All the world's a stage, and all the men and women repeating a famous line from As You Like It...
open/close all folders
Comic Books
- From V for Vendetta, V to Evey as he prepares to meet Prothero: "All the world's a stage, and everything else...is vaudeville."
Comic Strips
- Calvin and Hobbes:Calvin: They say the world is a stage. But obviously the play is unrehearsed and everybody is ad-libbing his lines.
Hobbes: Maybe that's why it's hard to tell if we're living in a tragedy or a farce.
Calvin: We need more special effects and dance numbers. - In Pearls Before Swine, the dumb crocodiles try to get a "smart" croc to intimidate their would-be prey, the Zebra, with words. Instead, he apologizes to Zebra: "When I look upon my crocodile bretheren, I am reminded of the words of William Shakespeare, who said, to wit, 'Here come a pair of very strange beasts, which in all tongues are called fools.'"
Film — Live Action
- "All the world's a stage" is repeatedly quoted in Idlewild.
- In It's Always Fair Weather, Leighton, to put off Riley (as well as to comment on his failed reunion with his two old army buddies Hallerton and Valentine), tells him, "Most friendship is fading, most loving mere folly." She claims it's from The Tempest, but he points out it's actually from As You Like It, which impresses her.
Literature
- Irish poem An Chead Drama (The First Play/Drama) by Seán Ó Coisdealbha is based entirely on the idea that "all the world's a stage", where life is a play written and directed by God, and Satan is the prompter trying to lead the actors astray.Chum Dia dráma "gleann na ndeor"
Agus thug sé páirt ann do go leor
Dráma fada ar stáitse mór
An Domhan.
(God composed this drama "valley of tears"
And gave everyone a part
Long drama on the big stage
The world.) - "The world is a stage, and the play is badly cast." Oscar Wilde.
- Wyrd Sisters: "All the Disc's a stage, and all men and women merely players. Except for those who sell popcorn." Hwel the Playwright.
- In Language Arts, Charles describes the inhabitants of Madonna's Home for people with dementia as trapped in second childishness and mere oblivion.
Live-Action TV
- Attention Scum: "All the world's a stage, its inhabitants merely actors. And thus, by definition, ponces," says the League Against Tedium.
- Star Trek: The Next Generation: In "Hide and Q" (the episode that features Picard's Hamlet-quoting Patrick Stewart Speech), Q begins the discussion of Shakespeare by misquoting As You Like It. Picard corrects him.Q: Hear this, Picard, and reflect: "All the galaxy's a stage."
Picard: "World", not "galaxy": "all the world's a stage."
Q: Oh, you know that one. Well, if he was living now, he would have said "galaxy." - Whose Line Is It Anyway?: "I believe it was Shakespeare who said, 'All the world's a stage, and you're crap!'" said Colin Mochrie.
Music
- Rush, "Limelight":All the world's indeed a stage
and we are merely players
performers and portrayers
each another's audience outside the gilded cage.
Theatre
- Several of Shakespeare's shows themselves requote this line. The Merchant of Venice, for example.
- A Very Potter Musical has a subtle one (apparently an Actor Allusion): "Snape is at the door and much importunes access to you."
Western Animation
- The Venture Brothers: "All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages." Dr Henry Killinger. Very chillingly delivered.
Other
- Denis Norden may have originated the joke: "If all the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players, where do all the audiences come from?"
