Browse 6 quotations connecting William Shakespeare with Communication, with meanings, source notes and related themes.
Six Communication-tagged excerpts from five Shakespeare plays show people listening, advising, persuading, consoling and thanking one another, not one uniform rule about speaking well. Hamlet offers the clearest comic contrast within a single character. In Act 1, Scene 3, Polonius sends Laertes away with advice to listen freely but reserve his own speech; his admonition belongs to a father arranging how his son should act at court. In Act 2, Scene 2, that same Polonius announces that brevity is the soul of wit while giving the King and Queen a prolonged explanation of Hamlet's behavior. The Queen's interruption makes the contradiction visible. His maxim has a genuine practical appeal, but the comedy lies in a man who cannot follow it. Neither remark is an unqualified personal instruction from Shakespeare; the speaker's judgment, and the play's treatment of it, matter.
Other passages expose the distance between language and the realities it claims to represent. In Romeo and Juliet, Act 2, Scene 2, Juliet questions whether a family name determines Romeo's qualities. Her image of a rose tests the meaning of inherited labels, but the Montague-Capulet feud still makes their relationship dangerous. She is not merely advocating cheerful speech or claiming that words have no consequences. In The Merchant of Venice, Act 1, Scene 3, Antonio responds to Shylock's biblical account of Jacob by warning Bassanio that even Scripture can be cited for a self-serving purpose. Antonio's point concerns selective quotation and the listener's need for context; his hostility to Shylock and the scene's religious prejudice complicate his credibility. Calling out manipulative rhetoric does not make the speaker an impartial model of tolerance.
Speech also answers a particular listener's need, and can fall short of what events require. In Macbeth, Act 4, Scene 3, Malcolm urges Macduff to give his grief words after Ross reports that Macduff's wife and children have been killed. That invitation occurs beside Malcolm's call to turn grief into anger and action against Macbeth. It should neither be detached from the violence of the scene nor offered as a modern clinical rule about mourning. This is an appeal made amid grief and violence, not proof that any one form of speech or response can resolve bereavement. In Twelfth Night, Act 3, Scene 3, Sebastian repeatedly thanks Antonio for risking his safety to follow and protect him, yet says thanks are all the reply he can offer. Gratitude recognizes the real help while acknowledging that words alone are not repayment.
Read together, these six scenes present communication as an exchange involving the speaker's motives, the listener's situation and what happens beyond the sentence itself. Polonius speaks wise-sounding maxims that his performance undercuts; Juliet argues against a social designation with dangerous material force; Antonio warns about borrowed authority while displaying prejudice; Malcolm makes room for spoken sorrow but presses for revenge; and Sebastian answers a friend's costly loyalty with imperfect words of thanks. The collection therefore differs from the Wisdom guide's concern with good judgment, Truth's investigation of honest or deceptive claims, Relationships' account of loyalty and conflict, Life's response to changing fortune, and Perspective's treatment of viewpoints and labels. These are character voices in particular dramatic scenes. The original play titles, notes and source witnesses belong beside their excerpts; no character's speech should be passed off as Shakespeare's private creed or a universal formula for communicating.
Sources represented here include Hamlet, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet.
“Brevity is the soul of wit.”
The line praises compression: saying less can sharpen meaning when the words that remain do real work.
Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2; Polonius says this while promising the King and Queen he will be brief, immediately before continuing at comic length. The dramatic irony is part of the line’s context.
“Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice.”
Listening broadly while speaking selectively is presented as a practical discipline for judgment, relationships, and self-control.
Act 1, Scene 3; Polonius advises Laertes before his departure.
“Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak Whispers the o’er-fraught heart and bids it break.”
Putting grief into words can make suffering more shareable; silence may intensify pressure when pain has no form of expression.
Macbeth, Act IV, Scene III, reviewed against the scan-backed 1918 Yale text. Malcolm tells Macduff 'Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak / Whispers the o'er-fraught heart and bids it break.' The frozen catalog row instead reads 'knits up the o'er-wrought heart'; that substantive inherited wording variation is disclosed rather than silently rewritten. The passage remains dramatic grief counsel, not clinical guidance.
“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other word would smell as sweet.”
The line questions whether labels and inherited identities should determine the value or reality of the person beneath them.
Act 2, Scene 2; Juliet separates Romeo from the social meaning of his family name.
“The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.”
Even respected language can be quoted selectively, so a citation should be judged by context and purpose rather than authority alone.
The Merchant of Venice, Act 1, Scene 3.
“I can no other answer make but thanks, and thanks, and ever thanks.”
Sebastian responds to Antonio’s costly loyalty with repeated thanks while also admitting that words alone are an inadequate repayment for practical care.
Twelfth Night, Act III, Scene 3, Sebastian; 1922 Yale Shakespeare edition edited by George Henry Nettleton, printed page 56 / Wikisource scan leaf 68. Sebastian tells Antonio, “I can no other answer make but thanks, and thanks, and ever thanks,” after Antonio explains that concern for Sebastian’s safety drove him onward despite danger in Illyria. It remains fictional gratitude dialogue tied to Antonio’s costly loyalty, not Shakespeare autobiography.
