Drama Final Common Quotes From Plays

“O, beware, my lord, of jealousy; It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock the meat it feeds on.”

Othello – Iago warns Othello about jealousy while ironically stoking it.

“I kissed thee ere I killed thee. No way but this, killing myself, to die upon a kiss.”

Othello – Othello's final words before his suicide after realizing Desdemona’s innocence.

“I am not what I am.”

Othello – Iago reveals his two-faced nature to Roderigo.

“She loved me for the dangers I had passed, / And I loved her that she did pity them.”

Othello – Othello explains how Desdemona fell in love with him.

“Reputation, reputation, reputation! O, I have lost my reputation!”

Othello – Cassio after his brawl, lamenting the damage to his honor.

“Men should be what they seem.”

Othello – Iago, ironically, as he manipulates Othello.

“Put out the light, and then put out the light.”

Othello – Othello before killing Desdemona, speaking of both the candle and her life.

“Even now, now, very now, an old black ram / Is tupping your white ewe.”

Othello – Iago to Brabantio, using racist and animalistic imagery to provoke him.

“How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child!”

King Lear – Lear condemns Goneril for her ingratitude after receiving her inheritance.

“Nothing will come of nothing.”

King Lear – Lear to Cordelia when she refuses to flatter him.

“I am a man / More sinned against than sinning.”

King Lear – Lear during the storm, reflecting on his suffering.

“The wheel is come full circle: I am here.”

King Lear – Edmund’s acknowledgment of fate as he dies.

“Thou shouldst not have been old till thou hadst been wise.”

King Lear – The Fool chastises Lear’s poor judgment.

“When we are born, we cry that we are come / To this great stage of fools.”

King Lear – Lear, in madness, lamenting the cruelty of life.

“And my poor fool is hanged!”

King Lear – Lear mourns Cordelia in his final lines.

“Is this a dagger which I see before me, / The handle toward my hand?”

Macbeth – Macbeth hallucinating before killing Duncan.

“Look like the innocent flower, / But be the serpent under't.”

Macbeth – Lady Macbeth advising Macbeth to appear innocent while hiding intent.

“What’s done cannot be undone.”

Macbeth – Lady Macbeth overcome with guilt in her sleepwalking scene.

“Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood / Clean from my hand?”

Macbeth – Macbeth after Duncan’s murder, overwhelmed by guilt.

“By the pricking of my thumbs, / Something wicked this way comes.”

Macbeth – The witches anticipate Macbeth’s arrival.

“Fair is foul, and foul is fair.”

Macbeth – The witches’ paradoxical chant foreshadowing the play’s moral confusion.

“My salad days, / When I was green in judgment, cold in blood.”

Antony & Cleopatra – Cleopatra reflecting on youthful inexperience.

“Let Rome in Tiber melt.”

Antony & Cleopatra – Antony choosing love over duty to Rome.

“O, withered is the garland of the war.”

Antony & Cleopatra – Cleopatra mourning Antony’s downfall.

“I am dying, Egypt, dying.”

Antony & Cleopatra – Antony’s dying words to Cleopatra.

“Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale / Her infinite variety.”

Antony & Cleopatra – Enobarbus admiring Cleopatra’s eternal allure.

“The barge she sat in, like a burnish’d throne…”

Antony & Cleopatra – Enobarbus describing Cleopatra’s dramatic arrival by boat.

“If you have writ your annals true, 'tis there, / That like an eagle in a dovecote, I / Flutter'd your Volscians in Corioli.”

Coriolanus – Coriolanus boasting about his past military triumph.

“There is a world elsewhere.”

Coriolanus – Coriolanus upon rejecting Rome after his banishment.

“You shall / Hear from me still, and never of me aught / But what is like me formerly.”

Coriolanus – Coriolanus parting from his family to go to the Volsci.

“You common cry of curs, whose breath I hate / As reek o' the rotten fens.”

Coriolanus – Coriolanus insulting the Roman people.

“O mother, mother! / What have you done?”

Coriolanus – Coriolanus to Volumnia, after she persuades him to spare Rome.

“Too hot, too hot!”

The Winter’s Tale – Leontes expressing irrational jealousy of Hermione and Polixenes.

“A sad tale's best for winter.”

The Winter’s Tale – Mamillius introducing his story, foreshadowing tragedy.

“This is the chase: I am gone for ever.”

The Winter’s Tale – Antigonus moments before being killed (stage direction: pursued by a bear).

“What’s gone and what’s past help / Should be past grief.”

The Winter’s Tale – Paulina encouraging Leontes to move on from guilt.

“You gods, look down / And from your sacred vials pour your graces / Upon my daughter's head!”

The Winter’s Tale – Leontes during Perdita’s reunion, praying for forgiveness.

“The covering sky is nothing, Bohemia nothing, / My wife is nothing, nor nothing have these nothings, / If this be nothing.”

The Winter’s Tale – Leontes in Act 1, spiraling into jealous madness and nihilism.