Barber Of Seville Quotes

FIGARO. I’d say that the nonsense that finds its way into print only matters to the people who would like to ban it; that without the freedom to criticize, praise is meaningless

ROSINE. What gives you the right? BARTHOLO. The oldest right in the world: the right of the strong.

Against a heart inflamed with love, burning with unquenchable fire, a ruthless tyrant, cruelly armed, wages war, but all in vain. From every attack a victor, Love will always triumph. - Rosina

FIGARO. The guiltiest have the hardest hearts. ’Twas ever thus.

SUZZANE. If our play of the Follies of a Day, Has something serious to say, It is that folly must have its season To give a human face to reason.

FIGARO. Defending the public good and promoting personal happiness—seems to me, that as schemes go this one, your Lordship, morally speaking, is masterly.

COUNT. Best grin and bear it. What can't be cured must be endured.

FIGARO [coolly]. I suppose so. I can’t see anyone with the authority to rule that I don’t have to, sir. You’re in control here of everything—except yourself.

FIGARO. The way I see it, sir, a man can only choose between being stupid or mad.

COUNT. Money? Who for? FIGARO. Money, for God’s sake, and lots of it. Money makes the plots go round.

FIGARO. Scared? Nonsense! That’s no way to think, Madame. If you give in to the fear of consequences, you’re already living with the consequences of fear.

COUNT. The fact is, when you start losing your temper, even the most tightly controlled imagination will run wild, just as it does in dreams.

FIGARO [quickly]. That’s not being virtuous, I call that being feeble. [...] I won’t take my words back. [To the COUNT] How do you reward loyalty, if that’s how you treat disloyalty?

BARTHOLO. The wind! A passer-by! Listen, there was no wind and no one passed by. But there’s always someone deliberately skulking about to pick up pieces of paper which women pretend to drop accidentally.

FIGARO. I was poor and people looked down on me. I showed some brains and people hated me. Now, with a pretty wife and money… BARTHOLO [laughing]. People will rush to be your friend. FIGARO. They will? BARTHOLO. I know them.

FIGARO. What he says isn’t always the same as what he means. Watch out for words that slip out when he’s talking, those tiny gestures, the way he moves: it’s the key to a man’s character. There’s something wicked afoot. It’s obvious he believes nothing can stop him, because to me he seems… craftier, wilier, more smug—in fact he’s like these imbeciles here in France who start cheering before the battle’s been won! You must try and be as devious as he is: butter him up, tell him what he’d like to hear, and whatever he wants, don’t say no.

FIGARO. Of course. Ever since people started noticing that in time yesterday’s inanity turns into today’s wisdom, and that little old lies, planted haphazardly, grow into vast and mighty truths, there have been countless varieties! Truths you know but cannot reveal, for not every truth is suitable for telling. Truths you repeat but don’t believe, for not every truth is worth believing.

OLD YOUTHFUL [sneezing]. But sir, it’s not fair. Where’s the justice… BARTHOLO. Justice! Ignorant clods like you can go on and on about justice. But I’m your master and that means I’m always right! OLD YOUTHFUL [sneezing]. But if a thing is true… BARTHOLO. If something’s true! If I don’t want a thing to be true, it isn’t true by my say-so. If you let any Tom, Dick, or Harry be right, you’d soon see what’s to become of authority and discipline!

FIGARO Usage, Mr Clerk, is often another name for abusage. Every client with a rudimentary education always has a better grasp of his own case than some floundering lawyer who loves the sound of his own voice, knows everything except the facts, and is no more concerned about ruining his client than about boring the court and putting their worships to sleep. And afterwards he is as pleased with himself as if he’d personally written the oration Pro Murena, Cicero’s finest.

FIGARO. Such a fantastic chain of events! How did it all happen to me? Why those things and not others? Who pointed them in my direction? Having no choice but to travel a road I was not aware I was following, and which I will get off without wanting to, I have strewn it with as many flowers as my good humour has permitted. But when I say my good humour, how can I know if it is any more mine than all the other bits of me, nor what this ‘me’ is that I keep trying to understand: first, an unformed bundle of indefinable parts, then a puny, weak-brained runt, a dainty frisking animal, a young man with a taste for pleasure and appetites to match, turning his hand to all trades to survive—sometimes master, sometimes servant as chance dictated, ambitious from pride, hard-working from necessity, but always happy to be idle! An orator when it was safe to speak out, a poet in my leisure hours, a musician as the situation required, in love in crazy fits and bursts. I’ve seen it all, done it all, had it all. Then the bubble burst and I was too disillusioned… Disillusioned!

On Rossini's 'The Barber of Seville' - "Much has been written about the fiasco of the opera's first night on 20 February 1816, most of it true: the mockery of Rossini's Spanish-style hazel jacket, the rowdy animosity of the Paisiello lobby, the jeering and the catcalls, as one mishap succeeded another. Basilio sang his 'Calumny' aria with a bloodied nose after tripping over a trap door; then during the act 1 finale, a cat wandered onstage, declined to leave, and was forcibly flung into the wings. According to the Rosina, Gertrude Righetti Giorgi, Rossini left the theatre 'as though he had been an indifferent onlooker'... The second performance was a triumph, though Rossini was not there to witness it. He spent the evening pacing his room, imagining the opera's progress scene by scene. He retired early, only to be roused by a glow of torches and uproar in the street. Fearing that a mob was about to set fire to the building, he took refuge in a stable block. Garcia tried to summon him to acknowledge the adulation. 'F***' their bravos!' was Rossini's blunt rejoinder. 'I'm not coming out'.

BÉGEARSS [very conceited]. My dear, there’s nothing to it. To start with, there are just two things that make the world go round: morality and politics. Morality, a very footling thing, means being fair and honest. It is, so they say, the basis of a number of rather boring virtues.[...] Politics is the art of making things happen, of leading people and events by the nose: it’s child’s play. Its purpose is self-interest, its method intrigue. Always economical with the truth, it has boundless, dazzling possibilities which stand like a beacon and draw you on. As deep as Etna, it smoulders and rumbles for a long time before finally erupting into the light of day. By then nothing can stop it. It calls for superior talents and is threatened by only one thing: honest principles. [He laughs] That’s the key to all the deals that are ever made!

COUNT. What’s to stop you taking her with you to London? FIGARO. A man who was married and had to be away so much? I’d never hear the end of it. COUNT. But with your qualities and brains you could climb the ladder and end up with an important government post one of these days. FIGARO. Brains? Climb the ladder? Your Lordship must think I’m stupid. Second-rate and grovelling, that’s the thing to be, and then the world’s your oyster. COUNT. All you’d have to do is take a few lessons in politics from me. FIGARO. I know what politics is. COUNT. Like you know the key to the English language? FIGARO. Not that it’s anything to boast about. It means pretending you don’t know what you do know and knowing what you don’t, listening to what you don’t understand and not hearing what you do, and especially, claiming you can do more than you have the ability to deliver. More often that not, it means making a great secret of the fact that there are no secrets; locking yourself in your inner sanctum where you sharpen pens and give the impression of being profound and wise, whereas you are, as they say, hollow and shallow; playing a role well or badly; sending spies everywhere and rewarding the traitors; tampering with seals, intercepting letters, and trying to dignify your sordid means by stressing your glorious ends. That’s all there is to politics, and you can have me shot if it’s not. COUNT. But what you’ve defined is intrigue. FIGARO. Call it politics, intrigue, whatever you want. But since to me the two things are as alike as peas in a pod, I say good luck to whoever has anything to do with either. ‘Truly, I love my sweetheart more’, as old King Henry’s song goes.

Oh glorious moment which inspires my heart, with fire unknown my soul is burning, and fills my spirit with will to dare. - Count

I feel my heart tremble. - Rosina

What a charming little miss! The more I love her, the more she disdains me. - Bartolo

Oh, you alone, my love, can console my heart - Rosina

What on earth is all this love which makes everyone go mad? - Berta

May love and faith eternal reign in both our hearts. - Rosina

Fortune smiles on my love, I can breathe once more. Oh, you alone, my love, can console my heart - Rosina