Honest Iago Quotes

O wretched fool / That lov’st to make thine honesty a vice! / O monstrous world! Take note, take note, O world: / To be direct and honest is not safe.

A halter pardon him! and hell gnaw his bones! Why should he call her whore? who keeps her company? What place? what time? what form? what likelihood? The Moor’s abused by some most villainous knave, Some base notorious knave, some scurvy fellow:— O heaven, that such companions thou’dst unfold, And put in every honest hand a whip To lash the rascals naked through the world Even from the east to the west! IAGO Speak within door. EMILIA O, fie upon them! some such squire he was That turn’d your wit the seamy side without, And made you to suspect me with the Moor.

She is innocent! Why is it so easy to believe she would betray him?” I was truly appalled. Samuel looked up at me calmly and replied, “Because it’s always easier to believe the worst.” I looked at him in disbelief. “It is not!” I sputtered. “I can’t believe you would say that! Wouldn’t you give the benefit of the doubt to someone you claimed to love?” The ease in which Othello accepted her betrayal was completely foreign to me. “And why would Othello believe Iago over Desdemona? I don’t care how honest they think Iago is! Emilia even told Othello she thought he was being manipulated and tricked!” Samuel sighed and tried to read to the end of the scene. I jumped in again. I couldn’t help it. My sense of outrage was on overdrive. “But he said, ‘I loved not wisely, but too well!’” I was dismayed. “He had it totally backwards! He did love wisely-she was worthy of his love…she was a wise choice! But he didn’t love well enough! If he had loved Desdemona more, trusted her more, Iago wouldn’t have been able to divide them.” I longed once again for Jane Eyre, where righteousness and principle won out in the end. Jane got her man, and she did it with style. Desdemona got her man, and he smothered her.

Hamlet later plays at being mad, as Iago plays at being honest, and Viola and the other cross-dressed heroines play at masculinity. The presentation of the self in everyday life is a kind of theater. “All the world’s a stage,” observes the melancholic Jaques in As You Like It. “And all the men and women merely players; / They have their exits and their entrances; / And one man in his time plays many parts.” It is not just that the theater mirrors life, but that our lives themselves are full of seeming.

Iago: Why then, I think Cassio’s an honest man. Othello: Nay, yet there’s more in this. I prithee speak to me as to thy thinkings, As thou dost ruminate, and give thy worst of thoughts The worst of words. Iago: Good my lord, pardon me. Though I am bound to every act of duty, I am not bound to that all slaves are free to. Utter my thoughts? Why, say they are vile and false— As where’s that palace whereinto foul things Sometimes intrude not? Who has that breast so pure But some uncleanly apprehensions Keep leets and law days and in sessions sit With meditations lawful? [...]I do beseech you, Though I perchance am vicious in my guess— As, I confess, it is my nature’s plague To spy into abuses, and oft my jealousy Shapes faults that are not—that your wisdom From one that so imperfectly conceits Would take no notice, nor build yourself a trouble Out of his scattering and unsure observance. It were not for your quiet nor your good, Nor for my manhood, honesty, and wisdom, To let you know my thoughts.

Cassio: Reputation, reputation, reputation! O, I have lost my reputation! I have lost the immortal part of myself, and what remains is bestial. My reputation, Iago, my reputation! Iago: As I am an honest man, I thought you had received some bodily wound. There is more sense in that than in reputation. Reputation is an idle and most false imposition, oft got without merit and lost without deserving. You have lost no reputation at all, unless you repute yourself such a loser.

Iago: And what’s he, then, that says I play the villain, When this advice is free I give and honest, Probal to thinking, and indeed the course To win the Moor again? For ’tis most easy Th’ inclining Desdemona to subdue In any honest suit. She’s framed as fruitful As the free elements. And then for her To win the Moor—were ’t to renounce his baptism, All seals and symbols of redeemèd sin— His soul is so enfettered to her love That she may make, unmake, do what she list, Even as her appetite shall play the god With his weak function. How am I then a villain To counsel Cassio to this parallel course Directly to his good? Divinity of hell! When devils will the blackest sins put on, They do suggest at first with heavenly shows, As I do now. For whiles this honest fool Plies Desdemona to repair his fortune, And she for him pleads strongly to the Moor, I’ll pour this pestilence into his ear: That she repeals him for her body’s lust; And by how much she strives to do him good, She shall undo her credit with the Moor. So will I turn her virtue into pitch, And out of her own goodness make the net That shall enmesh them all.

(Iago:) Thus do I ever make my fool my purse. For I mine own gained knowledge should profane If I would time expend with such a snipe But for my sport and profit. [...] The Moor is of a free and open nature That thinks men honest that but seem to be so, And will as tenderly be led by th’ nose As asses are. I have ’t. It is engendered. Hell and night Must bring this monstrous birth to the world’s light.

(Iago:) O wretched fool. That livest to make thine honesty a vice! O monstrous world! Take note, take note, O world, To be direct and honest is not safe. I thank you for this profit; and from hence I'll love no friend, sith love breeds such offence. Othello: Nay, stay: thou shouldst be honest. Iago: I should be wise, for honesty's a fool And loses that it works for.

Othello: Why of thy thought, Iago? Iago: I did not think he had been acquainted with her. Othello: O yes, and went between us very oft. Iago: Indeed? Othello: Indeed? Ay, indeed! Discern’st thou aught in that? Is he not honest? Iago: Honest, my lord? Othello: Honest—ay, honest. Iago: My lord, for aught I know. Othello: What dost thou think? Iago: Think, my lord? Othello: “Think, my lord?” By heaven, thou echo’st me As if there were some monster in thy thought Too hideous to be shown. Thou dost mean something. I heard thee say even now, thou lik’st not that, When Cassio left my wife. What didst not like? And when I told thee he was of my counsel In my whole course of wooing, thou cried’st “Indeed?” And didst contract and purse thy brow together As if thou then hadst shut up in thy brain Some horrible conceit. If thou dost love me, Show me thy thought.