King Henry IV, Part 1 Quotes

“I know you all, and will awhile uphold
The unyoked humour of your idleness.
Yet herein will I imitate the sun,
Who doth permit the base contagious clouds
To smother up his beauty from the world,
That when he please again to be himself,
Being wanted, he may be more wondered at
By breaking through the foul and ugly mists
Of vapours that did seem to strangle him.
If all the year were playing holidays,
To sport would be as tedious as to work;
But when they seldom come, they wished-for come,
And nothing pleaseth but rare accidents.
So, when this loose behaviour I throw off
And pay the debt I never promisèd,
By how much better than my word I am,
By so much shall I falsify men’s hopes;
And like bright metal on a sullen ground,
My reformation, glitt’ring o’er my fault,
Shall show more goodly and attract more eyes
Than that which hath no foil to set it off.
I’ll so offend to make offence a skill,
Redeeming time when men think least I will.”
― William Shakespeare, King Henry IV, Part 1

“I can call the spirits from the vasty deep.
Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
But will they come, when you do call for them?”
― William Shakespeare, King Henry IV, Part 1

“If all the year were playing holidays; To sport would be as tedious as to work.”
― William Shakespeare, King Henry IV, Part 1

“What is honour? a word. What is in that word honour? what is that honour? air. A trim reckoning! Who hath it? he that died o' Wednesday. Doth he feel it? no. Doth he hear it? no.”
― William Shakespeare, King Henry IV, Part 1

“Ill-weaved ambition, how much art thou shrunk! When that this body did contain a spirit a kingdom for it was to small a bound. But now two paces of the vilest earth are room enough”
― William Shakespeare, King Henry IV, Part 1

“O, while you live, tell truth, and shame the Devil!”
― William Shakespeare, King Henry IV, Part 1

“I am the Prince of Wales; and think not, Percy,
To share with me in glory any more:
Two stars keep not their motion in one sphere;”
― William Shakespeare, King Henry IV, Part 1

“But thoughts the slave of life, and life, Time’s fool,
And Time, that takes survey of all the world,
Must have a stop.”
― William Shakespeare, King Henry IV, Part 1

“No, my good lord, banish Peto, banish Bardolph, banish Poins, but for sweet Jack Falstaff, kind Jack Falstaff, true Jack Falstaff, valiant Jack Falstaff, and therefore more valiant, being as he is, old Jack Falstaff, banish not him thy Harry's company, banish not him thy Harry's company. Banish plump Jack, and banish all the world.”
― William Shakespeare, King Henry IV, Part 1

“Why, thou knowest I am as valiant as Hercules, but beware instinct. The lion will not touch the true prince. Instinct is a great matter. I was a coward on instinct.”
― William Shakespeare, King Henry IV, Part 1

“Two stars keep not their motion in one sphere.”
― William Shakespeare, King Henry IV, Part 1

“Hal, if I tell thee a lie, spit in my face, call me horse.”
― William Shakespeare, King Henry IV, Part 1

“Were't not for laughing, I should pity him.”
― William Shakespeare, King Henry IV, Part 1

“the time of life is short;
To spend that shortness basely were too long.”
― William Shakespeare, King Henry IV, Part 1

“What is in that word "honor"? What is that "honor"? Air. A trim reckoning. Who hath it? He that died o' Wednesday. Doth he feel it? No. Doth he hear it? No. 'Tis insensible, then? Yea, to the dead. But will it not live with the living? No. Why? Detraction will not suffer it. Therefore, I'll none of it. Honor is a mere scutcheon. And so ends my catechism.”
― William Shakespeare, King Henry IV, Part 1

“Before, I loved thee as a brother, John,
But now, I do respect thee as my soul.”
― William Shakespeare, King Henry IV, Part 1

“The better part of
valour is discretion; in the which better part I
have saved my life.”
― William Shakespeare, King Henry IV, Part 1

“I am not yet of Percy's mind, the Hotspur of the North; he that kills me some six or seven dozen of Scots as a breakfast, washes his hands, and says to his wife, 'Fie upon this quiet life! I want work.”
― William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part 1

“Unless hours were cups of sack, and minutes capons, and clocks the tongues of bawds, and dials the signs of leaping-houses, and the blessed sun himself a fair hot wench in flame-colored taffeta, I see no reason why thou shouldst be so superfluous to demand the time of the day.”
― William Shakespeare, King Henry IV, Part 1

“How now, my sweet creature of bombast! How long is't ago, Jack, since thou saw'st thien own knee?”
― William Shakespeare, King Henry IV, Part 1

“Hark, how hard he fetches breath.”
― William Shakespeare, King Henry IV, Part 1

“There is not such a word
Spoke of in Scotland as this term of fear.”
― William Shakespeare, King Henry IV, Part 1

“Homo is a common name to all men.”
― William Shakespeare, King Henry IV, Part 1

“To die is to be a counterfeit, for he is but the counterfeit of a man who hath not the life of a man; but to counterfeit dying when a man thereby liveth is to be no counterfeit, but the true and perfect image of life indeed.”
― William Shakespeare, King Henry IV, Part 1

“He made a blushing cital of himself,
And chid his truant youth with such a grace
As if he mastered there a double sprite
Of teaching and of learning instantly.
There did he pause: but let me tell the world:
If he outlive the envy of this day,
England did never owe so sweet a hope,
So much misconstrued in his wantonness.”
― William Shakespeare, King Henry IV, Part 1

“though I be but the prince of Wales, yet I am king of courtesy”
― William Shakespeare, King Henry IV, Part 1

“Marry, then, sweet wag, when thou art king, let not us that are squires of the night’s body be called thieves of the day’s beauty. Let us be Diana’s foresters, gentlemen of the shade, minions of the moon, and let men say we be men of good government, being governed, as the sea is, by our noble and chaste mistress the moon, under whose countenance we steal.”
― William Shakespeare, King Henry IV, Part 1

“O monstrous! eleven buckram men grown out of two!”
― William Shakespeare, King Henry IV, Part 1

“I'll so offend, to make offence a skill,
Redeeming time when men think least I will.”
― William Shakespeare, King Henry IV, Part 1

“I’ll be no longer guilty of this sin; this sanguine coward, this bed-presser, this horseback-breaker, this huge hill of flesh,—”
― William Shakespeare, King Henry IV, Part 1