Did you do "Merchant of Venice" for O Levels? I did.All that glitters is not gold is a well-known saying, meaning that not everything that looks precious is precious. The expression, in various forms, originated in or before the 12th century.
The popular form of the expression is a corruption of a line in William Shakespeare's play, The Merchant of Venice, which employs a 17th century synonym for "glitters", "glisters". The line comes from a secondary plot of the play, the puzzle of Portia's boxes (Act II - Scene VII - Prince of Morocco):
...All that ...
