Much Ado About Nothing Quotes

I can see he's not in your good books,' said the messenger. 'No, and if he were I would burn my library.

I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow, than a man swear he loves me.

Let me be that I am and seek not to alter me.

I do love nothing in the world so well as you- is not that strange?

Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more. Men were deceivers ever, One foot in sea, and one on shore, To one thing constant never. Then sigh not so, but let them go, And be you blithe and bonny, Converting all your sounds of woe Into hey nonny, nonny. Sing no more ditties, sing no more Of dumps so dull and heavy. The fraud of men was ever so Since summer first was leafy. Then sigh not so, but let them go, And be you blithe and bonny, Converting all your sounds of woe Into hey, nonny, nonny.

Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps.

For which of my bad parts didst thou first fall in love with me?

He that hath a beard is more than a youth, and he that hath no beard is less than a man. He that is more than a youth is not for me, and he that is less than a man, I am not for him.

I love you with so much of my heart that none is left to protest.

When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married.

There was a star danced, and under that was I born.

Why, what's the matter, That you have such a February face, So full of frost, of storm and cloudiness?

I wish my horse had the speed of your tongue.

Thou and I are too wise to woo peaceably.

I will live in thy heart, die in thy lap, and be buried in thy eyes—and moreover, I will go with thee to thy uncle’s.

What, my dear Lady Disdain! are you yet living? Beatrice: Is it possible disdain should die while she hath such meet food to feed it as Signior Benedick?

Silence is the perfectest herald of joy: I were but little happy, if I could say how much. Lady, as you are mine, I am yours: I give away myself for you and dote upon the exchange.

Love me!... Why?

For it falls out That what we have we prize not to the worth Whiles we enjoy it, but being lacked and lost, Why, then we rack the value, then we find The virtue that possession would not show us While it was ours.

Tax not so bad a voice to slander music any more than once.

A miracle. Here's our own hands against our hearts. Come, I will have thee, but by this light I take thee for pity. Beatrice: I would not deny you, but by this good day, I yield upon great persuasion, and partly to save your life, for I was told you were in a consumption. Benedick: Peace. I will stop your mouth.

Suffer love! A good ephitet! I do suffer love indeed, for I love thee against my will.

You are thought here to the most senseless and fit man for the job.

For man is a giddy thing, and this is my conclusion.

When you depart from me sorrow abides and happiness takes his leave.

Is it not strange that sheep's guts could hail souls out of men's bodies?

Officers, what offence have these men done? DOGBERRY Marry, sir, they have committed false report; moreover, they have spoken untruths; secondarily, they are slanders; sixth and lastly, they have belied a lady; thirdly, they have verified unjust things; and, to conclude, they are lying knaves.

O God, that I were a man! I would eat his heart in the marketplace.

Well, every one can master a grief but he that has it.

To be a well-favoured man is the gift of fortune; but to write and read comes by nature.

Ha. "Against my will I am sent to bid you come into dinner." There's a double meaning in that.

And to be merry best becomes you; for, out of question, you were born in a merry hour. No, sure, my lord, my mother cried; but then there was a star danced, and under that was I born.

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.

Against my will I am sent to bid you come in to dinner. BENEDICK Fair Beatrice, I thank you for your pains. BEATRICE I took no more pains for those thanks than you take pains to thank me: if it had been painful, I would not have come. BENEDICK You take pleasure then in the message? BEATRICE Yea, just so much as you may take upon a knife's point ... You have no stomach, signior: fare you well. Exit BENEDICK Ha! 'Against my will I am sent to bid you come in to dinner;' there's a double meaning in that...

The world must be peopled!

Time goes on crutches till love have all his rites.

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. 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.

If her breath were as terrible as her terminations, there were no living near her, she would infect to the north star!

Done to death by slanderous tongue

Well, niece, I hope to see you one day fitted with a husband. BEATRICE Not till God make men of some other metal than earth. Would it not grieve a woman to be overmastered with a pierce of valiant dust? to make an account of her life to a clod of wayward marl? No, uncle, I'll none: Adam's sons are my brethren; and, truly, I hold it a sin to match in my kindred.

Foul words is but foul wind, and foul wind is but foul breath, and foul breath is noisome; therefore I will depart unkissed.

Speak low if you speak love.

Why, i' faith, methinks she's too low for a high praise, too brown for a fair praise and too little for a great praise: only this commendation I can afford her, that were she other than she is, she were unhandsome; and being no other but as she is, I do not like her. (Benedick, from Much Ado About Nothing)

I was born to speak all mirth and no matter.

Well, then, go you into hell? BEATRICE No, but to the gate; and there will the devil meet me, like an old cuckold, with horns on his head, and say 'Get you to heaven, Beatrice, get you to heaven; here's no place for you maids:' so deliver I up my apes, and away to Saint Peter for the heavens; he shows me where the bachelors sit, and there live we as merry as the day is long.

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.

Sweet Beatrice, wouldst thou come when I called thee? BEATRICE Yea, signior, and depart when you bid me. BENEDICK O, stay but till then! BEATRICE 'Then' is spoken; fare you well now... (Much Ado About Nothing)

It was wonderful flirting with him, all the razor-edged literary banter, like Beatrice and Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing. A battle of wit, and a test, too.

Friendship is constant in all other things Save 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 witch Against whose charms faith melteth into blood.

By this hand, I love thee. Beatrice Use it for my love some other way than swearing by it.

If [God] send me no husband, for the which blessing I am at him upon my knees every morning and evening ...

Is he not approved in the height a villain that hath slandered, scorned, dishonoured my kinswoman? O that I were a man! What, bear her in hand until they come to take hands, and then, with public accusation, uncovered slander, unmitigated rancour - O God, that I were a man! I would eat his heart in the market-place.

So you walk softly and look sweetly and say nothing. I am yours for the walk and especially when I walk away.

Come, lady, come; you have lost the heart of Signior Benedick. BEATRICE Indeed, 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 PEDRO You have put him down, lady, you have put him down. BEATRICE So I would not he should do me, my lord, lest I should prove the mother of fools.

No, sure, my lord, my mother cried, but then there was a star danced, and under that was I born.

There are no faces truer than those that are so washed. How much better is it to weep at joy than to joy at weeping!

Neighbours, you are tedious. DOGBERRY It pleases your worship to say so, but we are the poor duke's officers; but truly, for mine own part, if I were as tedious as a king, I could find it in my heart to bestow it all of your worship.

Men from children nothing differ.

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 humour? No, the world must be peopled. When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married.

Pause awhile, And let my counsel sway you.

And now, tell me, for which of my bad qualities did you first fall in love with me?’ ‘All of them together,’ she said. ‘They maintained such a well organised state of evil that they wouldn’t allow any good quality to intermingle with them

Dost thou not suspect my place? Dost thou not suspect my years? O that he were here to write me down an ass! But masters, remember that I am an ass. Though it be not written down, yet forget not that I am an ass. No, thou villain, thou art full of piety, as shall be proved upon thee by good witness. I am a wise fellow, and which is more, an officer, and which is more, a householder, and which is more, as pretty a piece of flesh as any is in Messina, and one that knows the law, go to . . . and one that hath two gowns, and everything handsome about him. Bring him away. O that I had been writ down an ass!

For thee I'll lock up all the gates of love And on my eyelids shall conjecture hang, To turn all beauty into thoughts of harm, And never shall it be more gracious.

...Having no recourse, I feel back on Shakespeare. Leif would recognize it and understand the context properly. With my remaining few seconds of consciousness, I quoted Benedick from Much Ado About Nothing, who spoke these words to his former friend: "you are a Villain: I jest not." and then I collapsed into a pool of my own blood.

I should think this a gull, but that the white-bearded fellow speaks it; knavery cannot, sure, hide himself in such reverence.

There is no measure in the occasion that breeds; therefore the sadness is without limit.

I am gone, though I am here. There is no love in you. Nay, I pray you let me go.

If I had my mouth, I would bite; if I had my liberty, I would do my liking: in the meantime, let me be that I am, and seek not to alter me.

Don't make much ado about nothing.

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.

I wonder that you will still be talking, Signior Benedick: nobody marks you. Benedick: What, my dear Lady Disdain! are you yet living?

Much ado about nothing.

I don't purchase people with money, or hiss like a snake to attract their attention, all i do is to rest on my couch because i have the conviction that no human can progress with an exception without a power behind.

Ho! now you strike like the blind man; t'was the boy that stole your meat, and you'll beat the post.

God help the noble Claudio! if he have caught the Benedick, it will cost him a thousand pound ere a’ be cured.

I know, the way the trees know they're rooted to the ground, that I'm rooted to you. That no matter your answer here this evening, I am yours until I'm nothing but dust in the wind. Maybe even then.

There’s no face more sincere than one washed in tears.

How much better to weep at joy than to joy at weeping!

He wears his faith but as the fashion of his hat; it ever changes with the next block.

I cannot be a man with wishing, therefore I will die a woman with grieving.

I pray thee, cease thy counsel, Which falls into mine ears as profitless As water in a sieve: give not me counsel; Nor let no comforter delight mine ear But such a one whose wrongs do suit with mine: ... for, brother, men Can counsel and speak comfort to that grief Which they themselves not feel; but, tasting it, Their counsel turns to passion, which before Would give preceptial medicine to rage, Fetter strong madness in a silken thread, Charm ache with air and agony with words. No, no; 'tis all men's office to speak patience To those that wring under the load of sorrow, But no man's virtue nor sufficiency To be so moral when he shall endure The like himself. Therefore give me no counsel: My griefs cry louder than advertisement.

I had rather be a canker in a hedge than a rose in his grace; and it better fits my blood to be disdained of all than to fashion a carriage to rob love from any: in this, though I cannot be said to be a flattering honest man, it must not be denied but I am a plain-dealing villain. I am trusted with a muzzle and enfranchised with a clog; therefore I have decreed not to sing in my cage. If I had my mouth, I would bite; if I had my liberty, I would do my liking: in the meantime, let me be that I am, and seek not to alter me.

Love goes by haps, Some cupid kills with arrows, Some with traps

Prince, thou art sad. Get thee a wife, get thee a wife. There is no staff more reverend than one tipped with horn.

She loves him with an enraged affection, it is past the infinite of thought.

But, masters, remember that I am an ass; though it be not written down, yet forget not that I am an ass.

Well, every one can master a grief, but he that has it.

O Hero, what a Hero hadst thou been.

A victory is twice itself when the achiever brings home full numbers.

One doth not know / How much an ill word may empoison liking.

do much wonder that one man, seeing how much another man is a fool when he dedicates his behaviors to love, will, after he hath laughed at such shallow follies in others, become the argument of his own scorn by falling in love:

That a woman conceived me, I thank her; that she brought me up, I likewise give her most humble thanks. But that I will have a recheat winded in my forehead or hang my bugle in an invisible baldrick, all women shall pardon me. Because I will not do them the wrong to mistrust any, I will do myself the right to trust none. And the fine is, for the which I may go the finer, I will live a bachelor.

the pleached bower, Where honeysuckles ripened by the sun Forbid the sun to enter, like favorites Made proud by princes, that advance their pride Against that power that bred it.

What need the bridge much broader than the flood? The fairest grant is the necessity.

He is now as valiant as Hercules that only tells a lie and swears it.

i do love nothing in the world so well as you.

Hath she made her affection known to Benedick? LEONATO No, and swears she never will; that's her torment. CLAUDIO 'Tis true, indeed, so your daughter says. 'Shall I,' says she, 'that have so oft encountered him with scorn, write to him that I love him?

I do love nothing in the world so well as you: is not that strange? BEATRICE As strange as the thing I know not. It were as possible for me to say I loved nothing so well as you: but believe me not; and yet I lie not; I confess nothing, nor I deny nothing. I am sorry for my cousin. BENEDICK By my sword, Beatrice, thou lovest me. BEATRICE Do not swear, and eat it. BENEDICK I will swear by it that you love me; and I will make him eat it that says I love not you. BEATRICE Will you not eat your word? BENEDICK With no sauce that can be devised to it. I protest I love thee. BEATRICE Why, then, God forgive me! BENEDICK What offence, sweet Beatrice? BEATRICE You have stayed me in a happy hour: I was about to protest I loved you. BENEDICK And do it with all thy heart. BEATRICE I love you with so much of my heart that none is left to protest. BENEDICK Come, bid me do any thing for thee.

I will not be sworn but love may transform me to an oyster, but I’ll take my oath on it, till he have made an oyster of me, he shall never make me such a fool. One woman is fair, yet I am well; another is wise, yet I am well; another virtuous, yet I am well; but till all graces be in one woman, one woman shall not come in my grace. Rich she shall be, that’s certain; wise, or I’ll none; virtuous, or I’ll never cheapen her; fair, or I’ll ever look on her; mild, or come not near me; noble, or not I for an angel; of good discourse, an excellent musician, and her hair shall be of what color it please God. Ha! The Prince and Monsieur Love! I will hide me in the arbor.

Benedick Scott was on his way to freedom or profound failure or, if the usual order of things held up, both. Two chests, strapped closed and marked for delivery to an apartment in Manhattan, sat at the end of his bed. On his person he needed only his typewriter, slung over his shoulder in a battered case. He'd stuffed the case with socks to cushion any dinging, along with his shaving kit, a worn copy of Middlemarch, and thirty-four pages of typed future.