Measure For Measure

By William Shakespeare

QUOTATION: Rather rejoicing to see another merry, than merry at anything which professed to make him rejoice; a gentleman of all temperance.
ATTRIBUTION: William Shakespeare (1564–1616), British dramatist, poet. Escalus, in Measure for Measure, act 3, sc. 2, l. 235-7.

QUOTATION: What’s this, what’s this? Is it her fault or mine?
The tempter, or the tempted, who sins most, ha?
ATTRIBUTION: William Shakespeare (1564–1616), British dramatist, poet. Angelo, in Measure for Measure, act 2, sc. 2, l. 162-3.

QUOTATION: A man that apprehends death no more dreadfully but as a drunken sleep, careless, reckless, and fearless of what’s past, present, or to come; insensible of mortality, and desperately mortal.
ATTRIBUTION: William Shakespeare (1564–1616), British dramatist, poet. Provost, in Measure for Measure, act 4, sc. 2, l. 142-5.

QUOTATION: No might nor greatness in mortality
Can censure scape; back-wounding calumny
The whitest virtue strikes. What king so strong
Can tie the gall up in the slanderous tongue?
ATTRIBUTION: William Shakespeare (1564–1616), British dramatist, poet. Duke, in Measure for Measure, act 3, sc. 2, l. 185-8.

QUOTATION: The sense of death is most in apprehension,
And the poor beetle that we tread upon
In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great
As when a giant dies.
ATTRIBUTION: William Shakespeare (1564–1616), British dramatist, poet. Isabella, in Measure for Measure, act 3, sc. 1, l. 77-80.

QUOTATION: If thou art rich, thou’rt poor,
For like an ass, whose back with ingots bows,
Thou bear’st thy heavy riches but a journey,
And death unloads thee.
ATTRIBUTION: William Shakespeare (1564–1616), British dramatist, poet. Duke, in Measure for Measure, act 3, sc. 1, l. 25-8.

QUOTATION: O cunning enemy, that to catch a saint,
With saints doth bait thy hook! Most dangerous
Is that temptation that doth goad us on
To sin in loving virtue.
ATTRIBUTION: William Shakespeare (1564–1616), British dramatist, poet. Angelo, in Measure for Measure, act 2, sc. 2, l. 179-82.

QUOTATION: Duke (in disguise). I pray you, sir, of what disposition was the Duke?
Escalus. One that, above all other strifes, contended especially to know himself.
ATTRIBUTION: William Shakespeare (1564–1616), British dramatist, poet. Duke and Escalus, in Measure for Measure, act 3, sc. 2, l. 230-3.

QUOTATION: Isabella. Yet show some pity.
Angelo. I show it most of all when I show justice;
For then I pity those I do not know,
Which a dismissed offence would after gall.
ATTRIBUTION: William Shakespeare (1564–1616), British dramatist, poet. Isabella and Angelo, in Measure for Measure, act 2, sc. 2, l. 99-102.

QUOTATION: I not deny
The jury, passing on the prisoner’s life,
May in the sworn twelve have a thief or two
Guiltier than him they try. What’s open made to justice,
That justice seizes.
ATTRIBUTION: William Shakespeare (1564–1616), British dramatist, poet. Angelo, in Measure for Measure, act 2, sc. 1, l. 18-22.

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