Favorite lines from Shakespeare's works

[Chronos]

All from memory, here, so forgive mistakes.

My favorite is from The Tempest (also my favorite play):

Ariel: They are in such a state
  Your heart would burst to see them.
Prospero: Would it, spirit?
Ariel: Mine would, sir, were I human.

Other good ones:

Henry IV, part 1 (can’t remember who the first speaker was):

I can call spirits from the very deep!
Hotspur: As can I. As can any man.
  But when you call, will they answer you?

King Lear:

Fool: The reason that the seven stars are no mo’ than seven is a pretty reason.
Lear: Because they are not eight?
Fool: Aye, you’d make a fine fool.

The trick being, of course, that the Seven Stars are, in fact, eight.

For longer speeches, my favorites are Prospero’s renunciation of his powers (I’ve memorized from “Ye elves of hill, brook, standing lake and grove…” to “…And deeper than did ever plummet sound, I’ll drown my book”) and Marc Antony’s eulogy of Caesar (“The noble Brutus hath said he was ambitious / If it were so, it were a grievous fault”). But I don’t feel like writing either out in full.

[gonzoron]

Yay, Shakespeare!!!

Bernard, of course you have your complete works handy, it’s right here:
http://www.shakespeare.com/FirstFolio/

A lot of my faves are from Henry V. The agincourt speech, “once more unto the breach,” but especially Henry’s courtship of katherine:

Marry, if you would put me to verses or to dance for
your sake, Kate, why you undid me: for the one, I
have neither words nor measure, and for the other, I
have no strength in measure, yet a reasonable
measure in strength. If I could win a lady at
leap-frog, or by vaulting into my saddle with my
armour on my back, under the correction of bragging
be it spoken. I should quickly leap into a wife.
Or if I might buffet for my love, or bound my horse
for her favours, I could lay on like a butcher and
sit like a jack-an-apes, never off. But, before God,
Kate, I cannot look greenly nor gasp out my
eloquence, nor I have no cunning in protestation;
only downright oaths, which I never use till urged,
nor never break for urging. If thou canst love a
fellow of this temper, Kate, whose face is not worth
sun-burning, that never looks in his glass for love
of any thing he sees there, let thine eye be thy
cook. I speak to thee plain soldier: If thou canst
love me for this, take me: if not, to say to thee
that I shall die, is true; but for thy love, by the
Lord, no; yet I love thee too. And while thou
livest, dear Kate, take a fellow of plain and
uncoined constancy; for he perforce must do thee
right, because he hath not the gift to woo in other
places: for these fellows of infinite tongue, that
can rhyme themselves into ladies’ favours, they do
always reason themselves out again. What! a
speaker is but a prater; a rhyme is but a ballad. A
good leg will fall; a straight back will stoop; a
black beard will turn white; a curled pate will grow
bald; a fair face will wither; a full eye will wax
hollow: but a good heart, Kate, is the sun and the
moon; or, rather, the sun, and not the moon; for it
shines bright and never changes, but keeps his
course truly. If thou would have such a one, take
me; and take me, take a soldier; take a soldier,
take a king. And what sayest thou then to my love?
speak, my fair, and fairly, I pray thee.

KATHARINE Is it possible dat I sould love de enemy of France?

KING HENRY V No; it is not possible you should love the enemy of
France, Kate: but, in loving me, you should love
the friend of France; for I love France so well that
I will not part with a village of it; I will have it
all mine: and, Kate, when France is mine and I am
yours, then yours is France and you are mine.

I love the irony. He claims to have no measue in words, but then goes on to spin such beatiful and tricky metaphors. Love it.

That, and the scene with the traitors at Southampton. He shows he’s no longer a foolish child, but a true king. Quietly biding his time and luring them into condemning themselves. Then, and only then, the explosion:

The mercy that was quick in us but late,
By your own counsel is suppress’d and kill’d
You must not dare, for shame, to talk of mercy;
For your own reasons turn into your bosoms,
As dogs upon their masters, worrying you.

Benedick and Beatrice’s trading barbs from Much Ado always makes me chuckle, too.

[Max_Torque]

O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth,
That I am meek and gentle with these butchers!
Thou art the ruins of the noblest man
That ever lived in the tide of times.
Woe to the hand that shed this costly blood!
Over thy wounds now do I prophesy,–
Which, like dumb mouths, do ope their ruby lips,
To beg the voice and utterance of my tongue–
A curse shall light upon the limbs of men;
Domestic fury and fierce civil strife
Shall cumber all the parts of Italy;
Blood and destruction shall be so in use
And dreadful objects so familiar
That mothers shall but smile when they behold
Their infants quarter’d with the hands of war;
All pity choked with custom of fell deeds:
And Caesar’s spirit, ranging 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 III, scene 1

[Max_Torque]

O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth,
That I am meek and gentle with these butchers!
Thou art the ruins of the noblest man
That ever lived in the tide of times.
Woe to the hand that shed this costly blood!
Over thy wounds now do I prophesy,–
Which, like dumb mouths, do ope their ruby lips,
To beg the voice and utterance of my tongue–
A curse shall light upon the limbs of men;
Domestic fury and fierce civil strife
Shall cumber all the parts of Italy;
Blood and destruction shall be so in use
And dreadful objects so familiar
That mothers shall but smile when they behold
Their infants quarter’d with the hands of war;
All pity choked with custom of fell deeds:
And Caesar’s spirit, ranging 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 III, scene 1

[Humble_Servant]

From my favorite Shakespeare play, King Lear, Cordelia’s death:

And my poor fool is hang’d! No, no, no life!
Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life,
And thou no breath at all? Thou’lt come no more,
Never, never, never, never, never!
Pray you, undo this button: thank you, sir.
Do you see this? Look on her, look, her lips,
Look there, look there!

From my favorite Shakespeare sonnet, number 116:

…Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove!
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;…
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

There is so much that is great about Shakespeare–I sometimes get depressed/elated over how little of it I can keep internalized.

[h.sapiens]

ROMEO [To JULIET] 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.

JULIET Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
Which mannerly devotion shows in this;
For saints have hands that pilgrims’ hands do touch,
And palm to palm is holy palmers’ kiss.

ROMEO Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?

JULIET Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.

ROMEO O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do;
They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.

JULIET Saints do not move, though grant for prayers’ sake.

ROMEO Then move not, while my prayer’s effect I take.
Not really one of my favorites, but I do think it’s cool that the first fourteen lines that Romeo and Juliet speak to each other are in the form of a sonnet.

[DocCathode]

From memory so there may be some errors-

King Lear-
“Let copulation thrive!”

And
    "Cry your mercy! I mistook you for a joint stool!" a common expression meaning 'oops, didn't see ya there'. It's said by the Fool to a joint stool that Lear insists is one of his daughters.

Hamlet-
I absolutely love the whole petard speech. There are so many levels to it. Hamlet is being simulaneuosly- deviously Machiavelian, viciously cold-blooded, and telling a fart joke.

Midsummer Nights Dream-
“Wake when some vile thing is near.”
How thin is the line between love and hate?So thin that Oberon has changed one for the other and not lost any intensity.
MacBeth-
“Being a man, I must feel it as a man.”
If MacDuff could hear such news and not cry, he’d be as much a monster as the king they call on him to fight.

 ".....Damned be he who cries 'hold, enough'"

Macbeth knows at this point that he has been cheated, lied to, used and betrayed. He also knows that MacDuff is about to kill him. But rather than surrender, plead for his life, or explain how he has been manipulated(note that I don’t excuse him of responsibility for his actions. But freewill VS destiny in Macbeth is a thread in itself). Instead, MacBeth faces his end bravely, attempting to at least die with some nobility

[Ferrous]

Henry V is my favorite also, as a lot of folks have said, particularly the Agincourt speech. Since no one’s posted it yet, I will…not the whole thing, because it’s pretty long, but the end:

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.

I also enjoy the Speed & Launce banter from Two Gentlemen of Verona, from whence comes the saying on the Sam Smith’s Holiday Ale: “Blessing of your heart, you brew good ale.”

[Atreyu]

*Originally posted by Northern Piper *
**“Exit, pursued by a bear.” **

This one is driving me crazy…it rings a bell, but I can’t for the life of me remember which play it comes from. Can you tell me?

And as for the others, great responses so far!

[Gatopescado]

Overheard at the Shakespeare play:

MAN: What the hell did he just say?
WIFE: He told her not to take “No” for an answer.
MAN: Why the hell didn’t he just say that then?
WIFE: Because its “Artsy-Fartsy”.
MAN: It is “Fartsy”!

I got big laughs in High School when the damn teacher made me read the Macbeth part, and I boldly proclaimed, “What a crappy day!”

---

Ah, very good Grasshopper! Let’s make it 2 out of 3!

[Katisha]

The bear thing is from The Winter’s Tale.

And the 1H4 exchange quoted by Chronos should go thus:

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?

I’m resisting the impulse to correct quotes but hey, it’s answering a question too…

*Originally posted by TV time *
*“First, kill all the lawyers.”
**

Bear in mind, though, that Shakespeare puts this famous line in the mouth of the right-hand man of the leader of a violent mob. Most people don’t know this, because nobody ever reads the Henry VI plays (though I’m quite fond of them, myself).

Another great quote from the same sequence (said by aforementioned mob leader Jack Cade):

“It shall be proved to thy face that thou hast men about thee that usually talk of a noun and a verb and such abominable words that no Christian ear can endure to hear.”

I used that as my email sig for a while…

And then, in a more poetic vein, there’s this wonderful speech from The Tempest. This is Caliban talking:

Be not afeared. The isle is full of noises,
Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometimes voices,
That if I then had waked after long sleep,
Will make me sleep again; and then, in dreaming,
The clouds, methought, would open and show riches
Ready to drop upon me, that when I waked,
I cried to dream again.

Finally, a great Falstaff quote:

“I have more flesh than another man, and therefore more frailty.”

[DAVEW0071]

“Thou cream-faced loon” is one of our favorite insults.

[RTA]

Tubal “One of them showed me a ring that he had of your daughter for a monkey.”
Shylock “Out upon her! Thou torturest me, Tubal. It was my turquoise; I had it of Leah when I was a bachelor. I would not have given it for a wilderness of monkeys.”

[tsarina]

From A Midsummer Night’s Dream II, 2:

“I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,
Where oxlips and nodding violet grows;
Quite overcanopied with lush woodbine,
With sweet musk roses and with eglantine.”

Whisper this to yourself. Isn’t it lovely?

[Monstre]

HAMLET: Lady, shall I lie in your lap?
(Lying down at Ophelia’s feet)

OPHELIA: No, my lord.
HAMLET: I mean, my head upon your lap?
OPHELIA: Ay, my lord.
HAMLET: Do you think I meant country matters?
OPHELIA: I think nothing, my lord.
HAMLET: That’s a fair thought to lie between maids’ legs.
OPHELIA: What is, my lord?
HAMLET: Nothing.

[Dr.Rieux]

I’ve got it narrowed down to the 29th, 30th, and 104th Sonnets.
Hey Katisha, I just read the Henry IV plays last week–good stuff!

[SparrowHawk]

From Much Ado About Nothing Act iv, Scene 1:

“Kill Claudio.”

You have to understand, my fencing teacher is named Claudio. We love this line.

[tetsusaru]

Whats aught but as tis valued?

Said by Hector in Troilus and Cressida. Shakespeare sums up economics in 6 words. If Marx had been paying attention, the 20th century would have been saved much misery.

[gonzoron]

Ah, the Tempest. I still get chills remembering Patrick Stewart’s Prospero in Shakespeare in the [Central] Park. Almost the end of the play, he signals the sound guy to cut his mike. Then his booming voice echoes through the ampitheater:

Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes and groves,
And ye that on the sands with printless foot
Do chase the ebbing Neptune and do fly him
When he comes back; you demi-puppets that
By moonshine do the green sour ringlets make,
Whereof the ewe not bites, and you whose pastime
Is to make midnight mushrooms, that rejoice
To hear the solemn curfew; by whose aid,
Weak masters though ye be, I have bedimm’d
The noontide sun, call’d forth the mutinous winds,
And 'twixt the green sea and the azured vault
Set roaring war: to the dread rattling thunder
Have I given fire and rifted Jove’s stout oak
With his own bolt; the strong-based promontory
Have I made shake and by the spurs pluck’d up
The pine and cedar: graves at my command
Have waked their sleepers, oped, and let 'em forth
By my so potent art. But this rough magic
I here abjure, and, when I have required
Some heavenly music, which even now I do,
To work mine end upon their senses that
This airy charm is for, I’ll break my staff,
Bury it certain fathoms in the earth,
And deeper than did ever plummet sound
I’ll drown my book.

And I’ve always loved Caliban’s line:
"You taught me language; and my profit on’t
Is, I know how to curse. "

[Katisha]

*Originally posted by tetsusaru *
**Whats aught but as tis valued?

Said by Hector in Troilus and Cressida. Shakespeare sums up economics in 6 words. If Marx had been paying attention, the 20th century would have been saved much misery. **

Ah, but Marx was too busy reading Timon of Athens:

O thou sweet king-killer, and dear divorce
'Twixt natural son and sire! thou bright defiler
Of Hymen’s purest bed! thou valiant Mars!
Thou ever young, fresh, loved and delicate wooer,
Whose blush doth thaw the consecrated snow
That lies on Dian’s lap! thou visible god,
That solder’st close impossibilities,
And makest them kiss! that speak’st with\every tongue,
To every purpose! O thou touch of hearts!
Think, thy slave man rebels, and by thy virtue
Set them into confounding odds, that beasts
May have the world in empire!

BTW, I’m not being pithy; he does quote that in…oh, something or other.

Dr. Rieux – aren’t they, though?

loves the history plays

For a change of pace, how about a lurid one? This one’s from Henry VI part 2 – the Duke of Gloucester has died and Warwick plays forensic investigator:

See how the blood is settled in his face.
Oft have I seen a timely-parted ghost,
Of ashy semblance, meagre, pale and bloodless,
Being all descended to the labouring heart;
Who, in the conflict that it holds with death,
Attracts the same for aidance 'gainst the enemy;
Which with the heart there cools and ne’er returneth
To blush and beautify the cheek again.
But see, his face is black and full of blood,
His eye-balls further out than when he lived,
Staring full ghastly like a strangled man;
His hair upreared, his nostrils stretched with struggling;
His hands abroad displayed, as one that grasped
And tugged for life and was by strength subdued:
Look, on the sheets his hair you see, is sticking;
His well-proportioned beard made rough and rugged,
Like to the summer’s corn by tempest lodged.
It cannot be but he was murdered here;
The least of all these signs were probable.

Oddly enough, in both stage productions of Henry VI that I’ve seen, this speech wasn’t really effective – perhaps it doesn’t work when you can actually see the body?