are usually amazed how many are.
• Appreciation. Sometimes it is just a pleasure to see, line after line, how much of the language one person shaped.

Getting more from the filter

• Use the Contains box to find lines built around a word, like "heart", "world", or "night".
• Generate a batch and see how many you recognise as everyday sayings. The overlap is the surprise.
• If Contains returns nothing, no line in the list holds that word. Try a more common one.

Questions people ask

Did Shakespeare invent these phrases?

Many of them, yes, though not all. He coined a great many, was the first to write down others, and made still others famous by using them in popular plays. He was both an inventor and a great populariser of English.

How many words did Shakespeare invent?

He is often credited with more than 1,700, but the real number is debated. Scholars keep finding earlier uses, so the figure is best treated as a headline rather than a hard count.

Which plays do these come from?

All over his work. Phrases in common use today come from Macbeth, Othello, Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, The Tempest, and many more.

Why are they still used after 400 years?

Because his plays were hugely popular and endlessly quoted, so the phrases spread into everyday speech and simply stayed there, long after most people forgot where they came from.

References

1. Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, Shakespeare's Phrases
2. British Council, Idioms and Phrases Shakespeare Invented