A Midsummer Night's Dream Quotes

Lord, what fools these mortals be!

Things base and vile, holding no quantity,Love can transpose to form and dignity.Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind,And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.Nor hath Love's mind of any judgment taste;Wings and no eyes figure unheedy haste.

Ay me! for aught that ever I could read,could ever hear by tale or history,the course of true love never did run smooth.

Though she be but little she is fierce.

And yet,to say the truth, reason and love keep little company together nowadays.

Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,Such shaping fantasies, that apprehendMore than cool reason ever comprehends.The lunatic, the lover and the poetAre of imagination all compact:One sees more devils than vast hell can hold,That is, the madman: the lover, all as frantic,Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt:The poet's eye, in fine frenzy rolling,Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;And as imagination bodies forthThe forms of things unknown, the poet's penTurns them to shapes and gives to airy nothingA local habitation and a name.

If we shadows have offended, Think but this, and all is mended,That you have but slumbered hereWhile these visions did appear.And this weak and idle theme,No more yielding but a dream,Gentles, do not reprehend:If you pardon, we will mend:And, as I am an honest Puck,If we have unearned luckNow to 'scape the serpent's tongue,We will make amends ere long;Else the Puck a liar call;So, good night unto you all.Give me your hands, if we be friends,And Robin shall restore amends.

The lunatic, the lover, and the poet, are of imagination all compact.

Are you sure/That we are awake? It seems to me/That yet we sleep, we dream

I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine.

I’ll follow thee and make a heaven of hell,To die upon the hand I love so well.

Lovers and madmen have such seething brainsSuch shaping fantasies, that apprehendMore than cool reason ever comprehends.

O, when she's angry, she is keen and shrewd! She was a vixen when she went to school; And though she be but little, she is fierce.

Love's stories written in love's richest books.To fan the moonbeams from his sleeping eyes.

So we grew together,Like to a double cherry, seeming parted,But yet an union in partition,Two lovely berries moulded on one stem.

Thus I die. Thus, thus, thus.Now I am dead,Now I am fled,My soul is in the sky.Tongue, lose thy light.Moon take thy flight.Now die, die, die, die.

I have had a most rare vision. I have had a dream, past the wit of man to say what dream it was.

And sleep, that sometime shuts up sorrow's eye, Steal me awhile from mine own company.

For you, in my respect, are all the world.Then how can it be said I am aloneWhen all the world is here to look on me?

Take pains. Be perfect.

Oh why rebuke you him that loves you so? / Lay breath so bitter on your bitter foe.

If we shadows have offended,Know but this and all is mended.That you have but slumbered here,While these visions did appear,And this weak and idle theme,No more yielding, but a dream.

Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania

O me, you juggler, you canker-blossom, you thief of love!

Up and down, up and downI will lead them up and downI am feared in field in townGoblin, lead them up and down

Therefore another prologue must tell he is not a lion

Yet but three come one more.Two of both kinds make up four.Ere she comes curst and sad.Cupid is a knavish lad.Thus to make poor females mad.

Through the forest have I gone.But Athenian found I none,On whose eyes I might approveThis flower's force in stirring love.Night and silence.--Who is here?Weeds of Athens he doth wear:This is he, my master said,Despised the Athenian maid;And here the maiden, sleeping sound,On the dank and dirty ground.Pretty soul! she durst not lieNear this lack-love, this kill-courtesy.Churl, upon thy eyes I throwAll the power this charm doth owe.When thou wakest, let love forbidSleep his seat on thy eyelid:So awake when I am gone;For I must now to Oberon.

The clamorous owl, that nightly hoots and wondersAt out quaint spirits.

It is not night when I do see your face,Therefore I think I am not in the night;Nor doth this wood lack worlds of company,For you in my respect are all the world:Then how can it be said I am alone,When all the world is here to look on me?

The eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen, man's hand is not able to taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report, what my dream was.

The wildest hath not such a heart as you.Run when you will, the story shall be changed:Apollo flies, and Daphne holds the chase;The dove pursues the griffin; the mild hindMakes speed to catch the tiger; bootless speed,When cowardice pursues and valour flies.

Why should you think that I should woo in scorn?Scorn and derision never come in tears:Look, when I vow, I weep; and vows so born,In their nativity all truth appears.How can these things in me seem scorn to you,Bearing the badge of faith, to prove them true?

If there were a sympathy in choice,War, death, or sickness, did lay siege to it,Making it momentary as a sound,Swift as a shadow, short as any dream,Brief as the lightning in the collied nightThat, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth,And ere a man hath power to say 'Behold!'The jaws of darkness do devour it up;So quick bright things come to confusion.

My Oberon, what visions have I seen!Methought I was enamored of an ass. Titania, Act IV, Scene 1, Lines 76-77

Four days will quickly steep themselves in nights;Four nights will quickly dream away the time.

Let me play the lion too: I will roar that I will do any man's heart good to hear me. I will roar that I will make the duke say 'Let him roar again, let him roar again.

O Helena, goddess, nymph, perfect, divine!To what, my love, shall I compare thine eyne?Crystal is muddy. O, how ripe in showThy lips, those kissing cherries, tempting grow!

O, teach me how you look, and with what art You sway the motion of Demetrius' heart."-Helena

The iron tongue of Midnight hathtold twelve lovers, to bed; 'tisalmost fairy time. I fear weshall outstep the coming mornas much as we this night over-watch'd.

Thus have I, Wall, my part discharged so;And, being done, thus Wall away doth go.

Here come the lovers, full of joy and mirth.— Joy, gentle friends! joy and fresh days of love Accompany your hearts!

BOTTOMThere are things in this comedy of Pyramus and Thisby that will never please. First, Pyramus must draw a sword to kill himself; which the ladiescannot abide. How answer you that?SNOUTBy'r lakin, a parlous fear.STARVELINGI believe we must leave the killing out, when all is done.BOTTOMNot a whit: I have a device to make all well.Write me a prologue; and let the prologue seem tosay, we will do no harm with our swords, and thatPyramus is not killed indeed; and, for the morebetter assurance, tell them that I, Pyramus, am notPyramus, but Bottom the weaver: this will put themout of fear.QUINCEWell, we will have such a prologue; and it shall bewritten in eight and six.BOTTOMNo, make it two more; let it be written in eight and eight.

You have her father's love, Demetrius;Let me have Hermia's: do you marry him.

I will not trust you, I,Nor longer stay in your curst company.Your hands than mine are quicker for a fray,My legs are longer though, to run away.

And thence from Athens turn away our eyesTo seek new friends and stranger companies.

Four days will quickly steep themselves in nights; Four nights will quickly dream away the time; And then the moon, like to a silver bow new bent in heaven, shall behold the night of our solemnities.

Ay, in the temple, in the town, the field, You do me mischief. Fie, Demetrius! Your wrongs do set a scandal on my sex: We cannot fight for love, as men ay do; We should be woo'd, and were not made to woo. I'll follow thee, and make a heaven of hell, To die upon the hand I love so well.

She was a vixen and though she be but little, she is fierce.

I charge thee, hence, and do not haunt me thus.