Measure For Measure

By William Shakespeare

QUOTATION: Your brother and his lover have embraced.
As those that feed grow full, as blossoming time
That from the seedness the bare fallow brings
To teeming foison, even so her plenteous womb
Expresseth his full tilth and husbandry.
ATTRIBUTION: William Shakespeare (1564–1616), British dramatist, poet. Lucio, in Measure for Measure, act 1, sc. 4, l. 40-4.

QUOTATION: He who the sword of heaven will bear
Should be as holy as severe;
Pattern in himself to know,
Grace to stand, and virtue go;
More nor less to others paying
Than by self-offenses weighing.
Shame to him whose cruel striking
Kills for faults of his own liking!
ATTRIBUTION: William Shakespeare (1564–1616), British poet. Measure for Measure (III, ii).

QUOTATION: Why, all the souls that were were forfeit once,
And He that might the vantage best have took
Found out the remedy. How would you be
If He which is the top of judgment should
But judge you as you are? O, think on that,
And mercy then will breathe within your lips,
Like man new made.
ATTRIBUTION: William Shakespeare (1564–1616), British dramatist, poet. Isabella, in Measure for Measure, act 2, sc. 2, l. 73-9.

QUOTATION: Escalus. What do you think of the trade, Pompey? Is it a lawful trade?
Pompey. If the law would allow it, sir.
Escalus. But the law will not allow it, Pompey; nor it shall not be allowed in Vienna.
Pompey. Does your worship mean to geld and spay all the youth of the city?
Escalus. No, Pompey.
Pompey. Truly, sir, in my poor opinion they will to’t then. If your worship will take order for the drabs and the knaves, you need not to fear the bawds.
ATTRIBUTION: William Shakespeare (1564–1616), British dramatist, poet. Escalus and Pompey, in Measure for Measure, act 2, sc. 1, l. 225-35.

QUOTATION: Ay, but to die, and go we know not where;
To lie in cold obstruction, and to rot;
This sensible warm motion to become
A kneaded clod, and the dilated spirit
To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside
In thrilling region of thick-ribbèd ice;
To be imprisoned in the viewless winds,
And blown with restless violence round about
The pendent world; or to be worse than worst
Of those that lawless and incertain thought
Imagine howling—’tis too horrible!
The weariest and most loathèd worldly life
That age, ache, penury, and imprisonment
Can lay on nature is a paradise
To what we fear of death.
ATTRIBUTION: William Shakespeare (1564–1616), British dramatist, poet. Claudio, in Measure for Measure, act 3, sc.1, l. 118-32 (1623).

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