FALSTAFF: If reasons were as plentiful as blackberries, I would give no man a reason upon compulsion, I.
1 Henry IV, II, iv
FALSTAFF: If sack and sugar be a fault, God help the wicked! If to be old and merry be a sin, then many an old host that I know is damned: if to be fat be to be hated, then Pharaoh's lean kine are to be loved. No, my good lord; banish Peto, banish Bardolph, banish Poins; but for sweet Jack Falstaff, kind Jack Falstaff, true Jack Falstaff, valiant Jack Falstaff, and therefore more valiant, being, as he is, old Jack Falstaff, banish not him thy Harry's company, banish not him thy Harry's company: banish plump Jack, and banish all the world!
1 Henry IV, II, iv
GLENDOWER: These signs have mark'd me
extraordinary;
And all the courses of my life do show
I am not in the roll of common men.
1 Henry IV, III, i
GLENDOWER: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
HOTSPUR: Why, so can I, or so can any
man;
But will they come when you do call for them?
1 Henry IV, III, i
KING HENRY IV: By being seldom seen, I could
not stir
But like a comet I was wonder'd at.
1 Henry IV, III, ii
FALSTAFF: I was as virtuously given as a gentleman need to be; virtuous enough; swore little; diced not above seven times a week; went to a bawdy-house once in a quarter--of an hour; paid money that I borrowed, three of four times; lived well and in good compass: and now I live out of all order, out of all compass.
1 Henry IV, III, iii
HOTSPUR: But thought's the slave of life, and life time's fool; And time, that takes survey of all the world, Must have a stop.
1 Henry IV, V, iv
HOTSPUR: O, I could prophesy,
But that the earthy and cold hand of death
Lies on my tongue: no, Percy, thou art dust
And food for-- <dies>
PRINCE: For worms, brave Percy: fare thee well, great heart.
1 Henry IV, V, iv
PRINCE: Ill-weaved ambition, how much art thou
shrunk!
When that this body did contain a spirit,
A kingdom for it was too small a bound;
But now two paces of the vilest earth
Is room enough.
1 Henry IV, V, iv
FALSTAFF: The better part of valour is discretion.
1 Henry IV, V, iv
SLENDER: But if there be no great love in the beginning, yet heaven may decrease it upon better acquaintance, when we are married and have more occasion to know one another.
The Merry Wives of Windsor, I, i
SLENDER: I hope upon familiarity will grow more contempt.
The Merry Wives of Windsor, I, i
PISTOL: Why, then the world's mine
oyster.
Which I with sword will open.
The Merry Wives of Windsor, II, ii
ANNE: O, what a world of vile ill-favor'd
faults
Looks handsome in three hundred pounds a year.
The Merry Wives of Windsor, III, iv
ANNE: Alas, I had rather be set quick i' the
earth
And bowl'd to death with turnips!
The Merry Wives of Windsor, III, iv
MISTRESS PAGE: We'll leave a proof by that
which we will do,
Wives may be merry, and yet honest too.
The Merry Wives of Windsor, IV, ii
FALSTAFF: They say there is divinity in odd numbers, either in nativity, chance, or death.
The Merry Wives of Windsor, V, i
MISTRESS PAGE: Against such lewdsters and
their lechery
Those that betray them do no treachery.
The Merry Wives of Windsor, V, iii
LEONATO: How much better is it to weep at joy than to joy at weeping!
Much Ado about Nothing, I, i
BEATRICE: He wears his faith but as the fashion of his hat; it ever changes with the next block.
Much Ado about Nothing, I, i
MESSENGER: I see, lady, the gentleman is not in your books.
BEATRICE: No; an he were, I would burn my study.
Much Ado about Nothing, I, i
BEATRICE: Is it possible disdain should die while she hath such meet food to feed it as Signior Benedick?
Much Ado about Nothing, I, i
BENEDICK: That a woman conceived me, I thank her; that she brought me up, I likewise give her most humble thanks: but that I will have a recheat winded in my forehead, or hang my bugle in an invisible baldrick, all women shall pardon me.
Much Ado about Nothing, I, i
BENEDICK: Because I will not do them the wrong to mistrust any, I will do myself the right to trust none; and the fine is, for the which I may go the finer, I will live a bachelor.
Much Ado about Nothing, I, i
DON PEDRO: What need the bridge much broader than the flood?
Much Ado about Nothing, I, i
DON JOHN: I cannot hide what I am: I must be sad when I have cause and smile at no man's jests, eat when I have stomach and wait for no man's leisure, sleep when I am drowsy and tend on no man's business, laugh when I am merry and claw no man in his humour.
Much Ado about Nothing, I, iii
LEONATO: You may light on a husband that hath no beard.
BEATRICE: What should I do with him? Dress him in my apparel and make him my waiting-gentlewoman?
Much Ado about Nothing, II, i
BEATRICE: He that hath a beard is more than a youth, and he that hath no beard is less than a man: and he that is more than a youth is not for me, and he that is less than a man, I am not for him.
Much Ado about Nothing, II, i
LEONATO: Well, niece, I hope to see you one day fitted with a husband.
BEATRICE: Not till God make men of some other metal than earth.
Much Ado about Nothing, II, i
BEATRICE: For, hear me, Hero: wooing, wedding, and repenting, is as a Scotch jig, a measure, and a cinque pace: the first suit is hot and hasty, like a Scotch jig, and full as fantastical; the wedding, mannerly-modest, as a measure, full of state and ancientry; and then comes repentance and, with his bad legs, falls into the cinque pace faster and faster, till he sink into his grave.
Much Ado about Nothing, II, i
URSULA: Come, come, do you think I do not know you by your excellent wit? can virtue hide itself? Go to, mum, you are he: graces will appear, and there's an end.
Much Ado about Nothing, II, i
CLAUDIO: Let every eye negotiate for
itself
And trust no agent; for beauty is a witch
Against whose charms faith melteth into blood.
This is an accident of hourly proof.
Much Ado about Nothing, II, i
BENEDICK: She speaks poniards, and every word stabs.
Much Ado about Nothing, II, i
DON PEDRO: Will you have me, lady?
BEATRICE: No, my lord, unless I might have another for working-days: your grace is too costly to wear every day. But, I beseech your grace, pardon me: I was born to speak all mirth and no matter.
Much Ado about Nothing, II, i
BENEDICK: He was wont to speak plain and to the purpose, like an honest man and a soldier; and now is he turned orthography; his words are a very fantastical banquet, just so many strange dishes.
Much Ado about Nothing, II, iii
DON PEDRO: It is the witness still of
excellency
To put a strange face on his own perfection.
Much Ado about Nothing, II, iii
BALTHASAR: There's not a note of mine that's worth the noting.
Much Ado about Nothing, II, iii
BENEDICK: Now, divine air! now is his soul ravished! Is it not strange that sheeps' guts should hale souls out of men's bodies?
Much Ado about Nothing, II, iii
BALTHASAR: Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no
more,
Men were deceivers ever,
One foot in sea and one on shore,
To one thing constant never.
Then sigh not so, but let them go,
And be you blithe and bonny,
Converting all your sounds of woe
Into hey nonny, nonny.
Much Ado about Nothing, II, iii
BENEDICK: I may chance have some odd quirks and remnants of wit broken on me, because I have railed so long against marriage: but doth not the appetite alter? A man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age.
Much Ado about Nothing, II, iii
BENEDICK: When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married.
Much Ado about Nothing, II, iii
URSULA: The pleasant'st angling is to see the
fish
Cut with her golden oars the silver stream,
And greedily devour the treacherous bait.
Much Ado about Nothing, III, i
URSULA: She's limed, I warrant you: we have caught her, madam.
HERO: If it proves so, then loving goes by
haps:
Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps.
Much Ado about Nothing, III, i
BENEDICK: Well, every one can master a grief but he that has it.
Much Ado about Nothing, III, ii
BORACHIO: Thou shouldst rather ask if it were possible any villany should be so rich; for when rich villains have need of poor ones, poor ones may make what price they will.
Much Ado about Nothing, III, iii
LEONATO: Neighbours, you are tedious.
DOGBERRY: It pleases your worship to say so, but we are the poor duke's officers; but truly, for mine own part, if I were as tedious as a king, I could find it in my heart to bestow it all of your worship.
Much Ado about Nothing, III, v
LEONATO: Hath no man's dagger here a point for me?
Much Ado about Nothing, IV, i
FRIAR FRANCIS: Of every hearer: for it so
falls out
That what we have we prize not to the worth
Whiles we enjoy it, but being lack'd and lost,
Why, then we rack the value, then we find
The virtue that possession would not show us
Whiles it was ours.
Much Ado about Nothing, IV, i
BEATRICE: Is he not approved in the height a villain, that hath slandered, scorned, dishonoured my kinswoman? O that I were a man! What, bear her in hand until they come to take hands; and then, with public accusation, uncovered slander, unmitigated rancour, -- O God, that I were a man! I would eat his heart in the market-place.
Much Ado about Nothing, IV, i
BEATRICE: O that I were a man for his sake! or that I had any friend would be a man for my sake! But manhood is melted into courtesies, valour into compliment, and men are only turned into tongue, and trim ones too: he is now as valiant as Hercules that only tells a lie and swears it.
Much Ado about Nothing, IV, i
BEATRICE: I cannot be a man with wishing, therefore I will die a woman with grieving.
Much Ado about Nothing, IV, i
LEONATO: I pray thee, cease thy counsel,
Which falls into mine ears as profitless
As water in a sieve.
Much Ado about Nothing, V, i