Richard III (play)

"Not shine to-day! Why, what is that to me, More than to Richmond? for the selfsame heaven That frowns on me, looks sadly upon him."

"A thing devised by the enemy."

"Conscience is but a word that cowards use, Devis'd at first to keep the strong in awe; Our strong arms be our conscience, swords our law."

"Rescue, my lord of Norfolk, rescue, rescue! The king enacts more wonders than a man, Daring an opposite to every danger; His horse is slain, and all on foot he fights, Seeking for Richmond in the throat of death: Rescue, fair lord, or else the day is lost!"

"I have set my life upon a cast, And I will stand the hazard of the die! I think there be six Richmonds in the field; Five have I slain to-day instead of him."

"A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!"

"God and your arms be prais'd, victorious friends; The day is ours, the bloody dog is dead."

"Inter their bodies as becomes their births. Proclaim a pardon to the soldiers fled, That in submission will return to us; And then, as we have ta'en the sacrament, We will unite the white rose and the red: — Smile heaven upon this fair conjunction, That long have frown'd upon their emnity!"

"In his 1916 essay "The Exceptions", Sigmund Freud interprets Richard's opening soliloquy saying "we all demand reparation for early wounds to our narcissism, our self-love.""

"In Iran one cannot stage... Richard III... because no Iranian should see the death of a prince or a king on the stage. He might jump to conclusions, as if contemporary Iranian history itself is devoid of attempts at regicide."

"The thing that is always so surprising about plays written in another century is how remarkably elastic they are. When you listen to the way in which Shakespeare attacks relationships, for example, even though the words may start off sounding foreign, in actuality they are so accessible, the motivations so clear, the resonances so contemporary. When you put it in a modern context - we could well be in a place with someone like Gaddafi or Mubarak - it becomes apparent how Richard III resonates with that type of personality, with media and manipulation, alliances and petty jealousies."