Commands

                                                 Be collected:
No more amazement: tell your piteous heart
There’s no harm done.

(The Tempest. Act 1. Scene 2. Prospero speaking.)

Burn but his books.

(The Tempest. Act 3. Scene 2. Caliban speaking.)

Look thou be true; do not give dalliance
Too much the rein: the strongest oaths are straw
To the fire i’ the blood

(The Tempest. Act 4. Scene 1. Prospero speaking.)

Come not within the measure of my wrath;

(The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Act 5. Scene 4. Valentine speaking.)

Sail like my pinnace to these golden shores.

(The Merry Wives of Windsor. Act 1. Scene 3. Falstaff speaking.)

Be as thou wast wont to be;
See as thou wast wont to see:
Dian’s bud o’er Cupid’s flower
Hath such force and blessed power.

(A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Act 4. Scene 1. Oberon speaking.)

Do as I bid you; shut doors after you:
Fast bind, fast find;

A proverb never stale in thrifty mind.

(The Merchant of Venice. Act 2. Scene 5. Shylock speaking.)

Run, run, Orlando; carve on every tree
The fair, the chaste and unexpressive she.

(As You Like It. Act 3. Scene 2. Orlando speaking.)

But, mistress, know yourself: down on your knees,
And thank heaven, fasting, for a good man’s love:

(As You Like It. Act 3. Scene 5. Rosalind speaking.)

Come, madam wife, sit by my side
and let the world slip: we shall ne’er be younger.

(The Taming of the Shrew. Induction. Scene 2. Sly speaking.)

And kiss me, Kate, we will be married a Sunday.

(The Taming of the Shrew. Act 2. Scene 1. Petruchio speaking.)

Ours be your patience then, and yours our parts;
Your gentle hands lend us, and take our hearts.

(All’s Well That Ends Well. Act 5. Scene 3. King speaking.)

….stand at her doors,

And tell them there thy fixed foot shall grow

Till thou have audience.

(Twelfth Night. Act 1. Scene 3. Duke Orsino speaking.)

Be Mercury, set feathers to thy heels,
And fly like thought from them to me again.

(King John. Act 4. Scene 2. King John speaking.)

Go thou, and like an executioner,
Cut off the heads of too fast growing sprays,
That look too lofty in our commonwealth:
All must be even in our government.

(King Richard the Second. Act 3. Scene 4. Richard speaking.)

The game’s afoot:
Follow your spirit, and upon this charge
Cry ‘God for Harry, England, and Saint George!’

(King Henry the Fifth. Act 3. Scene 1. King Henry speaking.)

Defer no time, delays have dangerous ends;

(King Henry the Sixth Part 1. Act 3. Scene 2. Alençon speaking.)

Blush, Blush, thou lump of foul deformity;

(King Richard the Third. Act 1. Scene 2. Lady Anne speaking.)

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.

(Julius Caesar. Act 3. Scene 2. Antony speaking.)

….Awake!
Shake off this downy sleep, death’s counterfeit,
And look on death itself! Up, up, and see
The great doom’s image!

(Macbeth. Act 2. Scene 3. Macduff speaking.)

At once, good night:
Stand not upon the order of your going,
But go at once.

(Macbeth. Act 3. Scene 4. Lady Macbeth speaking.)

Though you untie the winds and let them fight
Against the churches; though the yesty waves
Confound and swallow navigation up;
Though bladed corn be lodged and trees blown down;
Though castles topple on their warders’ heads;
Though palaces and pyramids do slope
Their heads to their foundations; though the treasure
Of nature’s germens tumble all together,
Even till destruction sicken; answer me…

(Macbeth. Act 4. Scene 1. Macbeth speaking.)

Show his eyes, and grieve his heart;
Come like shadows, so depart!

(Macbeth. Act 4. Scene 1. Macbeth and the Witches speaking.)

Out, damned spot! Out, I say!

(Macbeth. Act 5. Scene 1. Lady Macbeth  speaking.)

Hang out our banners on the outward walls;
The cry is still ‘They come:’

(Macbeth. Act 5. Scene 5. Macbeth speaking.)

Ring the alarum-bell! Blow, wind! Come, wrack!
At least we’ll die with harness on our back.

(Macbeth. Act 5. Scene 5. Macbeth speaking.)

Get thee to a nunnery: why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners?

(Hamlet. Act 3. Scene 1. Hamlet speaking.)

Let the doors be shut upon him, that he may play the fool no where but in’s own house.

(Hamlet. Act 3. Scene 1. Hamlet speaking.)

Come, come, and sit you down; you shall not budge;
You go not till I set you up a glass
Where you may see the inmost part of you.

(Hamlet. Act 3. Scene 4. Hamlet speaking.)

Leave wringing of your hands: peace! Sit you down,
And let me wring your heart; for so I shall,
If it be made of penetrable stuff,

(Hamlet. Act 3. Scene 4. Hamlet speaking.)

O, step between her and her fighting soul:
Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works:

(Hamlet. Act 3. Scene 4. Ghost of Hamlet’s Father speaking.)

QUEEN GERTRUDE

O Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain.

HAMLET

O, throw away the worser part of it,
And live the purer with the other half.

(Hamlet. Act 3. Scene 4. Hamlet speaking.)

Assume a virtue, if you have it not.

(Hamlet. Act 3. Scene 4. Hamlet speaking.
Come, my coach! Good night, ladies; good night, sweet ladies;
good night, good night.

(Hamlet. Act 4. Scene 5. Ophelia speaking.)

Lay her i’ the earth:
And from her fair and unpolluted flesh
May violets spring! I tell thee, churlish priest,
A ministering angel shall my sister be,
When thou liest howling.

(Hamlet. Act 5. Scene 1. Laertes speaking.)

Be buried quick with her, and so will I:

(Hamlet. Act 5. Scene 1. Hamlet speaking.)

Go, bid the soldiers shoot.

(Hamlet. Act 5. Scene 2. Fortinbras speaking.)

Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! Rage! Blow!
You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout
Till you have drench’d our steeples, drown’d the cocks!
You sulphurous and thought-executing fires,
Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts,
Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder,
Smite flat the thick rotundity o’ the world!
Crack nature’s moulds, an germens spill at once,
That make ingrateful man!

(King Lear. Act 3. Scene 2. Lear speaking.)

Note: Germens, germs, seeds.

Put out the light, and then put out the light:
If I quench thee, thou flaming minister,
I can again thy former light restore,
Should I repent me: but once put out thy light,
Thou cunning’st pattern of excelling nature,
I know not where is that Promethean heat
That can thy light relume.

(Othello. Act 5. Scene 2. Othello speaking.)

O sun,
Burn the great sphere thou movest in!
Darkling stand
The varying shore o’ the world.

(Antony and Cleopatra. Act 4. Scene 15. Cleopatra speaking.)

With thy sharp teeth this knot intrinsicate
Of life at once untie:

(Antony and Cleopatra. Act 5. Scene 2. Cleopatra speaking.)

Note: Intrinsicate, intricate.

No more be grieved at that which thou hast done:
Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud;
Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun,
And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud.

(Sonnet 35)

Be wise as thou art cruel; do not press
My tongue-tied patience with too much disdain;

(Sonnet 140)

Compassion, Empathy, Mercy and Forgiveness

O, I have suffered
With those that I saw suffer

(The Tempest. Act 1. Scene 2. Miranda speaking.)

O, the cry did knock against my very heart!

(The Tempest. Act 1. Scene 2. Miranda speaking.)

The direful spectacle of the wreck, which touch’d
The very virtue of compassion in thee

(The Tempest. Act 1. Scene 2. Prospero speaking.)

I would the lightning had
Burnt up those logs that you are enjoin’d to pile!
Pray, set it down and rest you: when this burns,
‘Twill weep for having wearied you.

(The Tempest. Act 3. Scene 1. Miranda speaking.)

Your charm so strongly works ‘em
That if you now beheld them, your affections
Would become tender.

PROSPERO

Dost thou think so, spirit?

ARIEL

Mine would, sir, were I human.

(The Tempest. Act 5. Scene 1. Ariel and Prospero speaking.)

I am sorry for thee: thou art come to answer
A stony adversary, an inhuman wretch
uncapable of pity, void and empty
From any dram of mercy.

(The Merchant of Venice. Act 3. Scene 2. Portia speaking.)

The quality of mercy is not strain’d,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath:

(The Merchant of Venice. Act 4. Scene 1. Portia speaking.)

I have forgiven and forgotten all;

(All’s Well That Ends Well. Act 5. Scene 3. King speaking.)

O, the most piteous cry of the poor souls! Sometimes to see ‘em, and not to see ‘em; now the ship boring the moon with her main-mast, and anon swallowed with yeast and froth, as you’d thrust a cork into a hogshead.

(The Winter’s Tale. Act 3. Scene 3. Clown speaking.)

He hath a tear for pity and a hand
Open as day for melting charity:

(King Henry the Fourth Part 2. Act 4. Scene 4. Henry speaking.)

Wilt thou draw near the nature of the gods?
Draw near them then in being merciful:
Sweet mercy is nobility’s true badge:

(Titus Andronicus. Act 1. Scene 1. Tamora speaking.)

Mercy but murders, pardoning those that kill.

(Romeo and Juliet. Act 3. Scene 1. Escalus speaking.)

…Yet do I fear thy nature;
It is too full o’ the milk of human kindness
To catch the nearest way: thou wouldst be great;
Art not without ambition, but without
The illness should attend it: what thou wouldst highly,
That wouldst thou holily; wouldst not play false,
And yet wouldst wrongly win:

(Macbeth. Act 1. Scene 5. Lady Macbeth speaking.)

What if this cursed hand
Were thicker than itself with brother’s blood,
Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens
To wash it white as snow? Whereto serves mercy
But to confront the visage of offence?

(Hamlet. Act 3. Scene 3. Claudius speaking.)

I must be cruel, only to be kind:

(Hamlet. Act 3. Scene 4. Hamlet speaking.)

O, reason not the need:

(King Lear. Act 2. Scene 4. Lear speaking.)

Is there any cause in nature that makes these hard hearts?

(King Lear. Act 3. Scene 6. Lear speaking.)

…Mine enemy’s dog,
Though he had bit me, should have stood that night
Against my fire;

(King Lear. Act 4. Scene 7. Cordelia speaking.)

Pray you now, forget and forgive:

(King Lear. Act 4. Scene 7. Lear speaking.)

She loved me for the dangers I had pass’d,
And I loved her that she did pity them.
This only is the witchcraft I have used:

(Othello. Act 1. Scene 3. Othello speaking.)

…but yet the pity of it, Iago! O Iago, the pity of it, Iago!

(Othello. Act 4. Scene 1. Iago speaking.)

…but if there be
Yet left in heaven as small a drop of pity
As a wren’s eye, fear’d gods, a part of it!

(Cymbeline. Act 4. Scene 2. Imogen speaking.)

Pardon’s the word to all.

(Cymbeline. Act 5. Scene 5. Cymbeline speaking.)

Compliments and their Opposites

There’s nothing ill can dwell in such a temple:
If the ill spirit have so fair a house,
Good things will strive to dwell with’t.

(The Tempest. Act 1. Scene 2. Miranda speaking.)

To the most of men this is a Caliban
And they to him are angels.

MIRANDA

My affections
Are then most humble; I have no ambition
To see a goodlier man.

(The Tempest. Act 1. Scene 2. Prospero and Miranda speaking.)

ANTONIO

He misses not much.

SEBASTIAN

No; he doth but mistake the truth totally.

(The Tempest. Act 2. Scene 1. Antonio and Sebastian speaking)

You are gentlemen of brave mettle; you would lift
the moon out of her sphere, if she would continue
in it five weeks without changing.

(The Tempest. Act 2. Scene 1. Gonzalo speaking.)

…this lord of weak remembrance

(The Tempest. Act 2. Scene 1. Antonio speaking.)

Though thou canst swim like a
duck, thou art made like a goose.

(The Tempest. Act 2. Scene 2. Stephano speaking.)

That’s a brave god and bears celestial liquor.

(The Tempest. Act 2. Scene 2. Caliban speaking.)

…but you, O you,
So perfect and so peerless, are created
Of every creature’s best!

(The Tempest. Act 3. Scene 1.Ferdinand speaking.)

They say there’s but five upon this isle: we are three
of them; if th’ other two be brained like us, the
state totters.

(The Tempest. Act 3. Scene 2. Trinculo speaking.)

Who though they are of monstrous shape, yet, note,
Their manners are more gentle-kind than of
Our human generation you shall find
Many, nay, almost any.

(The Tempest. Act 3. Scene 3. Gonzalo speaking.)

...a grace it had, devouring.

(The Tempest. Act 3. Scene 3. Prospero speaking.)

So rare a wonder’d father and a wise
Makes this place Paradise.

(The Tempest. Act 4. Scene 1. Prospero speaking.)

A devil, a born devil, on whose nature
Nurture can never stick; on whom my pains,
Humanely taken, all, all lost, quite lost;

(The Tempest. Act 4. Scene 1. Prospero speaking.)

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. Miranda and Prospero speaking.)

Why, man, she is mine own,
And I as rich in having such a jewel
As twenty seas, if all their sand were pearl,
The water nectar and the rocks pure gold.

(The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Act 2. Scene 4. Valentine speaking.)

Thou subtle, perjured, false, disloyal man!

(The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Act 4. Scene 2. Silvia speaking.)

There is Anne Page, which is daughter to Master Thomas
Page, which is pretty virginity.

(The Merry Wives of Windsor. Act 1. Scene 1. Evans speaking.)

Thou art the Mars of malcontents: I second thee; troop on.

(The Merry Wives of Windsor. Act 1. Scene 3. Pistol  speaking.)

Come, I cannot cog and say thou art this and that, like a many of these lisping hawthorn-buds, that come like women in men’s apparel, and smell like Bucklersbury in simple time;

(The Merry Wives of Windsor. Act 3. Scene 3. Falstaff speaking.)

Note: Bucklersbury; a street where apothecaries sold herbs.

Grace is grace, despite of all controversy; as, for example, thou thyself art a wicked villain, despite of all grace.

(Measure for Measure. Act 1. Scene 2. Lucio speaking.)

The hand that hath made you fair hath made you good:

(Measure for Measure. Act 3. Scene 1. Duke Vincentio speaking.)

They brought one Pinch, a hungry lean-faced villain,
A mere anatomy, a mountebank,
A threadbare juggler and a fortune-teller,
A needy, hollow-eyed, sharp-looking wretch,
A dead-looking man:

(The Comedy of Errors. Act 5. Scene 1. Antipholus of Ephesus speaking.)

…he is a very valiant trencherman;

(Much Ado About Nothing. Act 1. Scene 1. Beatrice speaking.)

What, my dear Lady Disdain! Are you yet living?

(Much Ado About Nothing. Act 1. Scene 1. Benedick speaking.)

Why, i’ faith, methinks she’s too low for a high
praise, too brown for a fair praise and too little
for a great praise:

(Much Ado About Nothing. Act 1. Scene 1. Benedick speaking.)

She speaks poniards, and every word stabs: if her breath were as terrible as her terminations, there were no living near her; she would infect to the north star.

(Much Ado About Nothing. Act 2. Scene 1. Benedick speaking.)

‘There did I see that low-spirited swain, that base minnow of thy mirth,’

COSTARD

Me?

FERDINAND

(Reads) ‘…that unlettered small-knowing soul,’

COSTARD

Me?

FERDINAND

‘…that shallow vassal,’

COSTARD

Still me?

FERDINAND

‘…which, as I remember, hight Costard,’

COSTARD

O, me!

(Love’s Labours Lost. Act 1. Scene 1. King Ferdinand and Costard speaking.)

O happy fair!
Your eyes are lode-stars; and your tongue’s sweet air
More tuneable than lark to shepherd’s ear,
When wheat is green, when hawthorn buds appear.

(A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Act 1. Scene 1. Hermia speaking.)

Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania.

(A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Act 2. Scene 1. Oberon speaking.)

Get you gone, you dwarf;
You minimus, of hindering knot-grass made;
You bead, you acorn.

(A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Act 3. Scene 2. Lysander speaking.)

If he, compact of jars, grow musical,
We shall have shortly discord in the spheres.

(As You Like It. Act 2. Scene 7. Duke Senior speaking.)

What stature is she of?

ORLANDO

Just as high as my heart.

JAQUES

You are full of pretty answers. Have you not been
acquainted with goldsmiths’ wives, and conned them
out of rings?

(As You Like It. Act 3. Scene 2. Jacques and Orlando speaking.)

Where dwell you, pretty youth?

ROSALIND

With this shepherdess, my sister; here in the skirts of the forest, like fringe upon a petticoat.

(As You Like It. Act 3. Scene 2. Rosalind speaking.)

Thou hast a lady far more beautiful
Than any woman in this waning age.

(The Taming of the Shrew. Induction. Scene 2. A Lord speaking.)

Sacred and sweet was all I saw in her.

(The Taming of the Shrew. Act 1. Scene 1. Lucentio speaking.)

You lie, in faith; for you are call’d plain Kate,
And bonny Kate and sometimes Kate the curst;
But Kate, the prettiest Kate in Christendom
Kate of Kate Hall, my super-dainty Kate,
For dainties are all Kates, and therefore, Kate,
Take this of me, Kate of my consolation;
Hearing thy mildness praised in every town,
Thy virtues spoke of, and thy beauty sounded,
Yet not so deeply as to thee belongs,
Myself am moved to woo thee for my wife.

(The Taming of the Shrew. Act 2. Scene 1. Petruchio speaking.)

Why does the world report that Kate doth limp?
O slanderous world! Kate like the hazel-twig
Is straight and slender and as brown in hue
As hazel nuts and sweeter than the kernels.

(The Taming of the Shrew. Act 2. Scene 1. Petruchio speaking.)

No, no, no, your son was misled with a snipt-taffeta fellow there, whose villanous saffron would have made all the unbaked and doughy youth of a nation in his colour:

(All’s Well That Ends Well. Act 4. Scene 5. Lafeu speaking.)

He lost a wife
Whose beauty did astonish the survey
Of richest eyes, whose words all ears took captive,
Whose dear perfection hearts that scorn’d to serve
Humbly call’d mistress.

KING

Praising what is lost
Makes the remembrance dear.

(All’s Well That Ends Well. Act 5. Scene 3. Lafeu and the King speaking.)

….he does it with a better grace, but I do it more natural.

(Twelfth Night. Act 2. Scene 3. Sir Andrew Aguecheek speaking.)

It is an heretic that makes the fire,
Not she which burns in’t.

(The Winter’s Tale. Act 2. Scene 3. Paulina speaking.)

What you do
Still betters what is done. When you speak, sweet.
I’d have you do it ever: when you sing,
I’d have you buy and sell so, so give alms,
Pray so; and, for the ord’ring your affairs,
To sing them too: when you do dance, I wish you
A wave o’ the sea, that you might ever do
Nothing but that; move still, still so,
And own no other function: each your doing,
So singular in each particular,
Crowns what you are doing in the present deeds,
That all your acts are queens.

(The Winter’s Tale. Act 4. Scene 4. Perdita speaking.)

…too true, my lord:
If, one by one, you wedded all the world,
Or from the all that are took something good,
To make a perfect woman, she you kill’d
Would be unparallel’d.

(The Winter’s Tale. Act 5. Scene 1. Paulina speaking.)

Stars, stars,
And all eyes else dead coals!

(The Winter’s Tale. Act 5. Scene 1. Leontes speaking.)

Ay, the most peerless piece of earth, I think,
That e’er the sun shone bright on.

(The Winter’s Tale. Act 5. Scene 1. Gentleman speaking.)

…for she was as tender
As infancy and grace.

(The Winter’s Tale. Act 5. Scene 3. Leontes speaking.)

…every wretch, pining and pale before,
Beholding him, plucks comfort from his looks:
A largess universal like the sun
His liberal eye doth give to every one,
Thawing cold fear, that mean and gentle all,
Behold, as may unworthiness define,
A little touch of Harry in the night.

(King Henry the Fifth. Prologue to Act 4. Chorus speaking.)

I, that am rudely stamp’d, and want love’s majesty
To strut before a wanton ambling nymph;
I, that am curtail’d of this fair proportion,
Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,
Deformed, unfinish’d, sent before my time
Into this breathing world, scarce half made up,
And that so lamely and unfashionable
That dogs bark at me as I halt by them;
Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace,
Have no delight to pass away the time,
Unless to spy my shadow in the sun
And descant on mine own deformity:

(King Richard the Third. Act 1. Scene 1. Richard Duke of Gloucester speaking.)

A sweeter and a lovelier gentleman,
Framed in the prodigality of nature,
Young, valiant, wise, and, no doubt, right royal,
The spacious world cannot again afford,

(King Richard the Third. Act 1. Scene 2. Richard Duke of Gloucester speaking.)

Hear you this Triton of the minnows? Mark you
His absolute ‘shall’?

(Coriolanus. Act 3. Scene 1. Coriolanus speaking.)

That shows thee a weak slave; for the weakest goes
to the wall.

(Romeo and Juliet. Act 1 Scene 1. Gregory speaking.)

She will not stay the siege of loving terms,
Nor bide the encounter of assailing eyes,
Nor ope her lap to saint-seducing gold:
O, she is rich in beauty,

(Romeo and Juliet. Act 1. Scene 1. Romeo speaking.)

But, soft! What light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.

(Romeo and Juliet. Act 2. Scene 2. Romeo speaking.)

BENVOLIO

Why, what is Tybalt?

MERCUTIO

More than prince of cats, I can tell you. O, he is the courageous captain of compliments.

(Romeo and Juliet. Act 2. Scene 4. Mercutio speaking.)

(Enter Nurse and her man, Peter)

MERCUTIO

A sail, a sail!

BENVOLIO

Two, two; a shirt and a smock.

(Romeo and Juliet. Act 2. Scene 4. Mercutio and Benvolio speaking.)

This was the noblest Roman of them all:
All the conspirators save only he
Did that they did in envy of great Caesar;
He only, in a general honest thought
And common good to all, made one of them.
His life was gentle, and the elements
So mix’d in him that Nature might stand up
And say to all the world ‘This was a man!’

(Julius Caesar. Act 5. Scene 5. Antony speaking.)

Thou art the best o’ the cut-throats;

(Macbeth. Act 3. Scene 4. Macbeth speaking.)

Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice
And could of men distinguish, her election
Hath seal’d thee for herself; for thou hast been
As one, in suffering all, that suffers nothing,
A man that fortune’s buffets and rewards
Hast ta’en with equal thanks: and blest are those
Whose blood and judgment are so well commingled,
That they are not a pipe for fortune’s finger
To sound what stop she please. Give me that man
That is not passion’s slave, and I will wear him
In my heart’s core, ay, in my heart of heart,
As I do thee.

(Hamlet. Act 3. Scene 2. Hamlet speaking.)

See, what a grace was seated on this brow;
Hyperion’s curls; the front of Jove himself;
An eye like Mars, to threaten and command;
A station like the herald Mercury
New-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill;
A combination and a form indeed,
Where every god did seem to set his seal,
To give the world assurance of a man:
This was your husband.

(Hamlet. Act 3. Scene 4. Hamlet speaking.)

….Have you eyes?
Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed,
And batten on this moor?

(Hamlet. Act 3. Scene 4. Hamlet speaking.)

Cordelia, Cordelia! stay a little. Ha!
What is’t thou say’st? Her voice was ever soft,
Gentle, and low, an excellent thing in woman.
I kill’d the slave that was a-hanging thee.

(King Lear. Act 5. Scene 3. Lear speaking.)

DESDEMONA

What wouldst thou write of me, if thou shouldst
praise me?

IAGO

O gentle lady, do not put me to’t;
For I am nothing, if not critical.

(Othello. Act 2. Scene 1. Iago speaking.)

To suckle fools and chronicle small beer.

(Othello. Act 2. Scene 1. Iago speaking.)

I cry you mercy, then:
I took you for that cunning whore of Venice
That married with Othello. – You, mistress,
That have the office opposite to Saint Peter,
And keep the gate of hell!

(Othello. Act 4. Scene 2. Othello speaking.)

Thou art rash as fire, to say
That she was false: O, she was heavenly true!

(Othello. Act 5. Scene 2. Emilia speaking.)

Fie, wrangling queen!
Whom every thing becomes, to chide, to laugh,
To weep; whose every passion fully strives
To make itself, in thee, fair and admired!
No messenger, but thine; and all alone
To-night we’ll wander through the streets and note
The qualities of people. Come, my queen;

(Antony and Cleopatra. Act 1. Scene 1. Antony speaking.)

The demi-Atlas of this earth, the arm
And burgonet of men. He’s speaking now,
Or murmuring ‘Where’s my serpent of old Nile?’
For so he calls me: now I feed myself
With most delicious poison.

(Antony and Cleopatra. Act 1. Scene 5. Cleopatra speaking.)

I will tell you.
The barge she sat in, like a burnish’d throne,
Burn’d on the water: the poop was beaten gold;
Purple the sails, and so perfumed that
The winds were love-sick with them; the oars were silver,
Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made
The water which they beat to follow faster,
As amorous of their strokes. For her own person,
It beggar’d all description:

(Antony and Cleopatra. Act 2. Scene 2. Enobarbus speaking.)

Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale
Her infinite variety:

(Antony and Cleopatra. Act 2. Scene 2. Enobarbus speaking.)

Now boast thee, death, in thy possession lies
A lass unparallel’d. Downy windows, close;
And golden Phoebus never be beheld
Of eyes again so royal! Your crown’s awry;
I’ll mend it, and then play –

(Antony and Cleopatra. Act 5. Scene 2. Charmian speaking.)

All of her that is out of door most rich!
If she be furnish’d with a mind so rare,
She is alone the Arabian bird, and I
Have lost the wager.

(Cymbeline. Act 1. Scene 6. Iachimo speaking.)

By Jupiter, an angel! Or, if not,
An earthly paragon! Behold divineness
No elder than a boy!

(Cymbeline. Act 3. Scene 6. Belarius speaking.)

Falseness cannot come from thee; for thou look’st
Modest as Justice, and thou seem’st a palace
For the crown’d Truth to dwell in:

(Pericles, Prince of Tyre. Act 5. Scene 1. Pericles speaking.)

Thou that art now the world’s fresh ornament
And only herald to the gaudy spring,

(Sonnet 1)

My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips’ red;

(Sonnet 130)

For I have sworn thee fair and thought thee bright,
Who art as black as hell, as dark as night.

(Sonnet 147)

Conscience and Doubt

SEBASTIAN

But, for your conscience?

ANTONIO

Ay, sir; where lies that?

(The Tempest. Act 2. Scene 1. Sebastian and Antonio speaking.)

Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt.

(Measure for Measure. Act 1. Scene 4. Lucio speaking.)

…well, my conscience says ‘Launcelot, budge not.’ ‘Budge,’ says the
fiend. ‘Budge not,’ says my conscience. ‘Conscience,’ say I, ‘you counsel well;’ ‘ Fiend,’ say I, ‘you counsel well:’

(The Merchant of Venice. Act 2. Scene 2. Launcelot speaking.)

I can no other answer make but thanks,
And thanks; and ever thanks; and oft good turns
Are shuffled off with such uncurrent pay:
But, were my worth as is my conscience firm,
You should find better dealing.

(Twelfth Night. Act 3. Scene 3. Sebastian speaking.)

Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just,
And he but naked, though lock’d up in steel
Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted.

(King Henry the Sixth Part 2. Act 3. Scene 2. The King speaking.)

O coward conscience, how dost thou afflict me!
The lights burn blue. It is now dead midnight.
Cold fearful drops stand on my trembling flesh.
What do I fear? Myself? There’s none else by:
Richard loves Richard; that is, I am I.

(King Richard the Third. Act 5. Scene 3. King Richard speaking.)

Let not our babbling dreams affright our souls:
Conscience is but a word that cowards use,
Devised at first to keep the strong in awe:
Our strong arms be our conscience, swords our law.
March on, join bravely, let us to’t pell-mell
If not to heaven, then hand in hand to hell.

(King Richard the Third. Act 5. Scene 3. King Richard speaking.)

…why do I yield to that suggestion
Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair
And make my seated heart knock at my ribs,
Against the use of nature? Present fears
Are less than horrible imaginings:
My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical,
Shakes so my single state of man that function
Is smother’d in surmise, and nothing is
But what is not.

(Macbeth. Act 1. Scene 3. Macbeth speaking.)

MACBETH

This is a sorry sight.

(Looking on his hands)

LADY MACBETH

A foolish thought, to say a sorry sight.

(Macbeth. Act 2. Scene 2. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth speaking.)

….the play ‘s the thing
Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king.

(Hamlet. Act 2. Scene 2. Hamlet speaking.)

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.

(Hamlet. Act 3. Scene 1. Hamlet speaking.)

O Hamlet, speak no more:
Thou turn’st mine eyes into my very soul;
And there I see such black and grained spots
As will not leave their tinct.

(Hamlet. Act 3. Scene 4. Gertrude speaking.)

O, what damned minutes tells he o’er
Who dotes, yet doubts, suspects, yet strongly loves!

(Othello. Act 3. Scene 3. Othello speaking.)

Love is too young to know what conscience is;
Yet who knows not conscience is born of love?

(Sonnet 151)

Constancy, Trust and Faith

O heaven, were man
But constant, he were perfect! That one error
Fills him with faults; makes him run through all th’ sins:

(The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Act 5. Scene 4. Proteus speaking.)

…he wears his faith but as
the fashion of his hat; it ever changes with the
next block.

(Much Ado About Nothing. Act 1. Scene 1. Beatrice speaking.)

Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more,
Men were deceivers ever,
One foot in sea and one on shore,
To one thing constant never:

(Much Ado About Nothing. Act 2. Scene 3. Balthasar sings.)

You draw me, you hard-hearted adamant;
But yet you draw not iron, for my heart
Is true as steel: leave you your power to draw,
And I shall have no power to follow you.

(A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Act 2. Scene 1. Helena speaking.)

For she is wise, if I can judge of her,
And fair she is, if that mine eyes be true,
And true she is, as she hath proved herself,
And therefore, like herself, wise, fair and true,
Shall she be placed in my constant soul.

(The Merchant of Venice. Act 2. Scene 6. Lorenzo speaking.)

The man that hath no music in himself,
Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils;
The motions of his spirit are dull as night
And his affections dark as Erebus:
Let no such man be trusted.

(The Merchant of Venice. Act 5. Scene 1. Lorenzo speaking.)

‘Tis not the many oaths that makes the truth,
But the plain single vow that is vow’d true.

(All’s Well That Ends Well. Act 4. Scene 2. Diana speaking.)

Prove true, imagination, O, prove true,

(Twelfth Night. Act 3. Scene 4. Viola speaking.)

It is required
You do awake your faith.

(The Winter’s Tale. Act 5. Scene 3. Paulina speaking.)

Had I but served my God with half the zeal
I served my king, he would not in mine age
Have left me naked to mine enemies.

(King Henry the Eighth. Act 3. Scene 2. Wolsey speaking.)

I am as true as truth’s simplicity
And simpler than the infancy of truth.

(Troilus and Cressida. Act 3. Scene 2. Troilus speaking.)

If I profane with my unworthiest hand
This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this:
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.

(Romeo and Juliet. Act 1. Scene 5. Romeo speaking.)

…there is no time so miserable but a man may be true.

(Timon of Athens. Act 4. Scene 3. First Thief speaking.)

There’s no art
To find the mind’s construction in the face:
He was a gentleman on whom I built
An absolute trust.

(Macbeth. Act 1. Scene 4. Malcolm speaking.)

He’s here in double trust;

(Macbeth. Act 1. Scene 7. Macbeth speaking.)

KING LEAR

So young, and so untender?

CORDELIA

So young, my lord, and true.

(King Lear. Act 1. Scene 1. Lear and Cordelia speaking.)

Upon such sacrifices, my Cordelia,
The gods themselves throw incense. Have I caught thee?
He that parts us shall bring a brand from heaven,
And fire us hence like foxes.

(King Lear. Act 5. Scene 3. Lear speaking.)

IMOGEN

Why did you throw your wedded lady from you?
Think that you are upon a rock; and now
Throw me again.

(Embracing him)

POSTHUMUS

Hang there like a fruit, my soul,
Till the tree die!

(Cymbeline. Act 5. Scene 5. Imogen and Posthumus speaking.)

‘Fair, kind and true’ is all my argument,
‘Fair, kind, and true’ varying to other words;
And in this change is my invention spent,

(Sonnet 105)

Courage and Cowardice

How many cowards, whose hearts are all as false
As stairs of sand, wear yet upon their chins
The beards of Hercules and frowning Mars;
Who, inward search’d, have livers white as milk;

(The Merchant of Venice. Act 3. Scene 2. Bassanio speaking.)

We’ll have a swashing and a martial outside,
As many other mannish cowards have
That do outface it with their semblances.

(As You Like It. Act 1. Scene 3. Rosalind speaking.)

…he’s a great quarreller: and but that he hath the gift of a coward to allay the gust he hath in quarrelling, ‘tis thought among the prudent he would quickly have the gift of a grave.

(Twelfth Night. Act 1. Scene 3. Maria speaking.)

….only to exasperate you; to awake your dormouse valour; to put fire in your heart and brimstone in your liver.

(Twelfth Night. Act 3. Scene 2. Fabian speaking.)

…and assure thyself, there is no love-broker in the world can more prevail in man’s commendation with woman than report of valour.

(Twelfth Night. Act 3. Scene 2. Sir Toby Belch speaking.)

For courage mounteth with occasion:

(King John. Act 2. Scene 1. King Philip speaking.)

‘The purpose you undertake is dangerous;’…Why, that’s certain: ‘tis dangerous to take a cold, to sleep, to drink; but I tell you, my lord fool, out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.

(King Henry the Fourth Part 1. Act 2. Scene 3. Hotspur speaking.)

Why, thou knowest I am as valiant as Hercules: but beware instinct; the lion will not touch the true prince. Instinct is a great matter; I was now a coward on instinct.

(King Henry the Fourth Part 1. Act 2. Scene 4. Falstaff speaking.)

The better part of valour is discretion; in the which better part I have saved my life.

(King Henry the Fourth Part 1. Act 5. Scene 4. Falstaff speaking.)

….Full bravely hast thou flesh’d
Thy maiden sword.

(King Henry the Fourth Part 1. Act 5. Scene 4. Prince Hal speaking.)

For Nym, he hath heard that men of few words are the best men; and therefore he scorns to say his prayers, lest a’ should be thought a coward:

(King Henry the Fifth. Act 3. Scene 2. Boy speaking.)

You may as well say, that’s a valiant flea that dare eat his breakfast on the lip of a lion.

(King Henry the Fifth. Act 3. Scene 7. Orleans speaking.)

Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.
Of all the wonders that I yet have heard.
It seems to me most strange that men should fear;
Seeing that death, a necessary end,
Will come when it will come.

(Julius Caesar. Act 2. Scene 2. Caesar speaking.)

…Art thou afeard
To be the same in thine own act and valour
As thou art in desire? Wouldst thou have that
Which thou esteem’st the ornament of life,
And live a coward in thine own esteem,
Letting ‘I dare not’ wait upon ‘I would,’
Like the poor cat i’ the adage?

(Macbeth. Act 1. Scene 7. Lady Macbeth speaking.)

MACBETH

If we should fail?

LADY MACBETH

We fail!
But screw your courage to the sticking-place,
And we’ll not fail.

(Macbeth. Act 1. Scene 7. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth speaking.)

This is the very painting of your fear:
This is the air-drawn dagger which, you said,
Led you to Duncan. O, these flaws and starts,
Impostors to true fear, would well become
A woman’s story at a winter’s fire,

(Macbeth. Act 3. Scene 4. Lady Macbeth speaking.)

Fie, my lord, fie! A soldier, and afeard?

(Macbeth. Act 5. Scene 1. Lady Macbeth  speaking.)

I have almost forgot the taste of fears;
The time has been, my senses would have cool’d
To hear a night-shriek; and my fell of hair
Would at a dismal treatise rouse and stir
As life were in’t: I have supp’d full with horrors;
Direness, familiar to my slaughterous thoughts
Cannot once start me.

(Macbeth. Act 5. Scene 5. Macbeth speaking.)

Why, what should be the fear?
I do not set my life in a pin’s fee;
And for my soul, what can it do to that,
Being a thing immortal as itself?

(Hamlet. Act 1. Scene 4. Hamlet speaking.)

What, frighted with false fire!

(Hamlet. Act 3. Scene 2. Hamlet speaking.)

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;’
Sith I have cause and will and strength and means
To do’t.

(Hamlet. Act 4. Scene 4. Hamlet speaking.)

Crime, Punishment, Justice and the Law

No, not so much perdition as an hair

(The Tempest. Act 1. Scene 2. Prospero speaking.)

We must not make a scarecrow of the law,
Setting it up to fear the birds of prey,
And let it keep one shape, till custom make it
Their perch and not their terror.

(Measure for Measure. Act 2. Scene 1. Lucio speaking.)

The jury, passing on the prisoner’s life,
May in the sworn twelve have a thief or two
Guiltier than him they try.

(Measure for Measure. Act 2. Scene 1. Angelo speaking.)

Condemn the fault and not the actor of it!
Why, every fault’s condemn’d ere it be done:

(Measure for Measure. Act 2. Scene 2. Angelo speaking.)

Every true man’s apparel fits your thief: if it be
too little for your thief, your true man thinks it
big enough; if it be too big for your thief, your
thief thinks it little enough:

(Measure for Measure. Act 4. Scene 2. Abhorson speaking.)

Haste still pays haste, and leisure answers leisure;
Like doth quit like, and Measure still for Measure.

(Measure for Measure. Act 5. Scene 1. Duke Vincentio speaking.)

They say, best men are moulded out of faults;
And, for the most, become much more the better
For being a little bad:

(Measure for Measure. Act 5. Scene 1. Mariana speaking.)

ADRIANA

Where is thy master, Dromio? Is he well?

DROMIO OF SYRACUSE

No, he’s in Tartar limbo, worse than hell.
A devil in an everlasting garment hath him;
One whose hard heart is button’d up with steel;
A fiend, a fury, pitiless and rough;
A wolf, nay, worse, a fellow all in buff;
A back-friend, a shoulder-clapper, one that countermands
The passages of alleys, creeks and narrow lands;
A hound that runs counter and yet draws dry-foot well;
One that before the judgement carries poor souls to hell.

(The Comedy of Errors. Act 2. Scene 1. Adriana and Dromio of Syracuse speaking.)

FERDINAND

Sir, I will pronounce your sentence: you shall fast a week with bran and water.

COSTARD

I had rather pray a month with mutton and porridge.

(Love’s Labours Lost. Act 1. Scene 1. King Ferdinand and Costard speaking.)

Either to die the death or to abjure
For ever the society of men.
Therefore, fair Hermia, question your desires;
Know of your youth, examine well your blood,
Whether, if you yield not to your father’s choice,
You can endure the livery of a nun,
For aye to be in shady cloister mew’d,
To live a barren sister all your life,
Chanting faint hymns to the cold fruitless moon.
Thrice-blessed they that master so their blood,
To undergo such maiden pilgrimage;
But earthlier happy is the rose distill’d,
Than that which withering on the virgin thorn
Grows, lives and dies in single blessedness.

(A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Act 1. Scene 1. Theseus speaking.)

That would hang us, every mother’s son.

(A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Act 1. Scene 1. All speaking.)

The brain may devise laws for the blood, but a hot temper leaps
o’er a cold decree

(The Merchant of Venice. Act 1. Scene 2. Portia speaking.)

…truth will come to light; murder cannot be hid long; a man’s son
may, but at the length truth will out.

(The Merchant of Venice. Act 2. Scene 2. Launcelot speaking.)

I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?

(The Merchant of Venice. Act 3. Scene 1. Shylock speaking.)

A Daniel come to judgment! Yea, a Daniel!
O wise young judge, how I do honour thee!

(The Merchant of Venice. Act 4. Scene 1. Shylock speaking.)

For, as thou urgest justice, be assured
Thou shalt have justice, more than thou desirest.

(The Merchant of Venice. Act 4. Scene 1. Shylock speaking.)

Well, Time is the old justice that examines all such
offenders, and let Time try:

(As You Like It. Act 4. Scene 1. Orlando and Rosalind speaking.)

I’ll answer him by law: I’ll not budge an inch, boy;

(The Taming of the Shrew. Induction. Scene 1. Sly speaking.)

And do as adversaries do in law,
Strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends.

(The Taming of the Shrew. Act 1. Scene 2. Tranio speaking.)

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.

(All’s Well That Ends Well. Act 4. Scene 3. Second Lord speaking.)

FABIAN

I will prove it legitimate, sir, upon the oaths of
judgment and reason.

SIR TOBY BELCH

And they have been grand-jury-men since before Noah
was a sailor.

(Twelfth Night. Act 3. Scene 2. Fabian and Sir Toby Belch speaking.)

Still you keep o’ the windy side of the law:

(Twelfth Night. Act 3. Scene 4. Fabian speaking.)

A thousand knees
Ten thousand years together, naked, fasting,
Upon a barren mountain and still winter
In storm perpetual, could not move the gods
To look that way thou wert.

(The Winter’s Tale. Act 3. Scene 2. Paulina speaking.)

How oft the sight of means to do ill deeds
Make deeds ill done!

(King John. Act 4. Scene 2. King John speaking.)

…for we that take purses go by the moon and the seven stars, and not by Phoebus,

(King Henry the Fourth Part 1. Act 1. Scene 2. Falstaff speaking.)

PRINCE HENRY

I see a good amendment of life in thee; from praying
to purse-taking.

FALSTAFF

Why, Hal, ‘tis my vocation, Hal; ‘tis no sin for a
man to labour in his vocation.

(King Henry the Fourth Part 1. Act 1. Scene 2. Prince Hal and Falstaff speaking.)

The breath no sooner left his father’s body,
But that his wildness, mortified in him,
Seem’d to die too; yea, at that very moment
Consideration, like an angel, came
And whipp’d the offending Adam out of him,

(King Henry the Fifth. Act 1. Scene 1. Archbishop of Canterbury speaking.)

…I will weep for thee;
For this revolt of thine, methinks, is like
Another fall of man. Their faults are open:
Arrest them to the answer of the law;
And God acquit them of their practises!

(King Henry the Fifth. Act 2. Scene 2. King Henry speaking.)

Between two horses, which doth bear him best;
Between two girls, which hath the merriest eye;
I have perhaps some shallow spirit of judgement;
But in these nice sharp quillets of the law,
Good faith, I am no wiser than a daw.

(King Henry the Sixth Part 1. Act 2. Scene 4. Warwick speaking.)

DICK

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

CADE

Nay, that I mean to do. Is not this a lamentable thing, that of the skin of an innocent lamb should be made parchment? That parchment, being scribbled o’er, should undo a man?

(King Henry the Sixth Part 2. Act 4. Scene 2. Dick and Cade speaking.)

Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind;
The thief doth fear each bush an officer.

(King Henry the Sixth Part 3. Act 5. Scene 6. Gloucester speaking.)

Off with his head!

(King Richard the Third. Act 3. Scene 4. Gloucester speaking.)

Let’s kill him boldly, but not wrathfully;
Let’s carve him as a dish fit for the gods,
Not hew him as a carcass fit for hounds:

(Julius Caesar. Act 2. Scene 1. Brutus speaking.)

Stars, hide your fires;
Let not light see my black and deep desires:
The eye wink at the hand;

(Macbeth. Act 1. Scene 4. Macbeth speaking.)

Is this a dagger I see before me,
The handle toward my hand?

(Macbeth. Act 2. Scene 1. Macbeth speaking.)

Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood
Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather
The multitudinous seas in incarnadine,
Making the green one red.

(Macbeth. Act 2. Scene 2. Macbeth speaking.)

I had thought to have let in some of all professions that go the primrose way to the everlasting bonfire.

(Macbeth. Act 2. Scene 3. Porter speaking.)

Confusion now hath made his masterpiece!
Most sacrilegious murder hath broke ope
The Lord’s anointed temple, and stole thence
The life o’ the building!

(Macbeth. Act 2. Scene 3. Macduff speaking.)

Where we are, there’s daggers in men’s smiles:

(Macbeth. Act 2. Scene 3. Macbeth speaking.)

Blood hath been shed ere now, i’ the olden time,
Ere human statute purged the gentle weal;
Ay, and since too, murders have been perform’d
Too terrible for the ear: the times have been,
That, when the brains were out, the man would die,
And there an end; but now they rise again,
With twenty mortal murders on their crowns,
And push us from our stools

(Macbeth. Act 3. Scene 4. Macbeth speaking.)

…I am in blood
Stepp’d in so far that, should I wade no more,
Returning were as tedious as go o’er:

(Macbeth. Act 3. Scene 4. Macbeth speaking.)

Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him.

(Macbeth. Act 5. Scene 1. Lady Macbeth  speaking.)

…foul deeds will rise,
Though all the earth o’erwhelm them, to men’s eyes.

(Hamlet. Act 1. Scene 2. Hamlet speaking.)

Murder most foul, as in the best it is;
But this most foul, strange and unnatural.

(Hamlet. Act 1. Scene 5. Ghost of Hamlet’s Father speaking.)

O villain, villain, smiling, damned villain!
My tables,--meet it is I set it down,
That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain;

(Hamlet. Act 1. Scene 5. Hamlet speaking.)

…use every man after his desert, and who should ‘scape whipping?

(Hamlet. Act 2. Scene 2. Hamlet speaking.)

I am myself indifferent honest; but yet I could accuse me of such things that it were better my mother had not borne me: I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious, with more offences at my beck than I have thoughts to put them in, imagination to give them shape, or time to act them in. What should such fellows as I do crawling between earth and heaven? We are arrant knaves, all; believe none of us.