The Duchess of Malfi Quotes

“Cover her face; mine eyes dazzle. She died young.”
― John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi

“Whether we fall by ambition, blood or lust
Like diamonds, we are cut with our own dust”
― John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi

“I account this world a tedious theater,
For I do play a part in 't 'gainst my will.”
― John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi

“Ambition, madam, is a great man's madness.”
― John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi

“Whether we fall by ambition, blood, or lust, like diamonds we are cut with our own dust.”
― John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi

“Do you not weep?
Other sins only speak, murder shreaks out:
The element of water moistens the earth,
But blood flies upwards and bedews the heavens.”
― John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi

“I know death hath ten thousand several doors
For men to take their exits; and 'tis found
They go on such strange geometrical hinges,
You may open them both ways: any way, for heaven-sake”
― John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi

“Heaven-gates are not so highly arched
As princes' palaces; they that enter there
Must go upon their knees.”
― John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi

“The weakest arm is strong enough that strikes with the sword of justice.”
― John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi

“What's this flesh? A little cruded milk
Fantastical puff-paste. Our bodies are weaker than those
Paper prisons boys use to keep flies in; more contemptible,
Since our is to preserve earth-worms. Didst thou ever seen
A lark in a cage? Such is the soul in the body: this world
Is like her little turf of grass, and the heaven o'er our heads
Like her looking-glass, only gives us a miserable knowledge
Of the small compass of our prison.”
― John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi

“You have left me heartless; mine is in your bosom.”
― John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi

“Sometimes the Devil doth preach.”
― John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi

“we had need to borrow that fantastic glass,invented by Galileo the Florentine
To view another spacious world in the moon
and look to find a constant woman there”
― John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi

“Integrity of life is fame's best friend,
Which nobly, beyond death, shall crown the end.”
― John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi

“Are you out of your princely wits?"

What's he? Let me have his beard sawed off and his eyebrows filed more civil!”
― John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi

“If all my royal kindred
Lay in my way unto this marriage,
I'ld make them my low foot-steps”
― John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi

“Pull and pull strongly for your able strength / Must pull down heaven upon me”
― John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi

“Search the heads of the greatest rivers in the world, you shall find them but bubbles of water.”
― John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi

“L'humain, comme l'épice, ne se révèle que broyé”
― John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi

“FERDINAND: Look, what’s that follows me?
MALATESTE: Nothing, my lord.
FERDINAND: Yes.
MALATESTE: ‘Tis your shadow.
FERDINAND: Stay it; let it not haunt me.
MALATESTE: Impossible, if you move, and the sun shine.
FERDINAND: I will throttle it. [Throws himself upon his shadow.]”
― John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi

“For all our wit and reading brings us to a truer sense of sorrow.”
― John Webster, The Duchess Of Malfi

“for places in the court are but like beds in the hospital, where this man's head lies at that man's foot, and so lower and lower.”
― John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi

“She and I were twins: And should I die this instant, I had liv'd her time to a minute.”
― John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi

“Black-birds fatten best in hard weather”
― John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi

“The Duchess: Diamonds are of most value
They say, that have pass'd through most jewellers hands.
Ferdinand: Whores, by that rule, are precious.”
― John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi

“ANTONIO. 'Tis great pity
He should be thus neglected: I have heard
He 's very valiant. This foul melancholy
Will poison all his goodness; for, I 'll tell you,
If too immoderate sleep be truly said
To be an inward rust unto the soul,
If then doth follow want of action
Breeds all black malcontents; and their close rearing,
Like moths in cloth, do hurt for want of wearing.”
― John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi

“BOSOLA. He and his brother are like plum-trees”
― John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi

“Here comes Bosola,
The only court-gall; yet I observe his railing
Is not for simple love of piety:
Indeed, he rails at those things which he wants;
Would be as lecherous, covetous, or proud,
Bloody, or envious, as any man,
If he had means to be so.”
― John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi

“Thou art happy that thou hast not understanding to know thy misery; for all our wit and reading brings us to a truer sense of sorrow.”
― John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi

“Thou art happy that thou hast not understanding. To know thy misery; for all our wit. And reading brings us to a truer sense of sorrow.”
― John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi