The Merchant of Venice

"Fair ladies, you drop manna in the way Of starved people."

"We will answer all things faithfully."

"The Portia of our Chambers."

"I reviewed the other moments scholars cite to prove Shylock's "humanity." There were two lines of Shylock treasuring his dead wife's ring, unlike the play's Christian men who give their wives' rings away. But unlike the other men, Shylock never gets his ring back—because his daughter steals it, and becomes a Christian, and inherits what remains of his estate at the play's triumphant end. Then there was the trial scene, where modern actors often make Shylock seem tragic rather than horrific. But that was performance, not text. Finally, scholars point to the many times Shylock explains why he is so revolting: Christians treat him poorly, so he returns the favor. But for this to satisfy, one must accept that Jews are revolting to begin with, and that their repulsiveness simply needs to be explained. None of it worked. And then I saw just how deep the gaslighting went: I felt obligated to make it work, to contort this revolting material into something that excused it. I have a doctorate in literature. I am aware that Shakespeare's plays contain many layers and mean many things. But the degrading hideousness of this character is obvious even to a ten-year-old, and no matter how many more layers the play contains, that is unambiguously one of them."

"There will come a Christian by, Shall be worth a Jewess' eye."

"Fast bind, fast find, A proverb never stale in thrifty mind."

"All things that are, Are with more spirit chased than enjoy’d. How like a younker or a prodigal The scarfed bark puts from her native bay, Hugg’d and embraced by the strumpet wind! How like the prodigal doth she return, With over-weather’d ribs and ragged sails, Lean, rent, and beggar’d by the strumpet wind!"

"But love is blind, and lovers cannot see The pretty follies that themselves commit."

"Must I hold a candle to my shames?"

"For she is wise, if I can judge of her; And fair she is, if that mine eyes be true; And true she is, as she hath proved herself; And therefore, like herself, wise, fair, and true, Shall she be placed in my constant soul."

"All that glisters is not gold; Often have you heard that told: Many a man his life hath sold But my outside to behold: Gilded tombs do worms infold. Had you been as wise as bold, Young in limbs, in judgment old, Your answer had not been inscroll'd: Fare you well, your suit is cold."

"Slubber not business for my sake, Bassanio, But stay the very riping of the time."

"I think he only loves the world for him."

"Like the martlet, Builds in the weather on the outward wall, Even in the force and road of casualty."

"I will not choose what many men desire, Because I will not jump with common spirits, And rank me with the barbarous multitudes."

"O, that estates, degrees and offices Were not derived corruptly, and that clear honour Were purchased by the merit of the wearer!"

"The fire seven times tried this; Seven times tried that judgment is, That did never choose amiss. Some there be that shadows kiss; Such have but a shadow's bliss: There be fools alive, I wis, Silver'd o'er; and so was this. Take what wife you will to bed, I will ever be your head: So be gone: you are sped."

"The ancient saying is no heresy, Hanging and wiving goes by destiny."

"A day in April never came so sweet, To show how costly summer was at hand,"

"If my gossip Report be an honest woman of her word."

"I have much ado to know myself"

"My ventures are not in one bottom trusted, Nor to one place."

"Now, by two-headed Janus, Nature hath fram'd strange fellows in her time: Some that will evermore peep through their eyes, And laugh like parrots at a bag-piper."

"They’ll not show their teeth in way of smile, Though Nestor swear the jest be laughable."

"You have too much respect upon the world: They lose it that do buy it with much care."

"I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano; A stage, where every man must play a part, And mine a sad one."

"Let me play the fool: With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come."

"Why should a man, whose blood is warm within, Sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster?"

"There are a sort of men, whose visages Do cream and mantle like a standing pond; And do a willful stillness entertain, With purpose to be dress'd in an opinion Of wisdom, gravity, profound conceit; As who should say, 'I am Sir Oracle, And when I ope my lips, let no dog bark!'"

"I do know of these, That therefore only are reputed wise For saying nothing."

"Fish not, with this melancholy bait, For this fool gudgeon, this opinion."

"For silence is only commendable In a neat’s tongue dried, and a maid not vendible."

"Gratiano speaks an infinite deal of nothing, more than any man in all Venice. His reasons are as two grains of wheat hid in two bushels of chaff: you shall seek all day ere you find them: and when you have them, they are not worth the search."

"In my school-days, when I had lost one shaft, I shot his fellow of the self-same flight The self-same way with more advised watch, To find the other forth; and by adventuring both, I oft found both."

"In Belmont is a lady richly left; And she is fair, and fairer than that word, Of wondrous virtues. Sometimes from her eyes I did receive fair speechless messages."

"Her name is Portia; nothing undervalued To Cato’s daughter, Brutus’ Portia:"

"Her sunny locks Hang on her temples like a golden fleece; Which makes her seat of Belmont Colchos' strand, And many Jasons come in quest of her."

"My little body is aweary of this great world."

"They are as sick that surfeit with too much, as they that starve with nothing. It is no mean happiness, therefore, to be seated in the mean: superfluity comes sooner by white hairs; but competency lives longer."

"If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men’s cottages princes’ palaces."

"I can easier teach twenty what were good to be done, than be one of the twenty to follow mine own teaching."

"The brain may devise laws for the blood; but a hot temper leaps o’er a cold decree."

"He doth nothing but talk of his horse."

"I fear he will prove the weeping philosopher when he grows old, being so full of unmannerly sadness in his youth."

"God made him, and therefore let him pass for a man."

"When he is best, he is a little worse than a man; and when he is worst, he is little better than a beast."

"I will do any thing, Nerissa, ere I’ll be married to a sponge."

"If I live to be as old as Sibylla, I will die as chaste as Diana."

"I dote on his very absence."

"My meaning, in saying he is a good man, is to have you understand me, that he is sufficient."