SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM: Othello

Othello,

the Moor of Venice,

by William Shakespeare

Quotes for Discussion

Roderigo: Most reverend signior, do you know my voice?

Brabantio: No I. What are you?
Roderigo: My name is Roderigo.
Brabantio: The worser welcome. I have charged thee not to haunt about my doors.

Shakespeare, Othello, Act 1, Scene 1, Great Books Volume 27, pg 206

Iago: Though in the trade of war I have slain men, yet do I hold it very stuff o' the conscience to do no contrived murder. I lack iniquity sometimes to do me service. Nine or ten times I had thought to have yerk'd him here under the ribs.

Shakespeare, Othello, Act 1, Scene 2, Great Books Volume 27, pg 207

Othello: Good signior, you shall more command with years than with your weapons.

Shakespeare, Othello, Act 1, Scene 2, Great Books Volume 27, pg 208

Othello: Most potent, grave, and reverend signiors, my very noble and approved good masters, that I have taken away this old man's daughter, it is most true; true, I have married her; the very head and front of my offending hath this extent, no more. Rude as I in my speech. And little blessed with the soft phrase of peace.

Shakespeare, Othello, Act 1, Scene 3, Great Books Volume 27, pg 209

Othello: Of my whole course of love, what drugs, what charms, what conjuration and what mighty magic, for such proceeding I am charged withal, I won his daughter.

Shakespeare, Othello, Act 1, Scene 3, Great Books Volume 27, pg 210

Othello: She loved me for the dangers I had pass'd, and I loved her that she did pity them. This is only is the witchcraft I have used. Here comes the lady; let her witness it.

Shakespeare, Othello, Act 1, Scene 3, Great Books Volume 27, pg 210

Desdemona: I do perceive here a divided duty: To you I am bound for life and education; My life and education both do learn me how to respect you; you are the lord of duty; I am hitherto your daughter. But here's my husband. And so much duty as my mother show'd to you, preferring you before her father, So much I challenge that I may profess due to the Moor my lord.

Shakespeare, Othello, Act 1, Scene 3, Great Books Volume 27, pg 210

Roderigo: It is silliness to live when to live is torment, and then have we a prescription to die when Death is our physician.

Shakespeare, Othello, Act 1, Scene 3, Great Books Volume 27, pg 212

Iago: Virtue! a fig! 'tis in ourselves hat we are thus or thus. Our bodies are our garden to the which our wills are gardeners; so that if we will plant nettles, or sow lettuce, ser hyssop and weed up thyme, supply it with one gender of herbs, or distract it with many, either to have it sterile with idleness or manured with industry, why the power and corrigible authority of this lies in our wills. If the balance of our lives had not one scale of reason to poise another of sensuality, the blood and baseness of our natures would conduct us to most preposterous conclusion; but we have reason to cool our raging motions, our carnal stings, our unbitted lusts, whereof I take this that you call love to be a sect or scion.

Shakespeare, Othello, Act 1, Scene 3, Great Books Volume 27, pg 212

Cassio: I remember a mass of things, but nothing distinctly; a quarrel, but nothing wherefore. O God, that men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains! that we should , with joy, pleasance, revel, and applause, transform ourselves into beasts!

Iago: Why, but you are now well enough. How came you thus recovered?

Cassio: I hath pleased the devil drunkenness to give place to the devil wrath One unperfectness shows me another, to make me frankly despise myself.

Iago: Come, you are too severe a moraler. As the time, the place, and the condition of this country stands, I could heartily wish this had not befallen; but since it is as it is, mend it for your own good.

Shakespeare, Othello, Act 2, Scene 3, Great Books Volume 27, pg 220

Clown: Mary, sir, by many a wind-instrument that I know. But, masters, here's money for you, and the general so likes your music that he desires you, for love's sake to make no more noise with it.

1st Musician: Well, sir, we will not.

Clown: If you have any music that may not be heard, to'to again; but , as they say, to hear music the general does not greatly care.

1st Musician: We have none such, sir.

Clown: Then put up your pipes in your bag, for I'l away. Go vanish into air; away!

Shakespeare, Othello, Act 3, Scene 1, Great Books Volume 27, pg 221

Othello: No more of that. I pray you, in your letters, when you shall these unlucky deeds relate, speak of me as I am, nothing extrenuate, nor set down aught in malice. Then must you speak of one that loved not wisely but too well, of one not easily jealous, but being wrought perplex'd in the extreme; of one whose hand, like the base Indian, threw a pearl away richer than all his tribe; of one whose subdued eyes, albeit unused to the melting mood, drop tears as fast as the Arabian trees their medicinal gum.

Shakespeare, Othello, Act 5, Scene 2, Great Books Volume 27, pg 243