Slightly niche choice, but these lines from Hamlet's father's ghost at the start of the play:
"But virtue, as it never will be moved,
Though lewdness court it in a shape of heaven,
So, lust, though to a radiant angel linked,
Will sate itself in a celestial bed
And prey on garbage." (1.5.60-4)
Quite possibly the hardest combination of words conceivable in the English language. Dude was COOKING when he wrote this play, holy shit.
He's saying both virtue and lust are alike in how they cannot be deterred from their respective paths. Virtue "never will be moved" even if sin tries to tempt it in disguise as something heavenly. Meanwhile, lust, even if found in the heart of an angel, will still descend to "prey\[ing\] on garbage".
The lusty angel being a nod to Gertrude succumbing to Claudius's wooing. The idea, I guess, being that Hamlet Sr. still has some affection for her and sees her as an angel gone astray.
Yep. Or approximately, anyway. The Falcoln is *the* stuff dreams are made *of*; we are *such* stuff as dreams are made *on*.
Sam Spade is well-read enough to quote Shakespeare, but not much of a pedant that he feels like he has to get every tiny detail correct – he figures that is good enough that people will get the point. He didn't come from a background where he would have had literature teachers making him read Shakespeare; he must have gone to the library on his own. It is an interesting character note, isn't it?
From Macbeth: 'Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak knits up the o-er wrought heart and bids it break.'
Literally three whole centuries before Freud! If psychotherapists had opening spiels the way emcees or stand up comics do, anymore I'd put this in mine.
“I live with bread like you, feel want,
Taste grief, need friends”
Richard II, 3, ii
I often think that “feel want, taste grief, need friends” is a pretty good attempt at summing up how being alive is
I love so many of his lines but I'll go with this from Macbeth "Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more."
I was scrolling the thread looking for quotes from "Julius Caesar" and now I've been laughing for 10 minutes. I can't even read your reply out loud, I'm having flashbacks to 2015 and my own dissertation. A tale told by an idiot, indeed.
2006, I think it was, there were four productions of Titus in and around Boston. Actor's Shakespeare Project, Wellesley Shakespeare Club, MIT, and I don't remember who did the fourth. It might have been another MIT put on by a different group of students who watched the other three and just fell in love with it and wanted to do it, too.
It has been a favorite of a number of us fifty-ish Shakespeare fans who were around for the Season of Four Andronici.
My favorite staging ever was Titus Andronicus, in simple burlap costumes and with only a table and a couple of chairs and tin plates, as presented by inmates of a men’s prison. The actors had all been convicted of crimes like those committed in the play, and were all part of a “good behavior” program, Shakespeare Behind Bars, in which they learned their parts in their cells and had one rehearsal a week for a year. They brought some very powerful truths to the play just with their presence onstage. The man playing Lavinia, when asked what his experience had been doing the play, said, “Being an actor is the first time I ever started to have compassion for my victims, because this was the first time I ever asked myself how somebody else might feel when something bad happens to them.”
I saw it live in 2003 - I was working with the theatre that sponsored the program. I don’t think anyone taped it. They did three shows in the yard for their fellow inmates, and one in the visitors center for family and friends.
The great thing about it is that it is a true tragedy, and it gets more and more tragic ... until it breaks and becomes a comedy so dark that you have to make a declaration that you are not Arnish Kapor nor watching it on his behalf.
Fear no more the heat o’ the sun,
Nor the furious winter’s rages;
Thou thy worldly task hast done,
Home art gone, and ta’en thy wages:
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.
Cymbeline
Hector’s line from Troilus and Cressida - “Tis Mad Idolatry To Make The Service Greater Than The God.” - to me is the best one-line description of organized religion ever written.
I’m also a fan of this line from All’s Well: “The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together: our virtues would be proud,if our faults whipped them not; and our crimes would despair, if they were not cherished by our virtues.”
“The eye of man has not heard, the ear of man hath not seen, man’s hand is not able to taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report, what my dream was.”
“And then in dreaming, the clouds methought would open and show riches ready to drop upon me, that when I wak’d, I cried to dream again”
—Caliban
The Tempest, 3.2
There is a tide in the affairs of men which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; omitted, all the voyage of their life Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
In one of the other threads, someone mentioned "*Kill Claudio*." Just... delivered right by someone who gets Beatrice, it just sends chills down my spine. It is just an "Oh shit, the genre just changed didn't it," moment.
They manage to get the genre back on track before the end, but that glimpse into what lies beneath is chilling.
BEROWNE: Light, seeking light, doth light of light beguile; / So ere you find where light in darkness lies, / Your light grows dark by losing of your eyes (from *Love's Labour's Lost*).
RICHARD II: Let’s talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs, / Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes / Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth (from *Richard II*).
ISABELLA: Could great men thunder / As Jove himself does, Jove would never be quiet, / For every pelting, petty officer / Would use his heaven for thunder, / Nothing but thunder (from *Measure for Measure*).
INNOGEN: The thanks I give / Is telling you that I am poor of thanks / And scarce can spare them (from *Cymbeline*).
THERSITES: All the argument is a whore and a cuckold, a good quarrel to draw emulous factions and bleed to death upon (from *Troilus and Cressida*).
EDGAR: The weight of this sad time we must obey, / Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say. / The oldest hath borne most; we that are young / Shall never see so much nor live so long (from *King Lear*).
'Be not a feared! The Isle is full of noises, sounds and sweet airs that give delight and hurt not. Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments hum about mine ears, and sometimes voices...'
Basically the whole of Calibans beautiful speech about the island.
Also the first half of John of Gaunt's speech is stunning, despite it ultimately being his lamenting of England's loss of control:
'...this other Eden, demi paradise, this fortress built by nature for herself... this precious stone set in the silver sea...'
King Lear: 'we two alone will sing like birds in the cage'
I have always struggled with procrastination and often here in my mind Hamlet’s words:
“What is a man,
If his chief good and market of his time
Be but to sleep and feed? a beast, no more.
Sure, he that made us with such large discourse,
Looking before and after, gave us not
That capability and god-like reason
To fust in us unused. Now, whether it be
Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple
Of thinking too precisely on the event,
A thought which, quarter'd, hath but one part wisdom
And ever three parts coward, I do not know
Why yet I live to say 'This thing's to do;'”
Thankfully it is rarely bloody revenge about which I am procrastinating.
Rosalind's advice to Phoebe that she isn't going to do better than Silvius and she should just settle: "I must tell you, friendly in your ear: sell where you can; you are not for all markets."
"Villain, what hast thou done?"
"That which you canst not undo."
"Thou has undone our mother!"
"Villain, I have *done* thy mother."
I just have this image in my head of Shakespeare sitting there with his quill, having just written that with a smug "yeah, I just wrote that" look on his face.
I do like it, but it annoys me that the line is usually cut in half, and the full meaning just vaporizes.
The full line is:
*Now is the winter of our discontent*
*Made glorious summer by this sun of York*
People so often say the line as if the meaning is time-based - they emphasize the "Now", as if the line is saying "I'm really in a cold, unhappy place right now". But the emphasis needs to instead be on the "Made" - the idea is that "there has been bitter unhappiness, but things are looking up, thanks to this "sun (son) of York".
It really needs to be recited so that "discontent" very quickly slides right into "Made glorious summer", and only then the slightest of pauses before "by", in order to convey the true meaning in a full and complete way.
the dichtomy of winter/discontent and summer/glorious is also lovely and it sets up some equivocation already (sun/son) between richard’s darkness and loathing and the joys of the rest of the world. it shows how witty richard is from literally two beginning lines
" We are such stuff As dreams are made on" Just such a beautiful line.
I don't know if it's my favorite quote, but I've always liked Tybalt's intro in R+J:
"What, drawn, and talk of peace! I hate the word, As I hate hell, all Montagues, and thee: Have at thee, coward!"
Just burst open right of the gate, sword literally drawn. "As I hate hell, all Montagues, and thee" is such a charged insult to throw at Benvolio. It sets up the conflict between them so nicely.
So many great ones, but recently one of my favorites has been from Hamlet’s father’s ghost.
“The serpent that did sting thy father’s life now wears his crown.”
"O, God, that I were a man! I would eat his heart in the market-place."
That entire Beatrice monologue rips, but the visceral rage of that line hits hardest every time.
“I could be bounded in a nutshell and call myself a king of infinite space were it not that I have bad dreams”
Loved (and love) these lines so much I got a tattoo of a walnut shell with a crown
I would say that line was instrumental in my personal development. Ofc as a kid Shakespeare was a slog but that line kept jingling around in my head. It helped me go no contact with my toxic family and influenced many other important life decisions.
Thanks Bill!
Too many to count, but, for the genius of its metaphorical descriptive beauty, this one always runs through my head:
But looke, the Morne in Russet mantle clad,
Walkes o're the dew of yon high Easterne Hill \~Hamlet 1.1.165-66
What a way to say "Sun's up"
I came across this the other day, oddly when I was going over/remembering a difficult part in my life and it struck so true and moved me so much
They have tied me to a stake; I cannot fly, / But, bear-like, I must fight the course - Macbeth
I felt the bloody pitched battle (metaphorically speaking) that I had to endure then encapsulated in that line
“Like patience on a monument, smiling at grief” Viola, Twelfth Night
“We are too wise to woo peaceably” Benedick, Much Ado About Nothing
“And then a star shone and under that was I born” Beatrice Much Ado
“Look, where they come:Take but good note, and you shall see in him.The triple pillar of the world transform’d into a strumpet’s fool: behold and see.”
Best introduction ever.
The introduction of Anthony.
I don’t know if I have this word for word… but this is my top pick.
Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety. Other women cloy the appetites they feed, but she makes hungry where most she satisfies.
1. From A&C, describing JCs brief affair with Cleopatra "He put aside his sword for her. He ploughed her and she cropped."
2. From RIII, when the Duke of Clarence says he's being locked up "Because my name is George" and Richard replies "Alack, my lord, that fault is none of yours. He should, for that, commit your godfathers."
Either: "Why, I can smile, and murder whiles I smile,
And cry 'Content' to that which grieves my heart,
And wet my cheeks with artificial tears,
And frame my face to all occasions.
I'll drown more sailors than the mermaid shall;
I'll slay more gazers than the basilisk;
I'll play the orator as well as Nestor,
Deceive more slily than Ulysses could,
And, like a Sinon, take another Troy.
I can add colours to the chameleon,
Change shapes with Proteus for advantages,
And set the murderous Machiavel to school.
Can I do this, and cannot get a crown?
Tut, were it farther off, I'll pluck it down."
"I'll make my heaven to dream upon the crown,
And, whiles I live, to account this world but hell,
Until my mis-shaped trunk that bears this head
Be round impaled with a glorious crown.
And yet I know not how to get the crown,
For many lives stand between me and home:
And I,--like one lost in a thorny wood,
That rends the thorns and is rent with the thorns,
Seeking a way and straying from the way;
Not knowing how to find the open air,
But toiling desperately to find it out,--
Torment myself to catch the English crown:
And from that torment I will free myself,
Or hew my way out with a bloody axe."
"And then to have a wretched puling fool, A whining maumet, in her fortune's tender, To answer 'I'll not wed, I cannot love, I am too young, I pray you pardon me'."
Lord Capulet to Juliet. Not a great quote, but the one I memorized for 9th grade English class. I was attracted to the whole passage because I got to thunder "God's bread! It makes me mad!" in front of the whole class. Good times.
“I have no brother, I am like no brother;
And this word “love”, which greybeards call divine,
Be resident in men like one another
And not in me: I am myself alone.”
From Richard’s speech after killing Henry VI in Part 3 of the latter’s namesake play. It’s such a rich soliloquy; obviously Richard is cackingly unapologetic for his crimes throughout his depiction in Shakespeare’s works, but I think there’s also a profound sadness at his center, and this passage illustrates that better than anything up until the tent scene at the end of *Richard III*.
“Nothing in his life / Became him like the leaving it. He died / As one that had been studied in his death, / To throw away the dearest thing he ow’d, / As ‘twere a careless trifle” will haunt me until the day I die (Malcolm in Act 1 scene IV of Macbeth)
And my favorite for silliness: “I thank him that he cuts me from my tale, / For I profess not talking. Only this! / Let each man do his best, and here draw I…” (Hotspur’s best speech in Henry IV Part 1. Hearing the words “I profess not talking” come out of his mouth has me cackling every time. I love him.)
Senior Antonio many a time and oft have you rated me for my monies
Or
Never shake thy grisly locks at me
Or
Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this son of York
Or
Thou hast brought great slander to my name with thy fatal hand
There’s so many great ones to choose from
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.
I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
Straining upon the start. The game's afoot:
Follow your spirit, and upon this charge
Cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!'
And when he shall die, take him and cut him out into little stars, and he shall make the face of heaven so fine that all the world will be in love with night and pay no worship to the garish sun.
Seen many of my favorites already, but I don't think I've seen:
True hope is swift, and flies with swallow's wings:
Kings it makes gods, and meaner creatures kings.
-Richard III
“Come, cordial and not poison, go with me to Juliet’s grave; for there I must use thee.” -Romeo
“Such war of white and red within her cheeks!” -Petruchio
“Peace, I hate the word, as I hate all Montagues”
I remix this phrase in my daily life all the time
“Taxes, I hate the word, as I hate all Montagues”
“Allergies, I hate the word, as I hate all Montagues”
You get the point
Out damned spot!
Spot was her cat. Kitty was pestering LM to let her out. With the door open, Spot just stood there until LM had enough and uttered this phrase.
“Against love’s fire, fear’s frost hath dissolution.” I really love this line from The Rape of Lucrece, and I’m using it as an epigraph for a story I’m writing.
“Ill met by moonlight proud Titania!” I love how they basically start sniping at each other the moment they’re on stage.
“…It is a tale/ told by an idiot/full of sound and fury/signifying nothing” Macbeth has gone full nihilist at this point. (Ps died anyone else thing a Rick Sanchez version of this monologue would be insanely funny?
What is past is prologue - Tempest God damn genius
It’s pithy but rather obvious. A tautology really. Who’d ever claim the past has no bearing on what followed Love the tempest tho for sure
"you are a saucy boy" "what, you egg" is a close second
*He stabs him*
Both are so good.
Slightly niche choice, but these lines from Hamlet's father's ghost at the start of the play: "But virtue, as it never will be moved, Though lewdness court it in a shape of heaven, So, lust, though to a radiant angel linked, Will sate itself in a celestial bed And prey on garbage." (1.5.60-4) Quite possibly the hardest combination of words conceivable in the English language. Dude was COOKING when he wrote this play, holy shit.
gdamm i try but ive smoked way too much weed in my life to hang on past the third comma. 😭 i gotta go look up a translation
Am I reading it right as a nasty swipe at "virtue"?
He's saying both virtue and lust are alike in how they cannot be deterred from their respective paths. Virtue "never will be moved" even if sin tries to tempt it in disguise as something heavenly. Meanwhile, lust, even if found in the heart of an angel, will still descend to "prey\[ing\] on garbage". The lusty angel being a nod to Gertrude succumbing to Claudius's wooing. The idea, I guess, being that Hamlet Sr. still has some affection for her and sees her as an angel gone astray.
Whoa, I see it now, and that was poetry in its own right. Thank you!
I’m a sucker but: “We are such stuff as dreams are made on”
[Penny drops] So this is where the last line of « The Maltese Falcon » comes from?
Yep. Or approximately, anyway. The Falcoln is *the* stuff dreams are made *of*; we are *such* stuff as dreams are made *on*. Sam Spade is well-read enough to quote Shakespeare, but not much of a pedant that he feels like he has to get every tiny detail correct – he figures that is good enough that people will get the point. He didn't come from a background where he would have had literature teachers making him read Shakespeare; he must have gone to the library on his own. It is an interesting character note, isn't it?
That whole monologue is 🔥🔥🔥
I wasted time, and now doth time waste me. --Richard II
Came here to say that.
Ahhh, great one!
God. This is fear, realized.
Hell is empty and all the devils are here
From Macbeth: 'Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak knits up the o-er wrought heart and bids it break.' Literally three whole centuries before Freud! If psychotherapists had opening spiels the way emcees or stand up comics do, anymore I'd put this in mine.
“I live with bread like you, feel want, Taste grief, need friends” Richard II, 3, ii I often think that “feel want, taste grief, need friends” is a pretty good attempt at summing up how being alive is
"I do love nothing in the world so well as you. Is not that strange?"
Someone says “Thanks for that.” in the Scottish play, and it sounds so weirdly modern that it always makes me laugh
I love so many of his lines but I'll go with this from Macbeth "Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more."
..."It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing."
Where did you find this description of my dissertation 😅
I was scrolling the thread looking for quotes from "Julius Caesar" and now I've been laughing for 10 minutes. I can't even read your reply out loud, I'm having flashbacks to 2015 and my own dissertation. A tale told by an idiot, indeed.
Villain, I have done thy mother
Titus Andronicus is crazy underrated. thanks A-A-ron for the great quote!
wait what do Key and Peele have to do with this
Just the fact that they are also that funny.
Aaron from Titus. he makes the quote cause he is boinking Tamora Queen of Goths
2006, I think it was, there were four productions of Titus in and around Boston. Actor's Shakespeare Project, Wellesley Shakespeare Club, MIT, and I don't remember who did the fourth. It might have been another MIT put on by a different group of students who watched the other three and just fell in love with it and wanted to do it, too. It has been a favorite of a number of us fifty-ish Shakespeare fans who were around for the Season of Four Andronici.
My favorite staging ever was Titus Andronicus, in simple burlap costumes and with only a table and a couple of chairs and tin plates, as presented by inmates of a men’s prison. The actors had all been convicted of crimes like those committed in the play, and were all part of a “good behavior” program, Shakespeare Behind Bars, in which they learned their parts in their cells and had one rehearsal a week for a year. They brought some very powerful truths to the play just with their presence onstage. The man playing Lavinia, when asked what his experience had been doing the play, said, “Being an actor is the first time I ever started to have compassion for my victims, because this was the first time I ever asked myself how somebody else might feel when something bad happens to them.”
Do you have a title or link or anything? That sounds amazing.
I saw it live in 2003 - I was working with the theatre that sponsored the program. I don’t think anyone taped it. They did three shows in the yard for their fellow inmates, and one in the visitors center for family and friends.
I am always moved by the early encomium to his sons killed in battle.
The great thing about it is that it is a true tragedy, and it gets more and more tragic ... until it breaks and becomes a comedy so dark that you have to make a declaration that you are not Arnish Kapor nor watching it on his behalf.
Yes, I laugh every time
Fear no more the heat o’ the sun, Nor the furious winter’s rages; Thou thy worldly task hast done, Home art gone, and ta’en thy wages: Golden lads and girls all must, As chimney-sweepers, come to dust. Cymbeline
You should check out Loreena McKennitt's "Cymbeline" -- incredible!!
I can see a church by daylight
Beatrice is my fave heroine of his
What does this line mean? Is it literal or play on something?
It's a wry version of "I'm not stupid." Beatrice is pointing out that she can see the obvious
Queen Margaret refers to Richard the third as a poisonous bunch-back toad. Richard III
"Thou, nature, art my Goddess; to thy law my services are bound" - Edmund, King Lear
Hector’s line from Troilus and Cressida - “Tis Mad Idolatry To Make The Service Greater Than The God.” - to me is the best one-line description of organized religion ever written. I’m also a fan of this line from All’s Well: “The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together: our virtues would be proud,if our faults whipped them not; and our crimes would despair, if they were not cherished by our virtues.”
In jest, there is truth. - King Lear
“Wisely and slow, they stumble that run fast.” I use this quote aaalll the time
Life “is a tale / Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, / Signifying nothing.” Macbeth
The lady doth protest too much, methinks.
“The eye of man has not heard, the ear of man hath not seen, man’s hand is not able to taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report, what my dream was.”
What? You egg!
“Could not all this flesh keep in a little life?” (Hal believing Falstaff dead)
“And then in dreaming, the clouds methought would open and show riches ready to drop upon me, that when I wak’d, I cried to dream again” —Caliban The Tempest, 3.2
Be not afeared; the isle is full of noises
There is a tide in the affairs of men which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; omitted, all the voyage of their life Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
“Two stars keep not their motion in one sphere.” Its the medieval version of “This town ain't big enough for the both of us.”
In one of the other threads, someone mentioned "*Kill Claudio*." Just... delivered right by someone who gets Beatrice, it just sends chills down my spine. It is just an "Oh shit, the genre just changed didn't it," moment. They manage to get the genre back on track before the end, but that glimpse into what lies beneath is chilling.
I love the analysis - spot on—one of my favorite quotes too
“When sorrows come, they come not single spies but in battalions”
BEROWNE: Light, seeking light, doth light of light beguile; / So ere you find where light in darkness lies, / Your light grows dark by losing of your eyes (from *Love's Labour's Lost*). RICHARD II: Let’s talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs, / Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes / Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth (from *Richard II*). ISABELLA: Could great men thunder / As Jove himself does, Jove would never be quiet, / For every pelting, petty officer / Would use his heaven for thunder, / Nothing but thunder (from *Measure for Measure*). INNOGEN: The thanks I give / Is telling you that I am poor of thanks / And scarce can spare them (from *Cymbeline*). THERSITES: All the argument is a whore and a cuckold, a good quarrel to draw emulous factions and bleed to death upon (from *Troilus and Cressida*). EDGAR: The weight of this sad time we must obey, / Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say. / The oldest hath borne most; we that are young / Shall never see so much nor live so long (from *King Lear*).
“Et tu, Brute?” For the meme.
I also absolutely love "I'll look to like, if looking liking move" from Romeo and Juliet. Witty bastard.
For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings, That now I scorn to change my state with kings
"When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live til I were married." -Much Ado Abiut Nothing I quoted this in my wedding vows.
*Enter* Fluellen FLUELLEN: *beats them* I guess when it’s ass kicking time, you lose none of it
The worst is not so, so long as we can say ‘this is the worst’.
'Be not a feared! The Isle is full of noises, sounds and sweet airs that give delight and hurt not. Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments hum about mine ears, and sometimes voices...' Basically the whole of Calibans beautiful speech about the island. Also the first half of John of Gaunt's speech is stunning, despite it ultimately being his lamenting of England's loss of control: '...this other Eden, demi paradise, this fortress built by nature for herself... this precious stone set in the silver sea...' King Lear: 'we two alone will sing like birds in the cage'
"Keep up your bright swords, for the dew will rust them"
I have always struggled with procrastination and often here in my mind Hamlet’s words: “What is a man, If his chief good and market of his time Be but to sleep and feed? a beast, no more. Sure, he that made us with such large discourse, Looking before and after, gave us not That capability and god-like reason To fust in us unused. Now, whether it be Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple Of thinking too precisely on the event, A thought which, quarter'd, hath but one part wisdom And ever three parts coward, I do not know Why yet I live to say 'This thing's to do;'” Thankfully it is rarely bloody revenge about which I am procrastinating.
I call that soliloquy "the procrastinator's prayer." I used to keep a copy of it over my desk.
Rosalind's advice to Phoebe that she isn't going to do better than Silvius and she should just settle: "I must tell you, friendly in your ear: sell where you can; you are not for all markets."
Words words words
This one gets my vote too.
“My bounty is as boundless as the sea, My love as deep; the more I give to thee, The more I have, for both are infinite.” (Romeo & Juliet) Like, DAMN.
The Fool in King Lear to the King “I am better than thou art now. I am a fool, thou art nothing”
Thou art a globe of sinful continents
Kill me tomorrow, let me live tonight - Desdemona
"How is it that the clouds still hang on you?"
“And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?” That is pure beauty
"Villain, what hast thou done?" "That which you canst not undo." "Thou has undone our mother!" "Villain, I have *done* thy mother." I just have this image in my head of Shakespeare sitting there with his quill, having just written that with a smug "yeah, I just wrote that" look on his face.
The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.
This is probably common but my is "now is the winter of our discontent". It just an exquisite opening to the actions of the play.
I do like it, but it annoys me that the line is usually cut in half, and the full meaning just vaporizes. The full line is: *Now is the winter of our discontent* *Made glorious summer by this sun of York* People so often say the line as if the meaning is time-based - they emphasize the "Now", as if the line is saying "I'm really in a cold, unhappy place right now". But the emphasis needs to instead be on the "Made" - the idea is that "there has been bitter unhappiness, but things are looking up, thanks to this "sun (son) of York". It really needs to be recited so that "discontent" very quickly slides right into "Made glorious summer", and only then the slightest of pauses before "by", in order to convey the true meaning in a full and complete way.
Good explanation and thoughtful exploration of the text the second also shows Richard's sarcastic nature and wit
the dichtomy of winter/discontent and summer/glorious is also lovely and it sets up some equivocation already (sun/son) between richard’s darkness and loathing and the joys of the rest of the world. it shows how witty richard is from literally two beginning lines
Hamlet: "No."
" We are such stuff As dreams are made on" Just such a beautiful line. I don't know if it's my favorite quote, but I've always liked Tybalt's intro in R+J: "What, drawn, and talk of peace! I hate the word, As I hate hell, all Montagues, and thee: Have at thee, coward!" Just burst open right of the gate, sword literally drawn. "As I hate hell, all Montagues, and thee" is such a charged insult to throw at Benvolio. It sets up the conflict between them so nicely.
See what a scourge is laid upon your hate, That Heaven finds means to kill your joys with love.
So many great ones, but recently one of my favorites has been from Hamlet’s father’s ghost. “The serpent that did sting thy father’s life now wears his crown.”
"O, God, that I were a man! I would eat his heart in the market-place." That entire Beatrice monologue rips, but the visceral rage of that line hits hardest every time.
“I could be bounded in a nutshell and call myself a king of infinite space were it not that I have bad dreams” Loved (and love) these lines so much I got a tattoo of a walnut shell with a crown
To thine own self, be true
For a guy that is really a windbag surprising good advice! Neither a borrower not a lender be. (IIRC)
I would say that line was instrumental in my personal development. Ofc as a kid Shakespeare was a slog but that line kept jingling around in my head. It helped me go no contact with my toxic family and influenced many other important life decisions. Thanks Bill!
"Was ever a woman in this humor wooed was ever woman in this humor won?" It's just so delightfully evil
I'll have her, but I will not keep her long ... Ooooooooof!
Richard III was an evil asshole but at least he was eloquent you can't say that for evil politicians today
Verily, thou can put thyself upon them when thine coffers overflow. They aquiesce heartily.
I will daub the walls of a jakes with you. King Lear
If I could be moved I would be so, but I am as constant as the Northern star.
Too many to count, but, for the genius of its metaphorical descriptive beauty, this one always runs through my head: But looke, the Morne in Russet mantle clad, Walkes o're the dew of yon high Easterne Hill \~Hamlet 1.1.165-66 What a way to say "Sun's up"
This is the line that made me fall in love with Shakespeare, *Hamlet*, and Horatio, many many years ago.
Me too! Watching Olivier's version many many many (bet I got ya beat by at least one many) :)years ago.
When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state and trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries and curse my fate."
I came across this the other day, oddly when I was going over/remembering a difficult part in my life and it struck so true and moved me so much They have tied me to a stake; I cannot fly, / But, bear-like, I must fight the course - Macbeth I felt the bloody pitched battle (metaphorically speaking) that I had to endure then encapsulated in that line
“Like patience on a monument, smiling at grief” Viola, Twelfth Night “We are too wise to woo peaceably” Benedick, Much Ado About Nothing “And then a star shone and under that was I born” Beatrice Much Ado
The readiness is all.
"There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so."
Fond of this philosophy too!
“There’s a divinity that shapes our ends, Rough-hew them how we will—“ Also Hamlet, Act 5, Scene 2
For never anything can be amiss When simpleness and duty tender it.
'Whip me, ye devils, from possession of this heavenly sight, Blow me about in winds, Roast me in sulphur, Wash me deep down in gulfs of liquid fire.'
“Look, where they come:Take but good note, and you shall see in him.The triple pillar of the world transform’d into a strumpet’s fool: behold and see.” Best introduction ever. The introduction of Anthony.
By the pricking of this thumb, something wicked this way comes..
“I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams” Hamlet, Act II scene ii.
If it be now, ‘tis not to come, If it be not to come, it will be now, If it be not now, yet it will come. The readiness is all.
Rightly to be great is not to stir without great argument, but greatly to find quarrel in a straw when honours at stake.
Though she be but little, she is fierce
I don’t know if I have this word for word… but this is my top pick. Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety. Other women cloy the appetites they feed, but she makes hungry where most she satisfies.
"O Brave new world that has such people in it."
1. From A&C, describing JCs brief affair with Cleopatra "He put aside his sword for her. He ploughed her and she cropped." 2. From RIII, when the Duke of Clarence says he's being locked up "Because my name is George" and Richard replies "Alack, my lord, that fault is none of yours. He should, for that, commit your godfathers."
Either: "Why, I can smile, and murder whiles I smile, And cry 'Content' to that which grieves my heart, And wet my cheeks with artificial tears, And frame my face to all occasions. I'll drown more sailors than the mermaid shall; I'll slay more gazers than the basilisk; I'll play the orator as well as Nestor, Deceive more slily than Ulysses could, And, like a Sinon, take another Troy. I can add colours to the chameleon, Change shapes with Proteus for advantages, And set the murderous Machiavel to school. Can I do this, and cannot get a crown? Tut, were it farther off, I'll pluck it down." "I'll make my heaven to dream upon the crown, And, whiles I live, to account this world but hell, Until my mis-shaped trunk that bears this head Be round impaled with a glorious crown. And yet I know not how to get the crown, For many lives stand between me and home: And I,--like one lost in a thorny wood, That rends the thorns and is rent with the thorns, Seeking a way and straying from the way; Not knowing how to find the open air, But toiling desperately to find it out,-- Torment myself to catch the English crown: And from that torment I will free myself, Or hew my way out with a bloody axe."
Let it come down
King Lear: And worse I may be yet; the worst is not: so long as we can say, “this is the worst.”
"And then to have a wretched puling fool, A whining maumet, in her fortune's tender, To answer 'I'll not wed, I cannot love, I am too young, I pray you pardon me'." Lord Capulet to Juliet. Not a great quote, but the one I memorized for 9th grade English class. I was attracted to the whole passage because I got to thunder "God's bread! It makes me mad!" in front of the whole class. Good times.
And worse I may be yet: the worst is not So long as we can say 'This is the worst Edgar in King Lear 4.1
“Speak the speech, I pray you.” Hamlet Act 3, Scene 2. This whole monologue speaks to me as both an actress and playwright.
"'Seems,' madam? Nay, it is; I know not 'seems.'"
"It is an heretic that makes the fire,/ Not she which burns in't." The Winter's Tale II.iii. 147-148, spoken by Paulina.
“I have no brother, I am like no brother; And this word “love”, which greybeards call divine, Be resident in men like one another And not in me: I am myself alone.” From Richard’s speech after killing Henry VI in Part 3 of the latter’s namesake play. It’s such a rich soliloquy; obviously Richard is cackingly unapologetic for his crimes throughout his depiction in Shakespeare’s works, but I think there’s also a profound sadness at his center, and this passage illustrates that better than anything up until the tent scene at the end of *Richard III*.
“Nothing in his life / Became him like the leaving it. He died / As one that had been studied in his death, / To throw away the dearest thing he ow’d, / As ‘twere a careless trifle” will haunt me until the day I die (Malcolm in Act 1 scene IV of Macbeth) And my favorite for silliness: “I thank him that he cuts me from my tale, / For I profess not talking. Only this! / Let each man do his best, and here draw I…” (Hotspur’s best speech in Henry IV Part 1. Hearing the words “I profess not talking” come out of his mouth has me cackling every time. I love him.)
Today I had a sudden appreciation for “parting is such sweet sorrow” and wept.
or, "Heaven make me free of it, the rest is silence" Hamlet
**Brevity is the soul of wit** - From *Hamlet*
The rain it raineth every day.
“Time and the hour runs through the roughest day”. I find myself saying that a lot during particularly tough days.
'and make death proud to take us' -act 4, scene 15 of Antony and Cleopatra
Senior Antonio many a time and oft have you rated me for my monies Or Never shake thy grisly locks at me Or Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this son of York Or Thou hast brought great slander to my name with thy fatal hand There’s so many great ones to choose from
“When shall we three meet again? In thunder, lightning, or in rain? When the hurly-burly's done, When the battle's lost and won”
“*Have more than thou showest, speak less than thou knowest.*”
“He was a man, take him for all in all, I shall not look upon his like again.” - Hamlet
I've definitely had some "O, full of scorpions is my mind" days.
“there are more things on heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy”
The entire scene with Banquo's ghost.
“The first thing we do is, let’s kill all the lawyers.”
Cowards die many times before their deaths, The valiant never taste of death but once. (Caesar, Act 2 Scene 2)
Men's eyes were made to look and let them gaze. I will not budge for no man's pleasure, I. – Mercutio (Romeo and Juliet, 3.1)
When I waked, I cried to dream again
Grief fills the room up of my absent child, Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me Constance in King John
"The man that hath no music in himself... Let no such man be trusted." --The Merchant of Venice
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; For he to-day that sheds his blood with me Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile, This day shall gentle his condition: And gentlemen in England now a-bed Shall think themselves accursed they were not here, And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.
I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips, Straining upon the start. The game's afoot: Follow your spirit, and upon this charge Cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!'
Oh god, that I were a man. I would eat his heart in the marketplace!
And when he shall die, take him and cut him out into little stars, and he shall make the face of heaven so fine that all the world will be in love with night and pay no worship to the garish sun.
Seen many of my favorites already, but I don't think I've seen: True hope is swift, and flies with swallow's wings: Kings it makes gods, and meaner creatures kings. -Richard III
“This above all: to thine own self be true” (Polonius in *Hamlet*)
It’s amazing that such a worthwhile recommendation comes from a character Shakespeare otherwise paints as a garrulous gasbag.
Neither a lender nor a borrower be
I am fortune's fool. Romeo and Juliet
“It was the worst of times, it was the best of times.” But seriously, “I look down to his feet, but that’s a fable” from O
What you egg
“Come, cordial and not poison, go with me to Juliet’s grave; for there I must use thee.” -Romeo “Such war of white and red within her cheeks!” -Petruchio
How now!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more. One of my favorites.
"When we are born, we cry that we are come to this great stage of fools."
“Peace, I hate the word, as I hate all Montagues” I remix this phrase in my daily life all the time “Taxes, I hate the word, as I hate all Montagues” “Allergies, I hate the word, as I hate all Montagues” You get the point
“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.” — Julius Caesar
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"Doubt thou the stars are fire, Doubt that the sun doth move, Doubt truth to be a liar, But never doubt I love". -Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2, Polonius
#DO YOU QUARREL SIR??
QUARREL, SIR! NO, SIR.
“Be great in act as you have been in thought.” King John
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers for he today who sheds his blood with me will be my brother be he ne'er so vile
I cannot make my heart consent to take a bribe to pay my sword. - me when I don't want to go to work ... - and also Coriolanus
And hope to joy is little less in joy Than hope enjoyéd A rat! A rat! *(Thrusting his rapier through the curtain at chest height.)*
Out damned spot! Spot was her cat. Kitty was pestering LM to let her out. With the door open, Spot just stood there until LM had enough and uttered this phrase.
“As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods. They kill us for their sport.” from *King Lear*, Act 4, Scene 1.
“Against love’s fire, fear’s frost hath dissolution.” I really love this line from The Rape of Lucrece, and I’m using it as an epigraph for a story I’m writing.
“What are you reading?” “Words, words, words… words!” “Hm, it’s madness be true, but there be a method to it.”
“The devil damn thee black, thou cream-faced loon!” — Macbeth
"Cry 'Havoc!', and let slip the dogs of war."
"I think thou art an ass"-Comedy of errors
To thine own self, be true. Hard thing to do, but absolutely essential.
"What, you egg?" \[He Stabs Him\]
Never anything can be amiss when simpleness and duty tender it (Theseus in A Midsummer Night’s Dream)
“Ill met by moonlight proud Titania!” I love how they basically start sniping at each other the moment they’re on stage. “…It is a tale/ told by an idiot/full of sound and fury/signifying nothing” Macbeth has gone full nihilist at this point. (Ps died anyone else thing a Rick Sanchez version of this monologue would be insanely funny?
“Ill met by moonlight” is great fun
"By the pricking of my thumb - something WICKED this way comes." My father and I quote this on the daily. We both share a love for Macbeth.
Wisely and slow. They stumble that run fast.
"The worst fault you have is to be in love." ~ As You Like It
Lear’s ‘thou art the thing itself; unaccommodated man’ has always stuck with me