“The world’s mine oyster”

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In Shakespeare’s “Merry Wives of Windsor,” it’s the braggart Pistol who uses the full phrase as a kind of threat rather than for inspiration. “The world’s mine oyster, which I with sword will open,” he says to Falstaff, a man who refuses to lend him money. Then, Pistol is threatening to open Falstaff (or his purse) as a man would shuck an oyster. We’d guess the self-help gurus never had that thought in mind when they were casting off this now-stock phrase.