"For it falls outThat what we have we prize not to the worthWhiles we enjoy it, but being lacked and lost,Why, then we rack the value, then we findThe virtue that possession would not show usWhile it was ours."
"I love you with so much of my heart that none is left to protest."
"There's little of the melancholy element in her, my lord: she is never sad but when she sleeps; and not ever sad then; for I have heard my daughter say, she hath often dreamt of unhappiness, and waked herself with laughing."
"Yes, faith; it is my cousin's duty to make curtsy and say 'Father, as it please you.' But yet for all that, cousin, let him be a handsome fellow, or else make another curtsy and say 'Father, as it please me."
"If [God] send me no husband, for the which blessing I am at him upon my knees every morning and evening ..."
"Don Pedro - (...)'In time the savage bull doth bear the yoke.'Benedick - The savage bull may, but if ever the sensible Benedick bear it, pluck off the bull's horns and set them in my forehead, and let me be vildly painted; and in such great letters as they writes, 'Here is good horse for hire', let them signify under my sign, 'Here you may see Benedick the married man."
"DON PEDROCome, lady, come; you have lost the heart of Signior Benedick.BEATRICEIndeed, my lord, he lent it me awhile; and I gave him use for it, a double heart for his single one: marry, once before he won it of me with false dice, therefore your grace may well say I have lost it.DON PEDROYou have put him down, lady, you have put him down.BEATRICESo I would not he should do me, my lord, lest I should prove the mother of fools."
"Friendship is constant in all other thingsSave in the office and affairs of love.Therefore all hearts in love use their own tongues.Let every eye negotiate for itself,And trust no agent; for beauty is a witchAgainst whose charms faith melteth into blood."
"When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married."
"Wooing, wedding, and repenting is as a Scotch jig, a measure, and a cinque-pace: the first suit is hot and hasty like a Scotch jig--and full as fantastical; the wedding, mannerly modest, as a measure, full of state and ancientry; and then comes repentance and with his bad legs falls into the cinque-pace faster and faster, till he sink into his grave."
"Tax not so bad a voice to slander music any more than once."
"Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more,Men were deceivers ever,-One foot in sea and one on shore,To one thing constant never."
"Well, every one can master a grief but he that has it."
"I should think this a gull, but that the white-bearded fellow speaks it; knavery cannot, sure, hide himself in such reverence."
"O Hero, what a Hero hadst thou been."
"I will live in thy heart, die in thy lap, and be buried in thyeyes—and moreover, I will go with thee to thy uncle’s."
"Then is courtesy a turncoat. But it is certain I am loved of all ladies, only you excepted: and I would I could find in my heart that I had not a hard heart; for, truly, I love none. Beatrice: A dear happiness to women: they would else have been troubled with a pernicious suitor. I thank God and my cold blood, I am of your humour for that: I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me. -Much Ado About Nothing"
". . . I will not be sworn, but love may trans-form me to an oyster, but, I’ll take my oath on it, till hehave made an oyster of me, he shall never make me sucha fool."
"What, my dear Lady Disdain! are you yet living?Beatrice: Is it possible disdain should die while she hathsuch meet food to feed it as Signior Benedick?"
"You are thought here to the most senseless and fit man for the job."
"Beatrice: I wonder that you will still be talking, Signior Benedick: nobody marks you.Benedick: What, my dear Lady Disdain! are you yet living?"
"Men from children nothing differ."