Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? / Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
- Source
- Sonnet 18, 1609
- Written
- 1609
About this quotation
Sonnet 18 is among the most quoted love poems in English. It argues that a summer’s day is less lovely and less constant than the person it addresses, and that the poem itself will keep that person alive. It was printed in the 1609 quarto of Shakespeare’s sonnets.