William Collins may refer to:
- William Collins (bishop) (1867–1911), Bishop of Gibraltar in the Church of England
- William Collins (poet) (1721–1759), English poet
- William Collins (painter) (1788–1847), English landscape artist
- William Collins (publisher) (1789–1853), Scottish publisher; founder of the Collins publishing house, that became part of Harper Collins
- William Lucas Collins (1815–1887), English author and clergyman of the Church of England
- William Collins (Lord Provost) (1817–1895), Scottish temperance movement activist; son of William Collins (1789–1853)
- William Job Collins (1859–1946), British surgeon and Liberal Party politician
- William Collins (representative) (1818–1878), U.S. congressman from New York
- William Floyd Collins (1887–1925), American cave explorer
- William J. Collins (1896–1970), president of St. Ambrose University
- Colonel William O. Collins, commandant of Fort Laramie, Wyoming; namesake of Fort Collins, Colorado and Camp Collins
- Billy Collins (born 1941), American poet
- Bootsy Collins (William Earl Collins, born 1951), American funk bassist, singer and songwriter
- Bill Collins (athlete) born 1950, American sprinter, Masters world record holder
- Billy Collins (boxer) (1961–1984), American professional boxer
- William Collins (canoer) (born 1932), Canadian canoer who competed in the 1956 Summer Olympics
- William Collins (tennis), British tennis player from the 1920s and 30s
- William Collins (sportsman, born 1853) (1853–1934), played rugby for England and cricket for Wellington, New Zealand
- William Collins (Warwick MP), Member of Parliament (MP) for Warwick 1837–52
- William Collins (Worcester MP), English politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1654 to 1659
- William Collins (cricketer) (1837–1876), Australian cricketer
- William Whitehouse Collins (1853–1923), New Zealand Member of Parliament for Christchurch in the South Island
- William Wiehe Collins (painter), English architectural and landscape genre painter
- William Collins (colonist), (1760–1819) English naval officer and early settler in Tasmania, Australia
- William Collins (Pride and Prejudice), a fictional character in the Jane Austen novel Pride and Prejudice
Famous quotes containing the words william and/or collins:
“The Heavens. Once an object of superstition, awe and fear. Now a vast region for growing knowledge. The distance of Venus, the atmosphere of Mars, the size of Jupiter, and the speed of Mercury. All this and more we know. But their greatest mystery the heavens have kept a secret. What sort of life, if any, inhabits these other planets? Human life, like ours? Or life extremely lower in the scale. Or dangerously higher.”
—Richard Blake, and William Cameron Menzies. Narrator, Invaders from Mars, at the opening of the movie (1953)
“The sun shines bright in the old Kentucky home;
Tis summer, the darkeys are gay;
The corn-tops ripe, and the meadows in the bloom,”
—Stephen Collins Foster (18261884)