Duchess Of Malfi Quotes

Cover her face; mine eyes dazzle. She died young.

Whether we fall by ambition, blood or lust Like diamonds, we are cut with our own dust

I account this world a tedious theater, For I do play a part in 't 'gainst my will.

Ambition, madam, is a great man's madness.

Whether we fall by ambition, blood, or lust, like diamonds we are cut with our own dust.

Do you not weep? Other sins only speak, murder shreaks out: The element of water moistens the earth, But blood flies upwards and bedews the heavens.

The weakest arm is strong enough that strikes with the sword of justice.

Heaven-gates are not so highly arched As princes' palaces; they that enter there Must go upon their knees.

I am Duchess of Malfi still.

I know death hath ten thousand several doors For men to take their exits; and 'tis found They go on such strange geometrical hinges, You may open them both ways: any way, for heaven-sake

What's this flesh? A little cruded milk Fantastical puff-paste. Our bodies are weaker than those Paper prisons boys use to keep flies in; more contemptible, Since our is to preserve earth-worms. Didst thou ever seen A lark in a cage? Such is the soul in the body: this world Is like her little turf of grass, and the heaven o'er our heads Like her looking-glass, only gives us a miserable knowledge Of the small compass of our prison.

Sometimes the Devil doth preach.

we had need to borrow that fantastic glass,invented by Galileo the Florentine To view another spacious world in the moon and look to find a constant woman there

You have left me heartless; mine is in your bosom.

Integrity of life is fame's best friend, Which nobly, beyond death, shall crown the end.

Are you out of your princely wits?" What's he? Let me have his beard sawed off and his eyebrows filed more civil!

If all my royal kindred Lay in my way unto this marriage, I'ld make them my low foot-steps

Pull and pull strongly for your able strength / Must pull down heaven upon me

Duchess: Diamonds are of most value, They say, that have pass’d through most jewellers’ hands. Ferdinand: Whores, by that rule, are precious. —John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi (I.ii)

Ambition, madam, is a great man’s madness,’ says Antonio in Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi, a play I first saw at the RSC in 1971 with Judi Dench in the title role. But it’s accepting that you will never achieve your ambition that can really drive you mad.

Black-birds fatten best in hard weather

L'humain, comme l'épice, ne se révèle que broyé

For all our wit and reading brings us to a truer sense of sorrow.

for places in the court are but like beds in the hospital, where this man's head lies at that man's foot, and so lower and lower.

She and I were twins: And should I die this instant, I had liv'd her time to a minute.

Search the heads of the greatest rivers in the world, you shall find them but bubbles of water.

FERDINAND: Look, what’s that follows me? MALATESTE: Nothing, my lord. FERDINAND: Yes. MALATESTE: ‘Tis your shadow. FERDINAND: Stay it; let it not haunt me. MALATESTE: Impossible, if you move, and the sun shine. FERDINAND: I will throttle it. [Throws himself upon his shadow.]

I do love these ancient ruins — We never tread upon them but we set Our foot upon some reverend history: And, questionless, here, in this open court (Which now lies naked to the injuries Of stormy weather), some men lie interr’d, Loved the Church so well, and gave so largely to it, They thought it should have canopied their bones Till doomsday; — but all things have their end — Churches and cities, which have diseases like to men, Must have like death which we have. Duchess o/Malfy. The

Thou art happy that thou hast not understanding. To know thy misery; for all our wit. And reading brings us to a truer sense of sorrow.

Thou art happy that thou hast not understanding to know thy misery; for all our wit and reading brings us to a truer sense of sorrow.

Though in our miseries Destiny has a hand, yet Destiny has no hand in the dignified manner in which we suffer our misery. If we can show a contempt for our misery, the credit goes to ourselves, not to Destiny.

the role was originally played by Richard Burbage, the great tragic actor of the King’s Men who had created the roles of Shakespeare’s tragic heroes Hamlet, King Lear and Othello. That Burbage played Ferdinand as well suggests that the character was seen as the principal male role in the first productions of the play.

the play, while staging a cross-class marriage, never loses sight of the class differences of the couple and the way this skews traditional gender roles. The Duchess may marry the steward she admires as ‘a complete man’ (1.1.439), but she remains very much an aristocrat. This brings

Here comes Bosola, The only court-gall; yet I observe his railing Is not for simple love of piety: Indeed, he rails at those things which he wants; Would be as lecherous, covetous, or proud, Bloody, or envious, as any man, If he had means to be so.

BOSOLA. He and his brother are like plum-trees

ANTONIO. 'Tis great pity He should be thus neglected: I have heard He 's very valiant. This foul melancholy Will poison all his goodness; for, I 'll tell you, If too immoderate sleep be truly said To be an inward rust unto the soul, If then doth follow want of action Breeds all black malcontents; and their close rearing, Like moths in cloth, do hurt for want of wearing.

Like Desdemona in Shakespeare’s Othello, she chooses for herself rather than deferring to the wishes of her male relations.

There are rewards for hawks and dogs when they have done us service; but for a soldier that hazards his limbs in a battle, nothing but a kind of geometry is his last supportation.

UWhether we fall by ambition, blood, or lust, Like diamonds, we are cut with our own dust.

The Duchess: Diamonds are of most value They say, that have pass'd through most jewellers hands. Ferdinand: Whores, by that rule, are precious.