This short collection explains some of Shakespeare’s most famous flower quotes. You’d be surprised how many of these quotes still hold real meaning for today. Some are funny, some are sweet, some are romantic, and some are even a little sad.

Each quote is explained briefly so that the meaning shines through. Once you understand them, these Shakespeare flower quotes can enhance all kinds of situations.

Share them with friends, on social media, or save them in your quote collection. You can even use a few of these to send with cards, gifts, or bouquets.

For revels, dances, masks and merry hours forerun fair Love, strewing her way with flowers.

—Love’s Labour’s Lost,
Act IV, Scene ii

Celebrate and love will find you. Parties and fun times create the beautiful moments that inspire love. Happy times will pave the way for love. It’s as if these celebrations create a path of rose petals leading directly to true love.

Away before me to sweet beds of flowers:
love-thoughts lie rich when canopied with bowers.

—Twelfth Night,
Act I, Scene i

Our dreams will grow in beauty. Go ahead of me and rest in loveliness and comfort, surrounded by blossoms. Dreams of love are inspired to even greater heights when the dreamer rests under a canopy of flowers. Dream of me and I will be there soon. This quote is a general sentiment about romance, and the ideal settings for it.

[She] crowns him with flowers and makes him all her joy.

—A Midsummer Night’s Dream,
Act II, Scene i

Flowers are the royal crown of love. A lover weaves flowers in the beloved’s hair, and makes them the center of their world. Flowers express the happiness of loving someone.

Stay for me: where souls do couch on flowers, we’ll hand in hand.

—Antony and Cleopatra,
Act IV, Scene xiv

Wait for me. We’ll be together in a field of joy. Where all is happiness and peace, we will go together, hand in hand. We will be together forever in a safe and comforting place. In the context of the play, this line comes as a sad ending to a love story. Antony says these final words to Cleopatra as he dies. Taken out of context, this sentiment expresses hope for reunions after any absence, short or long.

And sing while thou on pressed flowers dost sleep.

—A Midsummer Night’s Dream,
Act III, Scene i

I will watch over you and keep you safe. I will put you in lovely places. I will sing you to sleep on a bed of blossoms. In the play, this line is spoken in a magical setting within the forest. The context is somewhat humorous, as the Queen of Fairies, Titania, speaks this line to the character Bottom. Bottom is a man who has been given the head of a donkey, and Titania has be enchanted to fall in love with him. Titania commands her servant-fairies to sing him to sleep. The sentiment expressed is gentle and kind, but the situation invites us to laugh. Nonetheless, this quote stand nicely on its own, and would make a lovely short quotation to share with someone you love.

So doth the woodbine, the sweet honeysuckle, gently entwist; the female ivy so enrings the barky fingers of the elm. O, how I love thee! how I dote on thee!

—A Midsummer Night’s Dream,
Act IV, Scene i

I love you with a passion that keeps me close to you. My heart entwines around you like vines of flowers, I love you so much. I wrap myself around you like the sweetest stems wrap themselves around the trunk of a tree. This image of love, weaving and entwining itself devotedly around the beloved, is intense and passionate. The context of this quote is a little silly, because it is spoken by the Queen of Fairies to a ridiculous character. Even so, taken alone, this quote would be an impressively romantic expression to share.

Like a bank for love to lie and play on…but quick and in mine arms. Come, take your flowers.

—The Winter’s Tale,
Act IV, Scene iv

Come quick, and love me now. I am like the bank of a river, a place for love to play in private. Be fast and fully alive. Come here to my arms now and take the flower of my love. Standing alone, this quote has a hint of a seductive feeling. It’s an invitation to love and immediate joy. In the context of the play it comes from, it has a similar meaning, although the banter is less directly suggestive and more like banter. This quote could easily be used when sending a bouquet. It would carry a double meaning, rich with promise.

Strew me over with maiden flowers, that all the world may know.

—Henry VIII,
Act IV, Scene ii

Cover me with immaculate flowers. My love is pure. The actual context of this quote is quite sad. Queen Katherine has been rejected by Henry VIII. She insists that she has been only a pure and devoted wife for her entire marriage. In this quote, Katherine entreats the others to cover her with maiden flowers when she dies, so that the whole world will know her constant devotion and purity. The words are powerful. When taken out of context, this quote works nicely to express pure love and devotion. Maiden flowers are often white, and that purity of color can announce your innocent devotion of love to the entire world.

Beauty is but a vain and doubtful good;
a shining gloss that fadeth suddenly;
a flower that dies when first it gins to bud.

—The Passionate Pilgrim

Beauty is fleeting. Beauty will fade just like the flowers do. If you rely only on beauty, you will be disappointed. Like budding flowers, beauty is on the way to fading as soon as it begins.

Now stand you on the top of happy hours,
and many maiden gardens yet unset with virtuous wish
would bear your living flowers.

—Sonnet XVI

There you are, in all your glory. Every woman wants you. Now you are standing at the height of your happiness and energy. All the maidens are at your feet, ready to bear your children. This one is a little intense. The sonnet that is comes from is intended to celebrate the importance to creating a family with children to carry on one’s legacy.

My unblown flowers, new-appearing sweets!

—Richard III,
Act IV, Scene iv

My loves and my children are sweet and fresh as flower buds. This is another quote that, in context, is deeply sad. In the context of the play, it is a mournful cry of grief. Taken here, out of context, It can be a pleasant descriptor of all things young and new. It’s not unusual to take Shakespeare quotes out of context; use this one with caution, if you share it, because of the sad context.

As flowers dead lie wither’d on the ground…
so beauty blemish’d once’s for ever lost.

—The Passionate Pilgrim

Beauty, once it is tarnished, is as dead as fallen flowers. The implication here is that we should enjoy our beauty, and the beauty of the beginnings of love, while we can. It also implies that we all should protect our beautiful moments because they cannot be preserved indefinitely. In the context of this poem, it is a bit of a lament from a person who squandered their beauty on someone who did not deserve it.

Hence, and rest upon your never-withering banks of flowers.

—Cymbeline,
Act V, Scene iv

Return to your perfect resting place where beauty never dies. Eternal spirits, Gods, and Goddesses dwell in a perfect afterlife where flowers bloom in masses of perfect loveliness. This particular quote is part of a larger plea for blessings. The God, Jupiter, is sending the other spirits away and reassuring mortals that all will be well in time.

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
and summer’s lease hath all too short a date.

–Sonnet XVIII

In time, youth and beauty will fade. Youth and all good things have a limited time to thrive. Enjoy them while they are at their peak. The young buds of flowers are shaken by the rough winds of life. Summer’s blossoms only last a short time. Stay aware of this, and take action in these, your best moments of youth.

Now, my fair’st friend, I would I had some flowers o’ the spring
that might become your time of day.

—The Winter’s Tale,
Act IV, Scene iv

I wish I had gifts that were worthy of you. I love you, friend. I wish I had the very best flowers of springtime to give to you. Only those fresh flowers would be able to match the loveliness of your spirit. This quote is great for friendship. It could work with a bouquet or gift, or just to lend an encouraging word to someone you love.

For thou art pleasant, gamesome, passing courteous,
but slow in speech, yet sweet as springtime flowers.

—Taming of the Shrew,
Act II, Scene i

You’re a little slow, but you are nice and pretty. You are sweet and witty, even nicely polite. You are a little dumb, but you are as pleasant as the flowers that bloom in springtime. This quote is used in The Taming of the Shrew. It is a flirtatious insult, part of some witty and ribald banter. Read the scene here.

With April’s first-born flowers, and all things rare.

—Sonnet XXI

Our love begins with the rarest of all new things. You are as precious as the first flowers of the springtime. Your love is fresh, untouched, and new. Shakespeare’s sonnets extol the virtues of love, the appreciation of beauty, and the fleeting nature of youth. In this quote, the beginnings of love are likened to the rarest warm and dewy days of early spring.

To his music, plants and flowers ever sprung;
as sun and showers there had made a lasting spring.

—Henry VIII,
Act III, Scene i

The musician made the whole world bloom. He made such beautiful music that plants and flowers sprang up from the earth with every note. His music was as powerful as the sun and rain, making the world alive with an everlasting springtime of beauty.

This bud of love, by summer’s ripening breath,
may prove a beauteous flower when next we meet.

—Romeo and Juliet,
Act II, Scene ii

This new love of ours will grow in time. Our love is just beginning. It is like a little rosebud. Give it the time and space it needs to grow. With the power of time, our love will grow into a beautiful blossom and mature when we meet next. If you like Romeo and Juliet, you can find a nice list of Romeo and Juliet love quotes on the Shakespeare Love Quotes website.

Here’s flowers for you;
Hot lavender, mints, savoury, marjoram;
the marigold, that goes to bed wi’ the sun…
these are flowers of middle summer.

—The Winter’s Tale,
Act IV, Scene iv

Take this bouquet of summer blossoms that signify passion and youth. I’m giving you the hottest and most intense flowers. These are the flowers of the heat of summer, with intense fragrance and power. This quote is part of a bantering conversation about age and love. But it could easily work as a sweet quote for your beloved.

A fair one are you—
well you fit our ages with flowers of winter.

—The Winter’s Tale,
Act IV, Scene iv

Pretty thing, are you implying that I am old? You’re a cute one. You have accurately guessed my age and given me old-fashioned flowers. This quote is part of the same bantering conversation. In this case, the quote works well out of context as a cute and humorous turn of phrase.

But flowers distill’d though they with winter meet,
lose but their show; their substance still lives sweet.

—Sonnet V

The potent essence of a flower can outlast all seasons. Perfume lasts longer than a flower. It preserves the essence, even when the outward bloom is gone. If a flower is correctly handled, the true substance of that beauty lives on and on. This is true for people, too.

These tidings nip me, and I hang the head
as flowers with frost or grass beat down with storms.

—Titus Andronicus,
Act IV, Scene iv

I am deeply saddened by this news. I droop just like the flowers that are damaged by winter’s frost, or grass that is pounded down by rain. The news you bring me hurts my heart, and I drop my head down with sadness. I am just the same as flowers facing winter, or grasses flattened by a thunderstorm.

There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance. Pray you, love,
remember. And there is pansies, that’s for thoughts.
There’s fennel for you, and columbines. There’s rue for you,
and here’s some for me. We may call it herb of grace o’ Sundays.
O, you must wear your rue with a difference!

—Hamlet,
Act IV, Scene v

I give you flowers with melancholy symbols. Remember me. This quote can rarely stand alone, but no collection is complete without Ophelia’s tragic madness. She offers flowers as a symbol of her grief and disarray. There are many layers to the possible meaning of the symbols in this quote. There’s a plea for remembrance, a subtle sharpness to the tone, and an exclamation of intensity at the end.

Want more? Explore Shakespeare Rose Quotes, Shakespeare Quotes for All Occasions and Shakespeare Quotes on Friendship. Browse the daily quotes, starting with the homepage. Subscribe to receive the Shakespeare quote of the day by email.