The Merchant of Venice Quotes

In sooth, I know not why I am so sad.

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

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

They are as sick that surfeit with too much, as they that starve with nothing.

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 dote on his very absence.

I will buy with you, sell with you, talk with you, walk with you, and so following; but I will not eat with you, drink with you, nor pray with you.

The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.

Many a time and oft
In the Rialto you have rated me
About my moneys and my usances:
Still I have borne it with a patient shrug,
For sufferance is the badge of all our tribe.
You call me misbeliever, cut-throat dog,
And spit upon my Jewish gaberdine,
And all for use of that which is mine own.

Let the forfeit
Be nominated for an equal pound
Of your fair flesh, to be cut off and taken
In what part of your body pleaseth me.

Mislike me not for my complexion,
The shadow'd livery of the burnish'd sun.

All things that are,
Are with more spirit chased than enjoy'd.

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

All that glisters is not gold.

If it will feed nothing else, it will feed my revenge.

I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that.

The villainy you teach me I will execute, and it shall go hard, but I will better the instruction.

If he lose, he makes a swan-like end,
Fading in music.

Tell me where is fancy bred,
Or in the heart or in the head?
How begot, how nourished?
Reply, reply.
It is engender'd in the eyes,
With gazing fed; and fancy dies
In the cradle, where it lies.
Let us all ring fancy's knell;
I'll begin it – Ding, dong, bell.

There is no vice so simple but assumes
Some mark of virtue in his outward parts.

I am a tainted wether of the flock,
Meetest for death: the weakest kind of fruit
Drops earliest to the ground.

I never knew so young a body with so old a head.

Which is the merchant here, and which the Jew?

The quality of mercy is not strain'd,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
'T is mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown;
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptred sway,
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God's,
When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew,
Though justice be thy plea, consider this,
That in the course of justice none of us
Should see salvation: we do pray for mercy;
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
The deeds of mercy.

My deeds upon my head! I crave the law,
The penalty and forfeit of my bond.

Nay, take my life and all; pardon not that:
You take my house when you do take the prop
That doth sustain my house; you take my life
When you do take the means whereby I live.

The man that hath no music in himself,
Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils;
The motions of his spirit are dull as night,
And his affections dark as Erebus.
Let no such man be trusted.

We will answer all things faithfully.