Is it glitters or glisters in famous Shakespeare quote?
Actually, it “is” glisters, if you want to keep with the original wording. Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice (circa 1596) has the line as “all that glisters is not gold”. “Glister” is now usually replaced by the more commonly used “glitter”, which has the same meaning. His source for this line was either the 1553 quote by Thomas Becon, in The relikes of Rome, “All is not golde that glistereth.” or the 12th Century French theologian Alain de Lille who wrote “Do not hold everything gold that shines like gold”. However, all that being said, it is, after all, such a commonly used substitution (glitter for glister) that I would be surprised to hear a modern production of Shakespeare’s play that used anything other than “glitter.
