Twelfth Night Quotes

"If music be the food of love, play on. Give me excess of it; that surfeiting, that appetite may sicken and die"

- Orsino, Love and Desire

“Conceal me what I am, and be my aid / For such disguise as haply shall become / The form of my intent.”

Viola, Disguise and Deception

“Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon 'em.”

Malvolio, Costume acting as a symbol of false identity and delusion

"Lady, cucullus non facit monachum; that’s as much to say as I wear not motley in my brain."

Feste, Fools and Foolishness

"Disguise, I see thou art a wickedness, / Wherein the pregnant enemy does much"

Viola, Disguise and Deception (negative aspects)

“It is too hard a knot for me to untie”

Viola, Love and desire

“Fortune forbid my outside hath not charmed her!”

Viola, Mistaken Identity

“If this were played upon a stage now, I would condemn it as an improbable fiction”

Fabian, Acting style/character

“I am not what I am”

Viola, Acting style/character

"My father had a daughter loved a man, / As it might be, perhaps, were I a woman"

Viola, Disguise/Dramatic irony

“Better a witty fool than a foolish wit.”

Feste, Acting style/character

Cesario, come, For so you shall be, while you are a man. But when in other habits you are seen, Orsino’s mistress and his fancy’s queen. 

Orsino, Love and Desire