Put that quote back in context, or so help me...

A fun fact

I’ve spent more than half my life familiarising myself with Shakespeare’s works, and one side-effect of that is realising how often people like to quote his lines without knowing their context—sometimes leading to hilarious inside jokes. The biggest culprit of strangely recontextualised quotes is the oft-groanworthy inspirational fluff quote, where some words have been slapped on a pretty image with very little thought behind the act.

I’ve collected a whole bunch of these “inspirational” Shakespeare quotes, and for all our entertainment I’ll share the original context they came out of. Sometimes the quote’s context will show its meaning to be quite different to what it was assumed to mean, but sometimes the quote actually is inspirational—or, rather, it would be if somebody else had said it.

So let us once more unto the breach, dear friends, and survey what follows…

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“Inspirational” meaning: Be yourself! Don’t try to hide who you are!

Context: Honestly, this bit is pretty good advice. It is, however, played for irony, as it comes at the end of a very long speech from grade-A hypocritical windbag Polonius to his son in which he gives a lot of very specific (and occasionally contradictory) advice on exactly how he ought to behave when he’s away at university.

“Inspirational” meaning: Don’t carry on too much; it’s a bad look.

Context: Again, this would be much more poignant had it been said by literally anyone other than Polonius, who canonically doesn’t understand the meaning of the word “brevity”. In context, it’s played entirely for humour (and very effectively so).

“Inspirational” meaning: Sometimes people are pushed into great things through no intention of their own.

Context: Oooh, this is a quote I see used earnestly a lot! It sounds good, doesn’t it? Surprise: it’s a sex joke. This quote is part of a fake letter given to a steward, supposedly from his boss (who he has a MAJOR crush on), revealing a (nonexistent) forbidden love for her devoted servant. So when it says that people have greatness thrust upon them… You can connect the dots from here.

“Inspirational” meaning: Girl power!!

Context: Helena’s having a massive fight with her ex-bestie Hermia, and is basically calling her a nasty short bitch. There’s a big height difference between the girls, so they resort to a lot of juicy height-related insults. Extra fact: Helena exits the scene with one of my favourite couplets: “Your hands than mine are quicker for a fray,/My legs are longer though, to run away.”

“Inspirational” meaning: Don’t blame fate for your own shortcomings.

Context: This quote comes from the part of Julius Caesar where Cassius is sounding out his buddy Brutus’ capacity for treason using a speech pointing out that Caesar is no better than Brutus is (and ergo should not be made a king to rule over men like Brutus [so like, we should totally just stab Caesar]). The meaning is fairly close, but Cassius definitely has an agenda going on.

“Inspirational” meaning: It’s far worse to be a coward and suffer shame than to die bravely.

Context: This very noble quote from Julius Caesar might come off with more panache if it wasn’t said by Caesar just before he left to get stabbed repeatedly by all of his closest friends. It’s not exactly undermined by the context, but one does look at it a bit differently for it.

“Inspirational” meaning: Something about hidden depths and personal potential?

Context: These lines are said by the character Ophelia after she’s gone mad following her father’s murder; the sentence preceding them is “They say the owl was a baker's daughter.” So there isn’t really supposed to be an awful lot of meaning here beyond being pitiful and unsettling.

“Inspirational” meaning: You won’t get results if you don’t put in the work.

Context: King Lear is playing political games with his three daughters when deciding how to divide up his kingdom amongst them. The older two daughters are more than happy to oblige, but Lear’s youngest and favourite daughter has, quote, “nothing” to say and refuses to play along. Lear gives her a warning with this line, but she stands firm, so he throws a hissy fit and disinherits her altogether.

“Inspirational” meaning: Running things is a difficult job.

Context: Well, your head would certainly be uneasy too if you’d had to stage a coup against your cousin to get the job and it was now giving other people ideas.

“Inspirational” meaning: I am who I am, and don’t try to change it!

Context: Don John definitely means that when he says this line, but he’s also just finished saying that who he is is a “plain-dealing villain” and professional pain in the ass, so maybe not the best guy to compare yourself to.