MAAN Quotes

“There's a skirmish of wit between them.”

Leonato

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

Beatrice

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

Beatrice

“I will assume thy part in some disguise / And tell fair Hero I am Claudio, / And in her bosom I’ll unclasp my heart / And take her hearing prisoner with the force / And strong encounter of my amorous tale.”

Don Pedro

“This may prove food to my displeasure. That young start-up hath all the glory of my overthrow. If I can cross him any way, I bless myself every way.”

Don John

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

Beatrice

“Yes, faith, it is \[my cousin’s\] duty to make curtsy and say, ‘Father as it please you.’ But ye for all that, \[cousin\], let him be a handsome fellow, or else make another curtsy and say, ‘Father, as it please me.’”

Beatrice

“I will in the interim undertake one of Hercules’ labors, which is to bring Signior Benedick and the Lady Beatrice into a mountain of affection, th’ one with th’ other.”

Don Pedro

“‘Tis certain so, the Prince woos for himself. / 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”

Claudio

“They say the lady is fair. ‘Tis a truth, I can bear them witness. And virtuous—’tis so, I cannot reprove it. And wise, but for loving me. By my troth, it is no addition to her wit—nor no great argument of her folly, for I will be horribly in love with her.”

Benedick

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

Benedick

“Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps.”

Hero

“Stand I condemned for pride and scorn so much? / Contempt, farewell, and maiden pride, adieu!”

Beatrice

“If I see anything tonight why I should not marry her, tomorrow in the congregation, where I should wed, there will I shame her.”

Claudio

“There, Leonato, take her back again. Give not this rotten orange to your friend. She’s but the sign and semblance of her honor. O, what authority and show of truth can cunning sin cover itself withal!”

Claudio

“Your daughter here the princes left for dead. / Let her awhile be secretly kept in, / And publish it that she is dead indeed.”

Fr. Francis 

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

Beatrice

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

Beatrice

O Hero! What a Hero hadst thou been

If half thy outward graces had been placed

About thy thoughts and counsels of thy heart!

But fare thee well, most foul, most fair, farewell

Thou pure impiety and impious purity.

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 more be gracious.”

(4.1)- Claudio

“And since you could not be my son-in-law, / Be yet my nephew. My brother hath a daughter, / Almost the copy of my child that’s dead, / And she alone is heir to both of us. / Give her the right you should have giv’n her cousin, And so dies my revenge.”

Leonato

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

Benedick

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

Don John