Othello Quotes

‘By heaven, I would rather be his hangman’

Roderigo, Act 1 S1

‘I follow him to serve my turn upon him"‘.

Iago, Act 1 S1

‘Mere prattle without practice/Is all his soldiership’

Iago, Act 1 s1

‘An old black ram/ Is tupping your white ewe’

Iago, Act 1s1

‘the devil will make a grandsire of you.’

Iago, Act 1s1

‘But that I love the gentle Desdemona,/ I would not my unhoused fee condition/ Put into circumscription and confine / For the sea’s worth.’

Othello, a1s2

‘O thou foul thief! Where hast thou stowed my daughter?’

Brabantio, a1s2

‘Run from her guardage to the sooty bosom/ of such a thing as thou- to fear, not to delight.’

Brabantio, a1s2

‘thou hast practised on her with foul charms’

Brabantio, a1s2

‘Rude am I in my speech/And little blessed with the soft phrase of peace.’

Othello, a1s3

‘I won his daughter.’

Othello, a1s3

‘To fall in love with what she feared to look in? […] Against all rules of nature, and must be driven/ to find out practices of cunning hell/why this should be.’

Brabantio, a1s3

‘I did thrive in this fair lady’s love, /And she in mine.’

Othello, a1s3

‘She loved me for the dangers I had passed, / And I loved her that she did pity them. / This is the only witchcraft I have used.’

Othello, a1s3

‘You are lord of all my duty; /I am hitherto your daughter.’

Desdemona, a1s3

‘My heart’s subdued / Even to the very quality of my lord.’

Desdemona, a1s3

‘Look to her, Moor, if thou hast eyes to see:/ She has deceived her father and may thee.’

'Brabantio, a1s3

‘My life upon her faith!’

Othello, a1s3

‘If virtue no delighted beauty lack/ Your son-in-law is far more fair than black.’

Duke, a1s3

‘After some time, to abuse Othello’s ear/ That he is too familiar with his wife; / He hath a person and a smooth dispose / To be suspected, framed to make women false. / 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 the nose / As asses are. / I have’t. It is engendered. Hell and night/ Must bring this monstrous birth to the world’s light.’

Iago, a1s3

‘You men of Cyprus, let her have your knees.’

Cassio, a2s1

‘‘Tis my breeding / That gives me this bold show of courtesy.’

Cassio, a2s1

‘Do not learn of/ him, Emilia, though he be thy husband.’

Desdemona, a2s1

‘With as little a web as this will I ensnare as great a fly as Cassio.’

Iago, a2s1

‘It gives me wonder great as my content/ To see you here before me.’

Othello, a2s1

But I’ll set down the pegs that make this music/ As honest as I am.’

Iago, a2s1

‘what delight shall she have to look on the devil?’

Iago, a2s1

‘But, sir, be you ruled by me.’

Iago, a2s1

‘They met so near with their lips/ that their breaths embraced together’

Iago, a2s1

‘For that I do suspect the lusty Moor/Hath leaped into my seat, the thought whereof/Doth like a poisonous mineral gnaw my inwards;/ And nothing can or shall content my soul/ Till I am evened with him, wife for wife;’

Iago, a2s1

‘And when she speaks, is it not an alarum to love?’ ‘She is indeed perfection’

Iago and Cassio, a2s3

‘Now my sick fool Roderigo, /Whom love hath turned almost the wrong side out,’

Iago, a2s3

‘Your Dane, you German, and your swag-bellied Hollander- drink, ho! - are nothing to your English.’

Iago, a2s3

‘Do not think, gentlemen, that I am drunk; this is my ancient; / this is my right hand, and this is my left hand. I am not drunk now, I can stand well enough, and I speak well enough.’

Cassio, a2s3

‘He is a soldier fit to stand by Caesar/And give direction. And do but see his vice - / ‘Tis to his virtue a just equinox, / The one as long as th/other. / I fear the trust Othello puts him in, /On some odd time of his infirmity, / Will shake this island.’

Iago, a2s3

‘He’ll watch the horologe a double set, / If drink not rock his cradle.’

Iago, a2s3

‘Let me go, sir; or I’ll knock you o’er the mazzard.’

Cassio, a2s3

‘Are we turned Turks, and to ourselces do that / WHich heaven hath forbid the Ottomites?’

Othello, a2s3

‘I had rather have this tongue cut from my mouth / Than it should do offence to Michael Cassio.’

Iago, a2s3

‘Cassio, I love thee / But never more be officer of mine.’

Othello, a2s3

‘‘Tis the soldier’s life/ To have their balmy slumbers waked with strife.’

Othello, a2s3

‘I have lost the immortal part of myself, and what/ remains is bestial. My reputation, Iago, my reputation?’

Cassio, a2s3

‘To be now a sensible man, by and by a fool, and / presently a beast! O strange!’

Cassio, a2s3

‘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/ to his weak function.’

Iago, a2s3

When devils will the blackest sins put on, They do suggest at first with heavenly shows/ As I do now.

Iago, a2s3

So will I turn her virtue into pitch/ and out of her own goodness make the net / That shall enmesh them all.’

Iago, a2s3

‘I never knew a Florentine more kind and honest.’

Cassio, a3s1

‘Good madam, do; I warrant it grieves my husband / As if the case were his.’

Emilia, a3s3

‘My lord shall never rest, / I’ll watch him tame and talk him out of patience’

Desdemona, a3s3

‘Thy solicitor shall rather die / Than give thy cause away.’

Desdemona, a3s3

‘I have been talking with a suitor here.’

Desdemona, a3s3

‘ I will deny thee nothing.’

Othello, a3s3

‘Good love, call him back.’ ‘Not now, sweet Desdemon; some other time.’

Othello, a3s3

‘WHate’er you be, I am obedient.’

Desdemona, a3s3

‘Men should be what they seem;/Or those that be not, would they might seem none!’

Iago, a3s3

‘But he that filches from me my good name '/ Robe me of that which not enriches him / And makes me poor indeed.’

Iago, a3s3

‘Beware, my lord, of jealousy: / It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock/ The meat it feeds on. The cuckold lives in bliss / Who certain of his fate loves not his wronger; / But O, what damned minutes tells her o’er / Who dotes, yet doubts, suspects, yet fondly loves?’

Iago, a3s3

‘She did deceive her father, marrying you;/ And when she seemed to shake and fear your looks / She loved them most.’

Iago, a3s3

‘Note that if your lady strain his entertainment/ With any strong or vehement importunity - Much will be seen in that.’

Iago, a3s3

‘O curse of marriage, / That we can call these delicate creatures ours / And not their appetites!’

Othello, a3s3

‘I nothing but to please his fantasy.’

Emilia, a3s3

‘THe Moor already changes with my poison: / Dangerous conceits are in their natures poisons, / Which at the first are scarce found to distate / But, with a little act upon the blood, / Burn like the mines of sulphur.’

Iago, a3s3

‘Give me the ocular proof, / Or by the worth of mine entire soul, / Thou hadst been better have been born a dog / Than answer my waked wrath!’

Othello, a3s3

‘I’ll tear her all to pieces!’

Othello, a3s3

‘ O that the slave had forty thousand lives! / One is too poor, too weak, for my revenge.’

Othello, a3s3

‘I am your own for ever.’

Iago, a3s3

‘For here’s a young and sweating devil here/ That commonly rebels.’

Othello, a3s4

‘They are all but stomachs, and we all but food;/ They eat us hungerly, and when they are full, / They belch us.’

Emilia, a3s4

‘Nay, we must think men are not gods,’ Nor of them look for such observancy/ As fits the bridal.’

Desdemona, a3s4

‘Throw your vile guesses in the devil’s teeth / From whence you have them.’

Cassio, a3s4

‘She is protectress of her honour too.’

Othello, a4s1

‘Work on, my medicine, work! Thus credulous fools are caught;’

Iago, a4s1

‘Have you not hurt your head? ‘Dost thou mock me?’

Iago and Othello, a4s1

‘I marry her? What! A customer! I prithee, bear some charity to by wit. Do not think it so unwholesome.’

Cassio, a4s1

‘thither comes this bauble and, by this hand, falls me thus about my neck.’

Cassio, a4s1 (about Bianca)

‘I’ll not expostulate / with her, lest her body and beauty unprovide my mind again.’

Othello, a4s1

‘O devil, devil! If that the earth could teem with woman’s tears, / Each drop she falls would prove a crocodile./ Out of my sight!’

Othello, a4s1

‘Truly, an obedient lady.’

Lodovico, a4s1

‘I durst, my lord, to wager she is honest.’

Emilia, a4s2

‘She says enough; yet she’s a simple bawd/ That cannot say as much. This is a subtle whore’

Othello, a4s2

‘Swear thou art honest.’ ‘Heaven doth truly know it. ‘ ‘Heaven truly knows that thou art false as hell.’

Othello and Desdemona, a4s2

‘Was this fair paper, this most goodly book, / Made to write ‘whore’ upon? What committed! / Committed? O thou public commoner!’

Othello, a4s2

‘Hath she forsook so many noble matches, / Her father, and her country, and her friends, / To be called whore? ‘

Emilia, a4s2

‘A halter pardon him and hell gnaw his bones!’

Emilia, a4s2

‘The jewels you have had from me to deliver to Desdemona / would half have corrupted a votarist.’

Roderigo, a4s2

‘Get you to bed on th’instant. I will be returned forthwith.’

Othello, a4s3

‘my love doth so approve him / That even his stubbornness, his checks, his frowns- / Prithee, unpin me- have grace and favour in them.’

Desdemona, a4s3

‘She had a song of willow; / An old thing ‘twas but it expressed her fortune, '/ And she died singing it. That song tonight / Will not go from my mind. I have much to do / But to go hang my head all at one side.’

Desdemona, a4s3

‘Wouldst thou do such a deed for all the world?’ ‘The world’s a huge thing; it is a great price/ For a small vice.’

Desdemona and Emilia, a4s3

‘Who would not make her husband a cuckold, / To make him a monarch? I should venture purgatory for’t.’

Emilia, a4s3

‘But i do think it is their husbands’ faults / If wives do fall.’

Emilia, a4s3

‘Let husbands know/ Their wives have sense like them: they see, and smell / And have their palates both for sweet and sour /As husbands have.’

Emilia, a4s3

‘Else let them know / The ills we do, their ills instruct us so.’

Emilia, a4s3

‘God me such uses send, / Not to pick bad from bad, but from bad mend!’

Desdemona, a4s3

‘Minion, your dear lies dead, And your unblest fate hies. Strumpet, I come!’

Othello, a5s1

‘O damned Iago! O inhuman dog!’

Roderigo, a5s1

‘Gentlemen all, I do suspect this trash / To be a party in this injury.’

Iago, a5s1