Top Ten Life Lessons From Shakespeare.

Julius Caesar: Your best friend has just been killed and the murderers, their knives dripping with his blood, approach you. What would you do? Well, Mark Anthony had to face this very dilemma after the death of his friend, Julius Caesar. Anthony neither ran nor fought. Instead, he pretended to side with the murderers’ cause, his timid manner even persuaded the murderers to let him speak at Caesar’s funeral. Anthony then used the speech as an opportunity to turn the crowd against the murderers. With the crowd on his side, Anthony would eventually avenge his beloved friend.

Life Lesson: A lion dressed as a sheep is far more dangerous than a sheep dressed as a lion. Sometimes you have to act weak to be strong.

Henry V: History is full of underdog stories and Henry V’s war against the French at Agincourt will forever remain one of England’s most loved underdog stories. But what makes an underdog rise to battle? What leads them to victory against all odds? Shakespeare would say men are moved by words. Words are the elixir of life. He encapsulates this to perfection in King Henry’s ‘St Crispian’ speech which remains one of the most moving and motivational speeches in literary history.

Life lesson: Never underestimate the power of public speaking.

Romeo & Juliet: Though heartaches are part and parcel of life, they never cease to hurt us no matter how old we get. What we all need is a good friend to get us through it. A good friend like Benvolio was to Romeo. In the aftermath of hearing of Rosaline’s rejection of Romeo, Benvolio utters the lines ‘Compare her with some that I shall show and you will think thy swan a crow’. Ouch.

Life Lesson: There’s plenty of fish in the sea

Hamlet: We learnt from Benvolio in ‘Romeo and Juliet’ that there’s plenty of fish in the sea but is there such thing as moving on too quickly? How about marrying your dead husband’s brother a few days after his funeral?   That’s exactly what Hamlet’s mother did, prompting Hamlet to say: ‘The funeral baked meats did coldly furnish the marriage tables’. Ouch, that one’s got to hurt.

Life Lesson: Don’t schedule a marriage right after a funeral, especially not the funeral of your ex.

Othello: Othello, the brave and noble warrior of Venice, has it all. He is a commander in the Venetian military and married to the beautiful Desdemona. But success brings him enemies and none more damning than Othello’s own servant and master manipulator, Iago. Slowly but surely, the servant spins his web of deceit and brings his master, Othello, to the depths of mental hell. A brave warrior is brought to his knees by his servant.
 

Life Lesson: No power in the world is stronger than the mind. Control your mind or be at the mercy of others who seek to control it.

Macbeth: In a play where the witches set in motion the murder of a King, it would seem strange for us to take life lessons from them. However, the witches are supernatural beings who Shakespeare presents as having a firm grasp on human nature. At one point, the witches conclude that ‘security is mortal’s chiefest enemy’- i.e. that we are at our weakest when we are comfortable and secure.

Life Lesson: Victory can breed arrogance and laziness. Never let the ball drop. Never think you are invincible.

Merchant of Venice: Where does hatred come from? And who does it benefit? In this often dark and shocking play, Shakespeare reminds us that men are not born evil but often made that way. After suffering years of discrimination for being Jewish, Shylock, finally has enough and seeks violent revenge on his foe, Antonio. Hatred breeds hatred.

Life lesson: Don’t expect the people you demonize today to be so nice to you tomorrow. What goes around comes around.

The Tempest: We’ve all heard that revenge is a dish best served cold but as Prospero proves in ‘The Tempest’, it takes years of meticulous planning to get the dish right. However, the years of scheming can take a toll on a person’s morality. From enslaving Ariel and Caliban to using his own daughter as a pawn in his games, Prospero shows us that the quest for revenge can take us down dark paths. Paths that may make us as bad as the very people we seek revenge upon.

Life lesson: Revenge isn’t as sweet as its cracked up to be.

Richard the Third: Shakespeare presents King Richard as a bitter and brutal ruler. Nothing symbolizes this more than when he kills Lady Anne Warwick’s husband and then turns up at the funeral to propose to her. As you’d expect, she spits on his face. Richard then pulls out a ring and a sword and offers her the chance to either wed him or kill him. Lady Anne gave in to his charm and the pair were married and, surprise surprise, Richard later had her murdered too.

Life lesson: A good ring goes a long way toward making up for whatever character deficiencies we may have.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream: Hermia’s father, Egeus, is furious when he discovers that she is in love with Demetrius. It was not the match that he had envisioned for his daughter. So, the King gives her three choices: Marry someone of her father’s choosing, join the nunnery or die by execution. Not exactly the best of choices. Hermia rejects all three options and instead opts to run away into the forest with her lover. Good on her.

Life lesson: We live and die by our choices but they are our choices. Nobody has the right to decide for us.