William Shakespeare, British author and playwright.

If he were still alive, William Shakespeare would be celebrating his 450th birthday today.

Shakespeare is one of the most celebrated writers of all time. He is attributed with writing 38 plays, sonnets and at least five poems. While his plays offer many beautiful, insightful and searing quotes, many words commonly used today find their origins in Shakespeare - the Bard of Avon was not adverse to creating his own words when he saw the need. Words such as assassination (Macbeth), Fashionable (Troilus and Cressida) and scuffle (Antony and Cleopatra) were all coined by Shakespeare.

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In celebration of Shakespeare's literary brilliance, we have compiled a list of 10 quotes for you to enjoy.

1.

"Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none."

- As You Like It

2.

"Be not afraid of greatness. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them."

- Twelfth Night

3.

"This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man."

- Hamlet

4.

"All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages."

- As You Like It

5.

"To die, to sleep -
To sleep, perchance to dream - ay, there's the rub,
For in this sleep of death what dreams may come..."

- Hamlet

6.

"Our doubts are traitors,
and make us lose the good we oft might win,
by fearing to attempt."

- Measure for Measure

7.

"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And too often is his gold complexion dimm'd:
And every fair from fair sometimes declines,
By chance or natures changing course untrimm'd;
But they eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long live this and this gives life to thee."

- Shakespeare's Sonnets

8.

"We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded
with a sleep."

- The Tempest

9.

"Do you not know I am a woman? when I think, I must speak."

- As You Like It

10.

"In time we hate that which we often fear."

- Antony and Cleopatra

- nzherald.co.nz