Writers On Shakespeare

He was not of an age, but for all time! (Ben Johnson)

[Shakespeare] is the very Janus of poets; he wears almost everywhere two faces; and you have scarce begun to admit the one, ere you despise the other. (John Dryden)

He was not a man, he was a continent; he contained whole crowds of great men, entire landscape. (Gustave Flaubert)

One never sees Shakespeare played without being reminded at some new point of his greatness. (Henry James)

When I read Shakespeare I am struck with wonder

That such trivial people should muse and thunder

In such lovely language. (D. H. Lawrence)

Shakespeare is the Canon. He sets the standards and the limits of literature. (Harold Bloom)