On Quoting Shakespeare

If you cannot understand my argument, and declare ``It's Greek to me'', you are quoting
Shakespeare; if you claim to be more sinned against than sinning, you are quoting
Shakespeare; if you recall your salad days, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you act more
in sorrow than in anger; if your wish is farther to the thought; if your lost property has
vanished into thin air, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you have ever refused to budge an
inch or suffered from green-eyed jealousy, if you have played fast and loose, if you have
been tongue-tied, a tower of strength, hoodwinked or in a pickle, if you have knitted your
brows, made a virtue of necessity, insisted on fair play, slept not one wink, stood on
ceremony, danced attendance (on your lord and master), laughed yourself into stitches,
had short shrift, cold comfort or too much of a good thing, if you have seen better days or
lived in a fool's paradise -why, be that as it may, the more fool you , for it is a foregone
conclusion that you are (as good luck would have it) quoting Shakespeare; if you think it is
early days and clear out bag and baggage, if you think it is high time and that that is the
long and short of it, if you believe that the game is up and that truth will out even if it
involves your own flesh and blood, if you lie low till the crack of doom because you suspect
foul play, if you have your teeth set on edge (at one fell swoop) without rhyme or reason,
then - to give the devil his due - if the truth were known (for surely you have a tongue in
your head) you are quoting Shakespeare; even if you bid me good riddance and send me
packing, if you wish I was dead as a door-nail, if you think I am an eyesore, a laughing
stock, the devil incarnate, a stony-hearted villain, bloody-minded or a blinking idiot, then
- by Jove! O Lord! Tut tut! For goodness' sake! What the dickens! But me no buts! - it is
all one to me, for you are quoting Shakespeare.

Bernard Levin

Phrases We Use Because of Shakespeare

 Barry Manilow may claim to write the songs, but it was William Shakespeare who coined
the phrases - he contributed more phrases and sayings to the English language than any
other individual, and most of them are still in daily use.

Here's a collection of well-known quotations that are associated with Shakespeare. Most
of these were the Bard's own work, but he wasn't averse to stealing a good line
occasionally and a few of these were 'popularised by' rather than 'coined by' Shakespeare

Phrases coined by William Shakespeare (Group 3):

Fight fire with fire

Meaning

Respond to an attack by using a similar method as one's attacker.

Origin

When we 'fight fire with fire' we are likely to employ more extreme methods than we
would normally do. That was what Shakespeare was referring to in King John, 1595:

Be stirring as the time; be fire with fire;

Threaten the threatener and outface the brow
Of bragging horror
Vanish into thin air

Meaning

Disappear without trace.

Origin

Shakespeare came close to this phrase in Othello, 1604:

Clown:
Then put up your pipes in your bag, for I'll away. Go; vanish into air; away!

and closer still in The Tempest, 1610:

Prospero:
These our actors, as I foretold you, were all spirits and are melted into air, into thin air

It seems clear that Shakespeare coined the terms thin air (which has been widely used
since the 17th century by a diverse collection of authors, including John Milton (1671),
William Blake (1800) and Ed McBain (1977) and vanish into air, used by lesser-known
author; James Hogg, in his work Mountain Bard, 1807. Shakespeare didn't put the two
together to make vanish into thin air though. The first use I can find of that phrase, which
is clearly an adaptation of Shakespeare's terms, is in The Edinburgh Advertiser, April
1822, in a piece about the imminent conflict between Russia and Turkey:

The latest communications make these visions "vanish into thin air."

Love is blind

Origin

This was coined by Shakespeare and was quite a favourite line of his. It appears in several
of his plays, including Two Gentlemen of Verona, Henry V and The Merchant Of Venice;
for example, this piece from The Merchant Of Venice, 1596:
 JESSICA: Here, catch this casket; it is worth the pains.
I am glad 'tis night, you do not look on me,
For I am much ashamed of my exchange:
But love is blind and lovers cannot see
The pretty follies that themselves commit;
For if they could, Cupid himself would blush
To see me thus transformed to a boy.

Modern-day research supports the view that the blindness of love is not just a figurative
matter. A research study in 2004 by University College London found that feelings of love
suppressed the activity of the areas of the brain that control critical thought.

For ever and a day

Meaning

Indefinitely.

Origin

Of course, for ever and a day is an dramatic construct with no literal meaning - for ever is for ever, we
can't add days to it. This form of dramatic emphasis has been used many times, a recent example being
The Beatles' song 'Eight Days a Week'.

Shakespeare coined this and used it in The Taming of the Shrew, 1596:

BIONDELLO   I cannot tell; expect they are busied about a

      counterfeit assurance: take you assurance of her,
      'cum privilegio ad imprimendum solum:' to the
      church; take the priest, clerk, and some sufficient
      honest witnesses: If this be not that you look for,
      I have no more to say, But bid Bianca farewell for
      ever and a day.

He must have liked it as he used it again in As You Like It, 1600:

ROSALIND: Now tell me how long you would have her after you have possessed her.
ORLANDO: For ever and a day.

< http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/phrases-sayings-shakespeare.html>