You quote Shakespeare far more often than you think — probably every single day, without a play in sight. Four hundred years ago he was writing for a rowdy London theater crowd, and the phrases he set down have quietly become part of ordinary English.
Scholars will tell you he didn’t invent every one of these out of thin air — he sometimes borrowed and polished what was already floating around. But these are the lines he first wrote down or made famous, and we’ve been using them ever since. Here are nine.
“Break the ice”
The Taming of the ShrewWhen you get a stiff gathering warmed up, you’re borrowing a line from The Taming of the Shrew. Shakespeare pictured a frozen surface that had to be cracked before anyone could get moving — exactly what a good opening joke does at a party.
“Wild-goose chase”
Romeo and JulietWe use it for any hopeless, roundabout search. It turns up in Romeo and Juliet, where it first referred to a kind of wild horse race in which riders followed a leader all over the place — like geese flying in formation. The pointless-errand meaning came later, but the phrase is his.
“In a pickle”
The TempestFinding yourself in a pickle — a real mess — comes from The Tempest. The image is of being soused and preserved like a vegetable in brine, thoroughly steeped in trouble. Somehow it’s stuck around for centuries.
“Wear your heart on your sleeve”
OthelloTo show your feelings openly is to wear your heart on your sleeve — a line from Othello. It calls back to an old custom of a knight tying his lady’s token to his arm, right out where everyone could see it.
“The green-eyed monster”
OthelloWe still call jealousy the green-eyed monster, and that too is from Othello. The villain Iago warns against it in one of the play’s most famous lines. Green had long been linked with sickness and envy, and Shakespeare made the pairing permanent.
He was writing for a rowdy London theater crowd — and four centuries later, we finish his sentences without noticing.
“Too much of a good thing”
As You Like ItThe gentle warning that even good things have their limits comes from As You Like It. It’s the kind of plain, wise line that sounds like a proverb your grandmother might have said — which is exactly why it lasted.
“Good riddance”
Troilus and CressidaWhen you’re glad to see something go, you say good riddance — a phrase that appears in Troilus and Cressida. Four hundred years on, it still carries that little note of relief.
“Love is blind”
The Merchant of VeniceThe idea that love overlooks every flaw shows up in The Merchant of Venice and more than one other play. Shakespeare returned to it often, and it’s been a comfort — and an excuse — to smitten people ever since.
“All that glitters is not gold”
The Merchant of VeniceHis original line was “all that glisters is not gold,” also from The Merchant of Venice — a reminder that shiny things aren’t always valuable. We’ve swapped “glisters” for “glitters” over the years, but the warning is exactly the same.
That’s the strange afterlife of a great writer. The plays can feel distant and difficult, full of language we have to work at — and yet his words are in your mouth all the time, worn so smooth by use that they don’t feel like poetry at all. They just feel like English.
