"This above all: to thine own self be true..." -- Polonius, 'Hamlet'

Shakespeare Bill Bryson on the case against people who have a case against the bard being the author of the canon: "So it needs to be said that nearly all of the antiShakespeare sentiment – actually all of it, every bit – involves manipulative scholarship or sweeping misstatements of fact. Shakespeare “never owned a book”, a writer for The New York Times gravely informed readers in one doubting article in 2002. The statement cannot be refuted, for we know nothing about his incidental possessions. But the writer might just as well have suggested that Shakespeare never owned a pair of shoes."