What is your favorite Shakespearean quote? (besides "To be or not to be")?

Answer 1

"This above all, to thine own self be true!" is my all time favorite.

Answer 2

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 it 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 sheath’d 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 yeomen,
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!’


King Henry, Act III scene I from Henry V

Answer 3

what's your popular breed of all? Rottweiler popular you've under no circumstances owned? many, i'm nevertheless youthful. Bull terrier popular breed you should under no circumstances own? hard Collie popular canines less than 15 lbs? Pug popular between 15 lbs and 50 lbs? French Bulldog popular between 50 lbs and 100 lbs? significant Schnauzer popular over 100 lbs? large Dane popular canines with lengthy fur? hard Collie popular canines with short/no fur? Doberman popular drooly breed? Neapolitian Mastiff popular "low hypersensitive reaction" breed? popular Poodle popular breed a lot of human beings may no longer know? Hovawart popular breed the BYBs have change into keen on? APBT

Answer 4

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace from day to day to the last syllable of recorded time. And all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death. Out, out brief candle. Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player who struts and frets his hour upon the stage. It is a tale, told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Macbeth

Answer 5

From "Much Ado About Nothing."

Benedick, upon learning that Beatrice "loves him." A very funny monologue! (Especially as done by Kevin Brannaugh, co-starring the perfect Emma Thomson)

"This can be no trick; the conference was sadly borne. They have the truth of this from Hero. They seem to pity the lady: it seems her affections have their full bent. Love me! why, it must be requited! I hear how I am censured; they say I will bear myself proudly, if I perceive the love come from her; they say too that she will rather die than give any sign of affection. I did never think to marry. I must not seem proud: happy are they that hear their detractions and can put them to mending. They say the lady is fair; 'tis a truth, I can bear them witness; and virtuous; 'tis so, I cannot reprove it; and wise, but for loving me; by my troth, it is no addition to her wit, nor no great argument of her folly, for I will be horribly in love with her! I may chance have some odd quirks and remnants of wit broken on me, because I have railed so long against marriage. But doth not the appetite alter? A man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age. Shall quips and sentences and these paper bullets of the brain awe a man from the career of his humor? No! the world must be peopled! When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live til I were married."


Shylock, from "Merchant of Venice." A heartbreaking speech. (Al Pacino's turn as Shylock is superb.)

"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?"

Answer 6

"I have given suck, and know
How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me:
I would, while it was smiling in my face,
Have pluck'd my nipple from his boneless gums,
And dash'd the brains out, had I so sworn
As you have done to this."

--Macbeth, Act I, scene vii

This is the part in the play where Macbeth is trying to convince himself NOT to participate in the murder of King Duncan. His wife comes in, and with this incredibly savage speech, gets him back on track with the murder plot. Throughout the scene, she tries a number of different tactics to persuade Macbeth to do the crime. But this is the one that succeeds. She reminds him that he has already PROMISED to assist in the murder, and she asserts that, in order to be a MAN, you have to KEEP YOUR WORD. She tells him that she would rather kill an innocent baby than break a promise. Strong stuff.

Answer 7

Lord, what fools these mortals be! - Puck, A Midsummer's Night Dream

Answer 8

If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumber'd here
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme.

From a Midsumers Night Dream, qoute from Puck

Answer 9

"I`ll mar his pencil" from The Merchant Of Venice
"Cry Havoc!And Let slip the Dogs of War ......." from Henry V
"Friends! Romans!Countrymen!Lend me (a few quid) ..." Julius Caesar

Answer 10

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other word would smell as sweet."

Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2)

"Why, then the world's mine oyster,
Which I with sword will open."

The Merry Wives of Windsor (II, ii, 2-3)

Answer 11

Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.-Twelfth Night