The character who says “All the world’s a stage” is Jaques in William Shakespeare’s As You Like It. He delivers the speech in Act II, Scene VII, beginning with the famous comparison of the world to a stage and people to actors.
Jaques is one of Duke Senior’s companions in the Forest of Arden. Unlike the play’s romantic heroine Rosalind or its witty fool Touchstone, Jaques is melancholy, observant, and often cynical. His speech describes seven stages of human life: infancy, childhood, the lover, the soldier, the judge, old age, and a final return to helplessness.
The idea that life resembles a theatrical performance was older than Shakespeare. Similar comparisons appeared in classical and Renaissance writing, and the Globe Theatre was associated with the Latin motto “Totus mundus agit histrionem,” meaning roughly “All the world plays the actor.” Shakespeare transformed that familiar image into one of his most memorable meditations on aging and identity.