Twelfth Night Quotes

“Be not afraid of greatness. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them.”
― William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night

“If music be the food of love, play on,
Give me excess of it; that surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.”
― William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night

“Some are born great, others achieve greatness.”
― William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night

“a young woman in love always looks like patience on a monument smiling at grief”
― William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night

“If music be the food of love, play on.”
― William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night

“Better a witty fool, than a foolish wit.”
― William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night

“Love sought is good, but giv'n unsought is better.”
― William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night

“Journeys end in lovers meeting.”
― William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night

“O time, thou must untangle this, not I.
It is too hard a knot for me t'untie.”
― William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night

“Olivia: How does he love me?
Viola: With adoration, with fertile tears,
With groans that thunder love, with sighs of fire.”
― William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night

“Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon 'em.”
― William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night

“I have unclasp'd to thee the book even of my secret soul.”
― William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night

“But, indeed, words are very rascals, since bonds [vows] disgraced them."
Viola: "Thy reason, man?"
Feste: "Troth [Truthfully], sir, I can yield you none without words, and words are grown so false, I am loathe to prove reason with them.”
― William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night

“Come away, come away, Death,
And in sad cypress let me be laid;
Fly away, fly away, breath,
I am slain by a fair cruel maid.
My shroud of white stuck all with yew, O prepare it!
My part of death no one so true did share it.

Not a flower, not a flower sweet,
On my black coffin let there be strewn:
Not a friend, not a friend greet
My poor corpse, where my bones shall be thrown.
A thousand thousand sighs to save, lay me O where
Sad true lover never find my grave, to weep there!”
― William Shakespeare, Twelfth night

“Make me a willow cabin at your gate,
And call upon my soul within the house;
Write loyal cantons of contemned love
And sing them loud even in the dead of night.”
― William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night

“Alas, the frailty is to blame, not we
For such as we are made of, such we be”
― William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night Paperback

“Journeys end in lovers meeting,
Every wise man's son doth know.”
― William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night

“For what says Quinapalus? Better a witty fool than a foolish wit.”
― William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night

“Antonio: Will you stay no longer? nor will you not that I go with you?
Sebastian: By your patience, no. My stars shine darkly over me; the malignancy of my fate might, perhaps, distemper yours; therefore I shall crave of you your leave that I may bear my evils alone. It were a bad recompense for your love to lay any of them on you.”
― William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night

“She never told her love, but let concealment, like a worm 'i th' bud, feed on her damask cheek. She pinned in thought; and, with a green and yellow melancholy, she sat like Patience on a monument, smiling at grief. Was not this love indeed? We men may say more, swear more; but indeed our shows are more than will; for we still prove much in our vows but little in our love.”
― William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night

“Well, God give them wisdom that have it; and those that are fools, let them use their talents.”
― William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night

“Foolery, sir, does walk about the orb like the sun; it shines everywhere.”
― William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night

“Olivia: What's a drunken man like, fool?
Feste: Like a drowned man, a fool, and a madman: one draught above heat makes him a fool; the second mads him; and a third drowns him.”
― William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night

“I am indeed not her fool, but her corrupter of words. (Act III, sc. I, 37-38)”
― William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night

“This fellow is wise enough to play the fool;
And to do that well craves a kind of wit:
He must observe their mood on whom he jests,
The quality of persons, and the time,
And, like the haggard, check at every feather
That comes before his eye. This is a practise
As full of labour as a wise man's art
For folly that he wisely shows is fit;
But wise men, folly-fall'n, quite taint their wit.”
― William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night

“Lady, you are the cruel'st she alive
If you will lead these graces to the grave
And leave the world no copy.”
― William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night

“Alas, sir, how fell you besides your five wits?"
Malvolio: "Fool, there was never a man so notoriously abused. I am as well in my wits, fool, as thou art."
Feste: "But as well? Then you are mad indeed, if you be no better in you wits than a fool.”
― William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night

“Conceal me what I am, and be my aid for such disguise as haply shall become the form of my intent.”
― William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night

“Where lies your text?
Viola: In Orsino's bosom.
Olivia: In his bosom! In what chapter of his bosom?
Viola: To answer by the method, in the first of his heart.”
― William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night

“In nature there's no blemish but the mind.
None can be called deformed but the unkind.”
― William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night