As for the play itself, it is perhaps the most popular and well-known of all Shakespeare's works and is also the longest and arguably the most difficult to understand.

Discretion is the better part of valor.

Therefore make money. A pox of drowning thyself! 'Tis clean out of the way. Seek thou rather to be hanged in compassing thy joy than to be drowned and go without her.

We cannot conceive of matter being formed of nothing, since things require a seed to start from.

O hateful error, melancholy's child. Why dost thou show to the apt thoughts of men The things that are not? O error soon22 conceived, 70 Thou never comest unto a happy birth, But kill'st the mother that engendered23 thee.

She speaks poniards, and every word stabs.

Our nearness to the king in love is nearness to those who love not the king.