Shakespearean Insult Quotes

“You're wrong," Lord Dudley said. "You've always been a fool."

"The fool thinks he is wise," G retorted. "But the wise man knows himself to be a fool.”
― Cynthia Hand, My Lady Jane

“Get you gone, you dwarf,
You minimus of hindering knotgrass made,
You bead, you acorn!”
― William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream

“Men from children nothing differ.”
― William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing

“Thou sodden-witted lord! thou hast no more brain than I have in mine elbows.”
― William Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida

“I’ll beat thee, but I should infect my hands.”
― William Shakespeare, Timon of Athens

“For this, be sure, tonight thou shalt have cramps,
Side-stitches that shall pen thy breath up. Urchins
Shall forth at vast of night that they may work
All exercise on thee. Thou shalt be pinched
As thick as honeycomb, each pinch more stinging
Than bees that made 'em.”
― William Shakespeare, The Tempest

“Would thou wert clean enough to spit upon!”
― William Shakespeare, Timon of Athens

“This hand shall never more come near thee with such friendship”
― William Shakespeare, The Two Noble Kinsmen

“Thou poisonous slave, got by the devil himself
Upon thy wicked dam”
― William Shakespeare, The Tempest

“As wicked dew as e'er my mother brushed
With raven's feather from unwholesom fen
Drop on you both! A southwest blow on ye
And blister you all o'er!”
― William Shakespeare, The Tempest

“Thou most lying slave,
Whom stripes may move, not kindness!”
― William Shakespeare, The Tempest

“Come, thou tortoise!”
― William Shakespeare

“If "Frailty, thy name is woman", Frailty must be a man named as 'woman”
― Munia Khan

“That knave would happily use a sextant to investigate his lineage and only tell the true Sun from a bastard.”
― Stewart Stafford

“Thou has't all the symptoms of hubris but, alas, remaineth unw'rthy of the condition.”
― Stewart Stafford

“Benedick: A miracle. Here's our own hands against our hearts. Come, I will have thee, but by this light I take thee for pity.

Beatrice: I would not deny you, but by this good day, I yield upon great persuasion, and partly to save your life, for I was told you were in a consumption.”
― William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing

“The librarian went back to her ledgers, and Hallie trailed off, holding back all the Shakespearean insults that flooded into her mind, froward and unable worm being the most prominent. --Hallie”
― Alli Earnest , Cities of Smoke and Starlight

“What you, egg?”
― Shakespeare, Hamlet

“For then what wouldst thou know, flitting 'twixt waking and sleep!”
― Stewart Stafford

“Sirrah, thou art a coarse and rough-hewn fellow but i fain noteth thy first name Stewart bears a pleasing w'rding and, thus, lurks a grise of gentle spirit about thy p'rson. Bemock all Stuarts and maketh this keeper of the estate our w'rthy guardian!”
― Stewart Stafford

“If 't be true mine own w'rds w're gold, then thy ears wouldst beest smelting pots and thy mind a mis'r. Or if 't be true thee hath found mine own w'rds base, then an alchemist beest.”
― Stewart Stafford

“O most wondrous misshapen biddy of the m'rning, humming at which hour t shouldst cluck! Thou dost not harbour honesty any m're than a hedgehog is a splint'r'd prison f'r fleas.”
― Stewart Stafford

“The Unknowable Scribe by Stewart Stafford

Behind the looking glass,
Lurks the trembling hand of deception,
How deep it goes.

Scratching worthlessly on the glass,
Yet leaving diamond shavings in its wake,
To ponder over endlessly.

Question not, despise not,
Seek no answers here
For there are none to give.

The cygnet is mooncalf,
To the mighty swan,
Cat's paw to catchpenny.

Birther to birthing,
A classification of bedding,
To redress the baseness of our grindings.

© Stewart Stafford, 2021. All rights reserved.”
― Stewart Stafford

“The Beshrewing of Tom o' Bedlam by Stewart Stafford

Fie and a plague on thee!
Nay, a pox!
May legions of hellions float through thee,
And may thou fall in the dung of an ox.

May the thing below thine eyes,
Take on the appearance of a sprout,
And may the things above thy chin,
Resemble a harlot's spout.

May Heaven strike thee dumb,
Aye, dumber than thou art now,
May thy words become those of a lunatic,
And thy breathing the grunting of a sow.

Verily, I do not wish thee misfortune,
Lest it rebounds back upon me,
But, as long as it befalls thee first,
I may live quite merrily.

© Stewart Stafford, 2021. All rights reserved.”
― Stewart Stafford

“Venom by Stewart Stafford

Thou art the Great Pudenda;
The usurper king of Puck's Fair,
Miasma ague, a goat's smear,
From a reeking jakes' baited bear!

Thou dost hurl thy feeble barbs,
Witted pits 'gainst an impregnable bard,
With dagger'd quill to etch thy epitaph,
Far-outliving thy quarrel's shard.

Toad-spawn at the gates of Hades;
Cast out from its cursed ground,
For the dunghill art thou fit,
With its foul beetles all around.

© 2024, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.”
― Stewart Stafford