evidence: FACT CHECK: Did Shakespeare Say, ‘Expectation Is The Root Of All Heartache’? A post shared on Facebook more than 1,200 times credits playwright William Shakespeare with saying, "Expectation is the root of all heartache." [...] The Daily Caller News Foundation searched the Shakespeare Quartos Archive, an online database of all his plays, as well his collected poetry, but found no record of the statement in either. According to the Folger Shakespeare Library, the only instance of Shakespeare using the word "heartache" (spelled "heart-ache") appears in the titular character’s "To be, or not to be" soliloquy in "Hamlet."