As You Like It

"As a walled town is more worthier than a village, so is the forehead of a married man more honourable than the bare brow of a bachelor."

"Rosalind: His hair is of a good colour. Celia: An excellent colour: your chestnut was ever the only colour."

"And his kissing is as full of sanctity as the touch of holy bread."

"The very ice of chastity is in them."

"Thou tell’st me there is murder in mine eye: ’Tis pretty, sure, and very probable, That eyes, that are the frail’st and softest things, Who shut their coward gates on atomies, Should be call’d tyrants, butchers, murderers!"

"But mistress, know yourself: down on your knees, And thank heaven, fasting, for a good man’s love: For I must tell you friendly in your ear, Sell when you can: you are not for all markets."

"Dead shepherd, now I find thy saw of might, ‘Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?’"

"Wherever sorrow is, relief would be: If you do sorrow at my grief in love, By giving love your sorrow and my grief Were both extermined."

"Faster than his tongue Did make offence his eye did heal it up."

"It is a melancholy of mine own, compounded of many simples, extracted from many objects; and indeed the sundry contemplation of my travels, in which my often rumination wraps me in a most humorous sadness."

"I have gained my experience."

"I had rather have a fool to make me merry than experience to make me sad."

"Farewell, Monsieur Traveller: look you lisp and wear strange suits; disable all the benefits of your own country."

"I will scarce think you have swam in a gondola."

"I’ll warrant him heart-whole."

"For now I am in a holiday humour."

"Very good orators, when they are out, they will spit; and for lovers lacking,—God warn us!—matter, the cleanliest shift is to kiss."

"Men have died from time to time and worms have eaten them, but not for love."

"Orlando: And wilt thou have me? Rosalind: Ay, and twenty such. Orlando: What sayest thou? Rosalind: Are you not good? Orlando: I hope so. Rosalind: Why then, can one desire too much of a good thing?"

"Orlando: I take thee, Rosalind, for wife. Rosalind: I might ask you for your commission; but I do take thee, Orlando, for my husband: there’s a girl goes before the priest; and certainly a woman’s thought runs before her actions. Orlando: So do all thoughts; they are winged. Rosalind: Now tell me how long you would have her after you have possessed her. Orlando: For ever and a day. Rosalind: Say ‘a day,’ without the ‘ever’. No, no, Orlando; men are April when they woo, December when they wed: maids are May when they are maids, but the sky changes when they are wives."

"Make the doors upon a woman’s wit and it will out at the casement; shut that and ’twill out at the key-hole; stop that, ’twill fly with the smoke out at the chimney."

"Time is the old justice that examines all such offenders, and let Time try."

"O coz, coz, coz, my pretty little coz, that thou didst know how many fathom deep I am in love! But it cannot be sounded: my affection hath an unknown bottom, like the bay of Portugal."

"That blind rascally boy that abuses every one’s eyes because his own are out, let him be judge how deep I am in love. I’ll tell thee, Aliena, I cannot be out of the sight of Orlando: I’ll go find a shadow and sigh till he come."

"What shall he have that kill’d the deer? His leather skin and horns to wear. Then sing him home: Take thou no scorn to wear the horn; It was a crest ere thou wast born: Thy father’s father wore it, And thy father bore it: The horn, the horn, the lusty horn Is not a thing to laugh to scorn."

"This is a man’s invention and his hand."

"Pacing through the forest, Chewing the food of sweet and bitter fancy."

"It is meat and drink to me."

"‘So so’ is good, very good, very excellent good; and yet it is not; it is but so so."

"I do now remember a saying, ‘The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.’"

"I will kill thee a hundred and fifty ways."

"No sooner met but they looked; no sooner looked but they loved; no sooner loved but they sighed; no sooner sighed but they asked one another the reason; no sooner knew the reason but they sought the remedy."

"How bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man’s eyes!"

"Phebe: Good shepherd, tell this youth what ’tis to love. Silvius: It is to be all made of sighs and tears; ... It is to be all made of faith and service; ... It is to be all made of fantasy, All made of passion, and all made of wishes; All adoration, duty, and observance, All humbleness, all patience, and impatience, All purity, all trial, all observance."

"It was a lover and his lass, With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino, That o’er the green corn-field did pass In the spring time, the only pretty ring time, When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding: Sweet lovers love the spring. Between the acres of the rye, With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino, These pretty country folks would lie, In spring time, &c. This carol they began that hour, With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino, How that a life was but a flower In spring time, &c. And therefore take the present time, With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino; For love is crowned with the prime In spring time, &c."

"Here comes a pair of very strange beasts, which in all tongues are called fools."

"An ill-favoured thing, sir, but mine own."

"Rich honesty dwells like a miser, sir, in a poor house; as your pearl in your foul oyster."

"O sir, we quarrel in print, by the book; as you have books for good manners: I will name you the degrees. The first, the Retort Courteous; the second, the Quip Modest; the third, the Reply Churlish; the fourth, the Reproof Valiant; the fifth, the Countercheck Quarrelsome; the sixth, the Lie with Circumstance; the seventh, the Lie Direct. All these you may avoid but the Lie Direct; and you may avoid that too, with an If. I knew when seven justices could not take up a quarrel, but when the parties were met themselves, one of them thought but of an If, as, ‘If you said so, then I said so;’ and they shook hands and swore brothers. Your If is the only peace-maker; much virtue in If."

"Wedding is great Juno’s crown: O blessed bond of board and bed! ’Tis Hymen peoples every town; High wedlock then be honourèd: Honour, high honour and renown, To Hymen, god of every town!"

"If it be true that good wine needs no bush, ’tis true that a good play needs no epilogue"

"What a case am I in."

"If I were a woman I would kiss as many of you as had beards that pleased me, complexions that liked me and breaths that I defied not: and, I am sure, as many as have good beards or good faces or sweet breaths will, for my kind offer, when I make curtsy, bid me farewell."