the world is your oyster

Anything you wish is yours for the taking. This piece of advice, usually given to youngsters, suggests that their future holds great riches, the way an oyster contains a pearl, and all they need do is use education, skill, or another talent to pry open the metaphorical bivalve and claim their reward. In Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor, the character Pistol is heard to say, “Why then the world's mine oyster / Which I with sword will open.”