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Shakespeare Quotes

"The quality of mercy is not strain'd.
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath.
It is twice blest:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes."

--From The Merchant of Venice - 1596 - Act IV. - Scene 1. - Rows:184-186
Portia speaks these famous words in the pivotal trial scene. Disguised as a lawyer, she advances the idea that "mercy" benefits the person who grants it as much as, if not more than, the person to whom it is extended. She presents it as a Godlike quality, and juxtaposes it with the concept of "justice". Both, she argues, are ingredients in a fair judgement. Of course when this argument fails to accomplish her ends she turns to another, and agrees to the extraction of a "pound of flesh". Fortunately she points out that the flesh must be procured without taking an ounce more or less, and without a drop of blood being shed, and so she is ultimately successful.		 "To be, or not to be,--that is the question:--
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them?"

--From Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - 1601 - Act III. - Scene 1. - Rows: 56-61

Perhaps the most famous soliloquy in literature, these words reflect the state of desperation in which Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark, finds himself as he contemplates suicide. His father, the King, has died. His mother, the Queen, has remarried within a month of the King's passing, an act which has disturbed young Hamlet in and of itself. To make it worse, she has married the King's brother, Hamlet's uncle, who is now the King of Denmark. As Hamlet's despair deepens, he learns (through the appearance of an apparition of his dead father) that the old King was murdered by the new King. Hamlet's growing awareness of the betrayal of his mother and evil of Claudius leads to a deepening depression and madness. This soliloquy contains the famous words "Thus conscience does make cowards of us all", hinting that the "dread of something after death"-purgatory, hell, perhaps-is what keeps Hamlet alive to avenge his father.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

--From Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - 1601 - Act I. - Scene 5. - Rows: 166-167

Hamlet speaks these lines to his friend Horatio. The sentries who keep night watch over the castle at Elsinore have seen an apparition of the ghost of the late king of Denmark, Hamlet's father. Although Horatio pleads with the ghost to speak to them, it refuses and disappears at morning light. Horatio tells Hamlet about it the next night, believing that the ghost will only speak with his son. Hamlet goes off with the ghost, where he learns that his father was murdered by his own brother, Claudius, who has now taken the crown for himself. When Hamlet returns to Horatio, who expresses his bewilderment over the apparition, Hamlet points out that ghosts speaking, and brothers murdering, and wives remarrying may exist outside the moral framework of the average man...but that these things occur in the real world. 		"Oh, I am fortune's fool!"

--From Romeo and Juliet - 1595 - Act III. - Scene 1. - Rows: 141

Romeo cries out these words when the full impact of what he has just done, and the consequences to be suffered, strikes him. His secret marriage to Juliet of the Capulet family, his own family's sworn enemy, had earlier prevented him from accepting the challenge of a duel made by Tybalt, Juliet's cousin. Romeo's friend Mercutio cannot stand by and watch Tybalt degrade Romeo, and so he takes up the sword, but is fatally wounded. In a dizzying cloud of grief, Romeo picks up his sword and attacks Tybalt ferociously, killing him. It is when Tybalt falls dead that Romeo realizes what he has done. He also knows he will now be executed (or banished) by the Prince, who had decreed that there would be no more battle between the Capulets and the Montagues.
"All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages."

--From As You Like It - 1598 - Act II. - Scene 7. - Rows: 139-143

Jaques is a libertine-turned-philosopher in this pastoral satire. He has turned to philosophy in his quest for a new identity, and as a philosopher he questions much of what he sees around him, causing him to offer the this oration, which runs considerably longer than the excerpted piece. Jaques sees the world as a stage upon which people perform, and their different ages represent different acts and scenes in the play. His descriptions suggest that the roles are somewhat beyond the players' control and that the script for this play has already been written by an eternal power. In addition, Shakespeare was always aware of his art, and of the theater; and, while this is expressed in nearly every play and sonnet, nothing quite comes as close to this expression than Jaques's oration in As You Like It. 		"What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other word would smell as sweet."

--From Romeo and Juliet - 1595 - Act II. - Scene 2. - Rows: 47-48

"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings."

--FromJulius Caesar - 1599 - Act I. - Scene 2. - Rows: 140-141

Cassius, a nobleman, is speaking with his friend, Brutus, and trying to persuade him that, in the best interests of the public, Julius Caesar must be stopped from becoming monarch of Rome. Brutus is aware of Caesar's intentions, and is torn between his love of his friend Caesar and his duty to the republic. Cassius continues by reminding Brutus that Caesar is just a man, not a god, and that they are equal men to Caesar. They were all born equally free, and so why would they suddenly have to bow to another man? On another level this phrase has been interpreted to mean that fate is not what drives men to their decisions and actions, but rather the human condition.

"Then must you speak Of One that lov'd not wisely but too well."

--From Othello, Moor of Venice - 1604 - Act V. - Scene 2. - Rows: 343-344

The central character speaks these words just before he kills himself in this haunting tragedy of Othello, a Moor in the service of the Duke of Venice. Brave, noble and a skilled military general, Othello has been duped by the villainous Iago into killing his own wife, Desdemona, in a jealous rage. When Othello realizes that Desdemona was a faithful wife, he wounds Iago and then stabs himself. As he lays dying, he begs that when he is remembered in history, people will understand how his obsessive love for his wife drove him to rash and terrible deeds, those of "one not easily jealous, but being wrought/Perplex'd in the extreme; of one whose hand,/Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away." Some have interpreted this passage as Othello's "excuse" for murder, a denial of responsibility which is not entirely consistent with his character. 		"My words fly up, my thoughts remain below:
Words without thoughts never to heaven go."

--From Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - 1601 - Act III. - Scene 3. - Rows: 100-103

In this pivotal scene the King has directed Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to accompany Hamlet to England, thus effectively banishing this troublesome young man. Polonius enters and tells the King that he will conceal himself and spy on the conversation between Hamlet and his mother; and the King then kneels and prays not so much for forgiveness for his "rank" offence in killing his brother, but rather that he will get away with it. Hamlet enters, unseen by the King, and considers killing the King at prayer. He does not, however, fearing that the King will then go to heaven. The King rises from prayer, never having seen Hamlet, and utters the words above, revealing his own knowledge that his prayer is invalid, and consists of words but no true feelings of remorse.

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