Quoteskimming - from the plays we've looked at so far
The first play featured here during Brush Up Your Shakespeare Month was Much Ado About Nothing.
ACT I, scene 1:
Leonato "How much better is it to weep at joy than to joy at weeping!"
Beatrice I wonder that you will still be talking, Signior Benedick: nobody marks you.
Benedick What! my dear Lady Disdain, are you yet living?
Benedick Would you buy her, that you inquire after her?
Claudio Can the world buy such a jewel?
Benedick Yea, and a case to put it into.
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. 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.
Don Pedro In time the savage bull doth bear the yoke.
ACT II, scene 1
Claudio Silence is the perfectest herald of joy: I were
but little happy, if I could say how much.
ACT II, scene 3
Balthazar
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.
ACT IV, scene 1
Benedick I do love nothing in the world so well as you: is
not that strange?
Beatrice O God, that I were a man! I would eat his heart
in the market-place.
ACT IV, scene 2
Dogberry But, masters, remember that I am an
ass; though it be not written down, yet forget not
that I am an ass.
ACT V, scene 2
Benedick Thou and I are too wise to woo peaceably.
Benedick I will live in thy heart, die in thy lap, and be
buried in thy eyes; and moreover I will go with
thee to thy uncle's.
ACT V, scene 4
Benedick A miracle! here’s our own hands against our hearts.
The second play we went through was Romeo and Juliet, which engendered some rather lively discussion in the comments.
ACT I, scene 1
Abraham Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?
Sampson I do bite my thumb, sir.
ACT I, scene 4
Romeo Is love a tender thing? it is too rough,
Too rude, too boisterous, and it pricks like thorn.
Mercutio If love be rough with you, be rough with love;
Prick love for pricking, and you beat love down.
Romeo I dreamed a dream to-night.
Mercutio And so did I.
Romeo Well, what was yours?
Mercutio That dreamers often lie.
Mercutio O, then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you.
She is the fairies’ midwife[.]
ACT I, scene 5
Romeo Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight!
For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night.
Juliet You kiss by th' book.
Juliet My only love sprung from my only hate!
Too early seen unknown, and known too late!
ACT II, scene 2
Romeo He jests at scars that never felt a wound.
But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.
Romeo It is my lady, O, it is my love!
Juliet O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?
Deny thy father and refuse thy name[.]
Juliet What's in a name? That which we call a rose,
By any other word would smell as sweet[.]
Juliet O, swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon,
That monthly changes in her circled orb,
Lest that thy love prove likewise variable.
Juliet And yet I wish but for the thing I have;
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 Love goes toward love, as schoolboys from their books,
But love from love, toward school with heavy looks.
Juliet Good-night, good-night! Parting is such sweet sorrow
That I shall say good-night till it be morrow.
ACT II, scene 3
Friar Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied;
And vice sometimes by action dignified.
Friar Holy Saint Francis, what a change is here!
Is Rosaline, whom thou didst love so dear,
So soon forsaken? Young men's love then lies
Not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes.
ACT III, scene 1
MercutioI am hurt.
A plague o' both your houses!
MercutioNo, 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a
church-door; but 'tis enough,'twill serve: ask for
me to-morrow, and you shall find me a grave man.
Romeo O, I am fortune's fool!
ACT III, scene 2
Juliet Give me my Romeo; and when he shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of Heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night,
ACT V, scene 3
Romeo O true apothecary! Thy drugs are quick. - Thus with a kiss I die.
Juliet O, happy dagger!
This is thy sheath; there rest, and let me die.
Prince For never was a story of more woe
Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.
Our third play was Love's Labour's Lost, a comedy chock-full of wordplay.
ACT I, scene 1
Berowne Light, seeking light, doth light of light beguile.
Berowne At Christmas I no more desire a rose
Than wish a snow in May's new-fangled mirth;
But like of each thing that in season grows.
ACT I, scene 2
Armado Devise, wit; write, pen; for I am for whole volumes in folio.
ACT IV, scene 2
Nathaniel He hath never fed of the dainties that are bred in a book;
He hath not eat paper, as it were; he hath not drunk ink.
Nathaniel Many can brook the weather, that love not the wind.
ACT IV, scene 3
Berowne O, but for my love, day would turn to night!
Berowne And when Love speaks, the voice of all the gods
Makes heaven drowsy with the harmony.
Berowne From women's eyes this doctrine I derive:
They sparkle still the right Promethean fire;
They are the books, the arts, the academes,
That show, contain and nourish all the world.
ACT V, scene 1
Holofernes He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his argument.
Moth They have been at a great feast of languages, and stolen the scraps.
Armado . . . in the posteriors of this day, which the
rude multitude call the afternoon.
ACT V, scene 2
Boyet The tongues of mocking wenches are as keen
As is the razor's edge invisible,
Cutting a smaller hair than may be seen,
Above the sense of sense; so sensible
Seemeth their conference; their conceits have wings
Fleeter than arrows, bullets, wind, thought, swifter things.
King of Navarre The ship is under sail, and here she comes amain.
Moth Master, let me take you a buttonhole lower.
King Now, at the latest minute of the hour,
Grant us your loves.
Princess A time, methinks, too short
To make a world-without-end bargain in.
After Love's Labour's Lost, we moved into the serious world of HAMLET, which came in at something like six posts. The second post I did for Hamlet was a Hamlet quoteskimming post, so I refer you to that earlier post for Hamlet excerpts.
From Hamlet, I moved to the first history on my list, Henry V. I did an abbreviated version of that play in my own words, but here are some actual quotes that you may wish to add to your arsenal of Shakespeare quotes:
PROLOGUE
Chorus O! for a muse of fire, that would ascend
The brightest heaven of invention!
ACT I, scene 2
Henry We are glad the Dauphin is so pleasant with us;
His present and your pains we thank you for:
When we have matched our rackets to these balls,
We will, in France, by God's grace, play a set
Shall strike his father's crown into the hazard.
ACT II, scene 4
Dauphin Self-love, my liege, is not so vile a sin,
As self-neglecting.
ACT III, scene 1
Henry V Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more,
Or close the wall up with our English dead!
Henry V 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!"
ACT III, scene 2
Boy I would give all my fame for a pot of ale, and safety.
Boy Men of few words are the best men.
ACT III, scene 6
Montjoy Though we seemed dead, we did but sleep: advantage
is a better soldier than rashness.
ACT IV, scene 1
Gower Why, the enemy is loud; you hear him all night.
Fluellen If the enemy is an ass and a fool and a prating
coxcomb, is it meet, think you, that we should also,
look you, be an ass and a fool and a prating
coxcomb? in your own conscience, now?
Gower I will speak lower.
Henry Every subject’s duty is the king’s; but every subject’s soul is his own.
ACT IV, scene 3
Henry V If we are marked to die, we are enow
To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
Henry V . . . if it be a sin to covet honour,
I am the most offending soul alive.
Henry V
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered, -
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.
ACT IV, scene 8
Henry V Here was a royal fellowship of death!
ACT V, scene 2
Henry If I could win a lady at
leap-frog, or by vaulting into my saddle with my
armor on my back, under the correction of bragging
be it spoken, I should quickly leap into a wife.
Henry If thou would have such a one, take
me; and take me, take a soldier; take a soldier,
take a king.
Henry O Kate, nice customs curtsy to great kings.
Dear Kate, you and I cannot be confined within the weak
list of a country's fashion: we are the makers of manners, Kate.
Henry You have witchcraft in your lips, Kate.
Chorus Small time, but in that small most greatly lived
This star of England[.]
Tomorrow, we're on to the Scottish play. In the meantime, there are still three hours left for you to enter this week's contest.
ACT I, scene 1:
Leonato "How much better is it to weep at joy than to joy at weeping!"
Beatrice I wonder that you will still be talking, Signior Benedick: nobody marks you.
Benedick What! my dear Lady Disdain, are you yet living?
Benedick Would you buy her, that you inquire after her?
Claudio Can the world buy such a jewel?
Benedick Yea, and a case to put it into.
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. 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.
Don Pedro In time the savage bull doth bear the yoke.
ACT II, scene 1
Claudio Silence is the perfectest herald of joy: I were
but little happy, if I could say how much.
ACT II, scene 3
Balthazar
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.
ACT IV, scene 1
Benedick I do love nothing in the world so well as you: is
not that strange?
Beatrice O God, that I were a man! I would eat his heart
in the market-place.
ACT IV, scene 2
Dogberry But, masters, remember that I am an
ass; though it be not written down, yet forget not
that I am an ass.
ACT V, scene 2
Benedick Thou and I are too wise to woo peaceably.
Benedick I will live in thy heart, die in thy lap, and be
buried in thy eyes; and moreover I will go with
thee to thy uncle's.
ACT V, scene 4
Benedick A miracle! here’s our own hands against our hearts.
The second play we went through was Romeo and Juliet, which engendered some rather lively discussion in the comments.
ACT I, scene 1
Abraham Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?
Sampson I do bite my thumb, sir.
ACT I, scene 4
Romeo Is love a tender thing? it is too rough,
Too rude, too boisterous, and it pricks like thorn.
Mercutio If love be rough with you, be rough with love;
Prick love for pricking, and you beat love down.
Romeo I dreamed a dream to-night.
Mercutio And so did I.
Romeo Well, what was yours?
Mercutio That dreamers often lie.
Mercutio O, then, I see Queen Mab hath been with you.
She is the fairies’ midwife[.]
ACT I, scene 5
Romeo Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight!
For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night.
Juliet You kiss by th' book.
Juliet My only love sprung from my only hate!
Too early seen unknown, and known too late!
ACT II, scene 2
Romeo He jests at scars that never felt a wound.
But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.
Romeo It is my lady, O, it is my love!
Juliet O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?
Deny thy father and refuse thy name[.]
Juliet What's in a name? That which we call a rose,
By any other word would smell as sweet[.]
Juliet O, swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon,
That monthly changes in her circled orb,
Lest that thy love prove likewise variable.
Juliet And yet I wish but for the thing I have;
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 Love goes toward love, as schoolboys from their books,
But love from love, toward school with heavy looks.
Juliet Good-night, good-night! Parting is such sweet sorrow
That I shall say good-night till it be morrow.
ACT II, scene 3
Friar Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied;
And vice sometimes by action dignified.
Friar Holy Saint Francis, what a change is here!
Is Rosaline, whom thou didst love so dear,
So soon forsaken? Young men's love then lies
Not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes.
ACT III, scene 1
MercutioI am hurt.
A plague o' both your houses!
MercutioNo, 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a
church-door; but 'tis enough,'twill serve: ask for
me to-morrow, and you shall find me a grave man.
Romeo O, I am fortune's fool!
ACT III, scene 2
Juliet Give me my Romeo; and when he shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of Heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night,
ACT V, scene 3
Romeo O true apothecary! Thy drugs are quick. - Thus with a kiss I die.
Juliet O, happy dagger!
This is thy sheath; there rest, and let me die.
Prince For never was a story of more woe
Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.
Our third play was Love's Labour's Lost, a comedy chock-full of wordplay.
ACT I, scene 1
Berowne Light, seeking light, doth light of light beguile.
Berowne At Christmas I no more desire a rose
Than wish a snow in May's new-fangled mirth;
But like of each thing that in season grows.
ACT I, scene 2
Armado Devise, wit; write, pen; for I am for whole volumes in folio.
ACT IV, scene 2
Nathaniel He hath never fed of the dainties that are bred in a book;
He hath not eat paper, as it were; he hath not drunk ink.
Nathaniel Many can brook the weather, that love not the wind.
ACT IV, scene 3
Berowne O, but for my love, day would turn to night!
Berowne And when Love speaks, the voice of all the gods
Makes heaven drowsy with the harmony.
Berowne From women's eyes this doctrine I derive:
They sparkle still the right Promethean fire;
They are the books, the arts, the academes,
That show, contain and nourish all the world.
ACT V, scene 1
Holofernes He draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple of his argument.
Moth They have been at a great feast of languages, and stolen the scraps.
Armado . . . in the posteriors of this day, which the
rude multitude call the afternoon.
ACT V, scene 2
Boyet The tongues of mocking wenches are as keen
As is the razor's edge invisible,
Cutting a smaller hair than may be seen,
Above the sense of sense; so sensible
Seemeth their conference; their conceits have wings
Fleeter than arrows, bullets, wind, thought, swifter things.
King of Navarre The ship is under sail, and here she comes amain.
Moth Master, let me take you a buttonhole lower.
King Now, at the latest minute of the hour,
Grant us your loves.
Princess A time, methinks, too short
To make a world-without-end bargain in.
After Love's Labour's Lost, we moved into the serious world of HAMLET, which came in at something like six posts. The second post I did for Hamlet was a Hamlet quoteskimming post, so I refer you to that earlier post for Hamlet excerpts.
From Hamlet, I moved to the first history on my list, Henry V. I did an abbreviated version of that play in my own words, but here are some actual quotes that you may wish to add to your arsenal of Shakespeare quotes:
PROLOGUE
Chorus O! for a muse of fire, that would ascend
The brightest heaven of invention!
ACT I, scene 2
Henry We are glad the Dauphin is so pleasant with us;
His present and your pains we thank you for:
When we have matched our rackets to these balls,
We will, in France, by God's grace, play a set
Shall strike his father's crown into the hazard.
ACT II, scene 4
Dauphin Self-love, my liege, is not so vile a sin,
As self-neglecting.
ACT III, scene 1
Henry V Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more,
Or close the wall up with our English dead!
Henry V 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!"
ACT III, scene 2
Boy I would give all my fame for a pot of ale, and safety.
Boy Men of few words are the best men.
ACT III, scene 6
Montjoy Though we seemed dead, we did but sleep: advantage
is a better soldier than rashness.
ACT IV, scene 1
Gower Why, the enemy is loud; you hear him all night.
Fluellen If the enemy is an ass and a fool and a prating
coxcomb, is it meet, think you, that we should also,
look you, be an ass and a fool and a prating
coxcomb? in your own conscience, now?
Gower I will speak lower.
Henry Every subject’s duty is the king’s; but every subject’s soul is his own.
ACT IV, scene 3
Henry V If we are marked to die, we are enow
To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
Henry V . . . if it be a sin to covet honour,
I am the most offending soul alive.
Henry V
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered, -
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.
ACT IV, scene 8
Henry V Here was a royal fellowship of death!
ACT V, scene 2
Henry If I could win a lady at
leap-frog, or by vaulting into my saddle with my
armor on my back, under the correction of bragging
be it spoken, I should quickly leap into a wife.
Henry If thou would have such a one, take
me; and take me, take a soldier; take a soldier,
take a king.
Henry O Kate, nice customs curtsy to great kings.
Dear Kate, you and I cannot be confined within the weak
list of a country's fashion: we are the makers of manners, Kate.
Henry You have witchcraft in your lips, Kate.
Chorus Small time, but in that small most greatly lived
This star of England[.]
Tomorrow, we're on to the Scottish play. In the meantime, there are still three hours left for you to enter this week's contest.