"Favourite quote from Shakespeare" Topic

Happy St George's Day! What's your favourite quote from The Bard?

This royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall,
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands,
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England…

(John of Gaunt in Richard II)

Truly Rudyard Kipling was wise to say, what do they know of England, who only England know?

goodness..only one?
Macbeth Act , scene 3
124 The instruments of darkness tell us truths,
125 Win us with honest trifles, to betray's
126 In deepest consequence.—
Lear ACT IV scene 1
As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods.
They kill us for their sport.

Hamlet:
To me [Denmark] is a prison.

Rosencrantz:
Why then your ambition makes it one. 'Tis too narrow
for your mind.

Hamlet:
O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a
king of infinite space—were it not that I have bad dreams.

Guildenstern:
Which dreams indeed are ambition, for the very
substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream.

Hamlet Act 2, scene 2, 251–259
Romeo and Juliet Act III , scene 5..
CAPULET
176 God's bread! it makes me mad! Day, night, work, play,
177 Alone, in company, still my care hath been
178 To have her match'd, and having now provided
179 A gentleman of noble parentage,
180 Of fair demesnes, youthful, and nobly lien'd,
181 Stuff'd, as they say, with honourable parts,
182 Proportion'd as one's thought would wish a man;
183 And then to have a wretched puling fool,
184 A whining mammet, in her fortune's tender,
185 To answer "I'll not wed; I cannot love,
186 I am too young; I pray you, pardon me."
187 But, as you will not wed, I'll pardon you:
188 Graze where you will you shall not house with me:
189 Look to't, think on't, I do not use to jest.
190 Thursday is near; lay hand on heart, advise.
191 An you be mine, I'll give you to my friend;
192 And you be not, hang, beg, starve, die in the streets,
193 For, by my soul, I'll ne'er acknowledge thee,
194 Nor what is mine shall never do thee good:
195 Trust to't, bethink you; I'll not be forsworn.

Exit.

"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." Macbeth, somewhere.

Pat

That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made
And crowns for convoy put into his purse:
We would not die in that man's company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is called the feast of Crispian:
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian:'
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars.
And say 'These wounds I had on Crispin's day.'
Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day: then shall our names.
Familiar in his mouth as household words
Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be in their flowing cups freshly remember'd.
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 remember'd;
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.

(Henry V; Henry V)

Can't really fit that on a deployment T shirt, can you!

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead.
In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility:
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage;
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;
Let pry through the portage of the head
Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it
As fearfully as doth a galled rock
O'erhang and jutty his confounded base,
Swill'd with the wild and wasteful ocean.
Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide,
Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit
To his full height. On, on, you noblest English.
Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof!
Fathers that, like so many Alexanders,
Have in these parts from morn till even fought
And sheathed their swords for lack of argument:
Dishonour not your mothers; now attest
That those whom you call'd fathers did beget you.
Be copy now to men of grosser blood,
And teach them how to war. And you, good yeoman,
Whose limbs were made in England, show us here
The mettle of your pasture; let us swear
That you are worth your breeding; which I doubt not;
For there is none of you so mean and base,
That hath not noble lustre in your eyes.
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!'

(Henry V; Henry V)

Wish you'd never asked now?

Cry "Havoc" and let slip the dogs of war!

Uesugi, to be done properly, that quote must be spoken by a classically-trained actor wearing Klingon makeup.

First let's kill all the lawyers….

I'm absolutely with Sparker on this question – got to be Henry V …. we few, we happy few ….

Though Macbeth does have some great lines too!

O! for a Muse of fire, that would ascend
The brightest heaven of invention!
A kingdom for a stage, princes to act
And monarchs to behold the swelling scene

I find the Tragedies to be much more interesting than the History plays..
Miranda:
O wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world
That has such people in't!

Prospero:
'Tis new to thee.

The Tempest Act 5, scene 1, 181–184
though

MACBETH
Oh, full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife!

Oh, full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife!

That originally read "Oh, full of Wives is my mind, dear Scorpion!" but Ann Hathaway made him change it.

Pat

To sleep--perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub

HAMLET

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,
Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to Time thou grow'st.
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Not so much favorite as most impressively insightful.

"You taught me language, and my profit on 't
Is I know how to curse."

I am always fond of Laertes and his desire to do away with Hamlet..
LAERTES I will do't:
And, for that purpose, I'll anoint my sword. 140
I bought an unction of a mountebank,
So mortal that, but dip a knife in it,
Where it draws blood no cataplasm so rare,
Collected from all simples that have virtue
Under the moon, can save the thing from death
That is but scratch'd withal: I'll touch my point
With this contagion, that, if I gall him slightly,
It may be death.

I'm with Etranger

"First let's kill all the lawyers"

what fools these mortals be…

I am with Sparker and nsolomon

The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.

People tend to overlook the context of that quotation. The plan of which it forms a part is to set up a sort of communistic, anti-intellectual state, a la Pol Pot. They object to writing generally as tyrannizing the people.

CADE (The presumptive king of the lawyerless utopia)
Let me alone. Dost thou use to write thy name? or
hast thou a mark to thyself, like an honest
plain-dealing man?

CLERK
Sir, I thank God, I have been so well brought up
that I can write my name.

ALL
He hath confessed: away with him! he's a villain
and a traitor.

CADE
Away with him, I say! hang him with his pen and
ink-horn about his neck.

Exit one with the Clerk

Just a few short ones.

There is the tide in the affairs of men which if taken at the flood etc. (Julius Caeser)

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark. (Hamlet).

Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this sun of York. (Richard III)

Exit, pursued by a bear (Winters Tale, stage direction).

This above all – to thine own self be true.

Then came each actor on his…(Hamlet)

" 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church door; but 'tis enough, 'twil serve."
Mercutio, as he's dying, from "Romeo & Juliet"

He's dead, Jim!

All the world's a stage and we are merely players.

Out damn spot!

Let me have men about me that are fat,
Sleek-headed men and such as sleep a-nights.
Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look,
He thinks too much; such men are dangerous.

In the edited/censored schools version:

"Enter a bloody sargeant" was changed to
"Enter a bleeding Captain".

They obviously knew how the land lies.

Marcus Antonius:

And Caesar's spirit, raging for revenge,

With Ate by his side come hot from hell,

Shall in these confines with a monarch's voice

Cry "Havoc!" and let slip the dogs of war,

That this foul deed shall smell above the earth

With carrion men, groaning for burial.

Julius Caesar Act 3, scene 1, 270–275

Brutus:
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.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.
Julius Caesar Act 4, scene 3, 218–224

King Richard:
A horse, a horse! My kingdom for a horse!

Catesby:
Withdraw, my lord; I'll help you to a horse.

King Richard:
Slave! I have set my life upon a cast,
And I will stand the hazard of the die.
Richard The Third Act 5, scene 4, 7–10

The fault lies not in the stars but in ourselves

'The quality of mercy is not strained'; Merchant of Venice.

Puck: Lord, what fools these mortals be!

A Midsummer Nights Dream Act 3, scene 2

The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.

I've still got this on a t-shirt I bought in Washington DC in 1987. I should have bought a shedload as I could sold them all back at university where I appeared wearing it in the following year's Law School prospectus.