Quick answer“All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” is a famous quote by William Shakespeare. It comes from As You Like It, Act 2, Scene 7. It is widely quoted on life and wisdom. 'All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players.
'All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players.' Jaques speaks the line in Act 2, Scene 7 of Shakespeare's comedy As You Like It, written around 1599, opening his famous speech on the seven ages of man.
Origin: Spoken by Jaques in Act 2, Scene 7 of Shakespeare's comedy As You Like It, written around 1599 and first printed in the First Folio of 1623. Jaques opens his 'seven ages of man' speech with the line, picking up Duke Senior's remark about the 'wide and universal theatre' of the world.
Key facts
| Quote | “All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” |
|---|---|
| Author | William Shakespeare |
| Source | As You Like It, Act 2, Scene 7 |
| Themes | life, wisdom |
| Language | English |
Overview
Jaques is a melancholy lord who has followed the banished Duke Senior into the Forest of Arden. When the Duke calls the world a 'wide and universal theatre' full of sad scenes, Jaques takes up the image and runs with it: life is a play in seven acts, and one man plays many parts in it — infant, schoolboy, lover, soldier, justice, pantaloon, and finally a second childishness, 'sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything'. The speech is often quoted as wisdom about life, but Jaques is a gloomy character, and Shakespeare may have meant the audience to hear the limits of his view as well as its truth.
Frequently asked questions
Who says 'all the world's a stage'?
Jaques, a melancholy lord in Shakespeare's As You Like It. He speaks the line in Act 2, Scene 7, in the Forest of Arden, after Duke Senior has called the world a 'wide and universal theatre' full of woeful pageants.
What are the seven ages of man?
Infant, schoolboy, lover, soldier, justice, pantaloon (a foolish old man), and second childishness. Jaques lists them in order, from the infant 'mewling and puking in the nurse's arms' to old age 'sans everything'. Each age has its own costume and behaviour, like a part in a play.
What does 'all the world's a stage' mean?
That life is like a play: people enter and leave, and each person takes on different roles as they grow older. The line is now used whenever someone wants to say that life, like theatre, is partly performance. Jaques means it gloomily, but readers often take it as plain wisdom.
When was As You Like It written?
Probably around 1599. It was not printed in Shakespeare's lifetime; it first appeared in the First Folio, the collected edition of his plays published in 1623, seven years after his death. The play is a pastoral comedy set largely in the Forest of Arden.
Related quotes
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- “To be, or not to be, that is the question.” — William Shakespeare
- “An expert is a person who has found out by his own painful experience all the mistakes that one can make in a very narrow field.” — Niels Bohr
- “I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.” — Isaac Newton
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Sources & last updated
- Royal Shakespeare Company — As You Like It, Act 2, Scene 7
- American Literature — As You Like It, Act 2, Scene 7
Last updated: . Figures are shown with their year; where sources disagree, the value is left out rather than estimated.