Literary Quotes That Would Make Great Instagram Captions

Fact: social media is a thing and it’s here to stay. Another fact: posting a photo of your walk to school/work/the refrigerator with the caption “I’ll just leave this here” does not an influencer make.

You see, if you want to stand out in the battle royale of attention-grabbing captions, then you need help—and who better to ask than the authors on your English syllabus? Jane Austen, Shakespeare, and Oscar Wilde were EXPERTS at coming up with words everyone’s still quoting centuries later. They’ll have your back no matter the situation.

If you want a post a selfie with a filter, use this:
“I am not what I am.”
—William Shakespeare, Othello

If you want to caption your latest travel adventure without sounding basic, use this: 
“As for me, I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote.”
—Herman Melville, Moby-Dick

If you want another way to say “I’ll just leave this here,” use this:
“What’s done is done.”
—William Shakespeare, Macbeth

If you want to post a photo of that cup of coffee you can’t live without, use this: 
“I ask you to pass through life at my side—to be my second self, and best earthly companion.”
—Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

If you want to post a photo of your cat, use this:
“Lord, what fools these mortals be!”
—William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream

If you want to post a #TBT photo of you in sixth grade (complete with braces, frizzy hair, the works), use this: 
“Be strong, saith my heart; I am a soldier;
I have seen worse sights than this.”
—Homer, The Odyssey

If you want to a post a pic of that book you’re currently reading but can’t stand (but you just have to finish it!), use this:
“This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.”
—Dorothy Parker

If you want to show off your #OOTD, use this:
“Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence in society.”
—Mark Twain

If you’re forever alone and proud of it, use this: 
“Deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance.”
–Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

If you’re staying in tonight (again) and you’re not even ashamed, use this: 
“I only go out to get me a fresh appetite for being alone.”
—Lord Byron

If you want to post a picture of a plate of food that took you two hours to make (but even longer to photograph), use this: 
“It is more fun to talk with someone who doesn’t use long, difficult words but rather short, easy words like ‘What about lunch?'”
—A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

If you want to post something sad or unbearably sweet: 
“Mine eyes smell onions.”
—William Shakespeare, All’s Well that Ends Well