Much Ado About Nothing

Quote

Character

Act/Scene

“It is certain that I am loved of all ladies, only you [Beatrice] excepted: and I would I could find in my heart that I had not a hard heart, for truly I love none.”

Benedick

Act 1 Scene 1

“I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me.”

Beatrice

Act 1 Scene 1

“Is’t come to this? In faith, hath not the world one man, but he will wear his cap with suspicion? Shall I never see a bachelor of three score again?

Go to, i’faith, and thou [Claudio] wilt needs thrust thy neck into a yoke, wear the print of it, and sigh away Sundays.”

Benedick

Act 1 Scene 1

“Because I will not do [women] the wrong to mistrust any, I will do myself the right to trust none and the fine is (for the which I will live the finer) I will live a bachelor.”

Benedick

Act 1 Scene 1

“But now I am returned, and that war-thoughts / Have left their places vacant, in their rooms / Come thronging soft and delicate desires, / All prompting me how fair young Hero is, / Saying I liked her ere I went to wars.”

Claudio

Act 1 Scene 1

“I had rather be a canker in a hedge, than a rose in his grace, and it better fits my blood to be disdained of all, than to fashion a carriage to rob love from any.”

Don John

Act 1 Scene 3

“Well, niece, I hope to see you one day fitted with a husband.”

Leonato

Act 2 Scene 1

“Not til God make men of some other metal than earth: would it not grieve a woman to be overmastered with a piece of valiant dust?”

Beatrice

Act 2 Scene 1

“Friendship is constant in all things, / Save in the office and affairs of love: / Therefore all hearts in love use their own tongues. / Let every eye negotiate for itself. / And trust no agent: for beauty is a witch, / Against whose charms faith melteth into blood”

Claudio

Act 2 Scene 1

“Come, lady, you have lost the heart of Signor Benedick.”

Don Pedro

Act 2 Scene 2

“Indeed, my lord, he lent it me a while, and I gave him use for it, a double heart for his single one: marry once before he won it of me, with false dice, therefore your grace may well say I have lost it.”

Beatrice

Act 2 Scene 2

“If we can do this, Cupid is no longer an archer, his glory shall be ours, for we are the only

love-gods.”

Don Pedro

Act 2 Scene 1

“I do much wonder, that one man seeing how much another man is a fool, when he dedicates his behaviours to love, will after he hath laughed at such shallow follies in others, become the argument of his own scorn, by falling in love”

Benedick

Act 2 Scene 3

“I may chance have some odd quirks and remnants of wit broken on me, because I have railed so long against marriage: but doth not the appetite alter?”

Benedick

Act 2 Scene 3

“[Beatrice] cannot love, / Nor take no shape nor project of affection, / She is so self endeared.”

Hero

Act 3 Scene 1

“And Benedick, love on, I will requite thee, / Taming my wild heart to thy loving hand: / If thou dost love, my kindness shall incite thee / To bind our loves up in a holy band”

Beatrice

Act 3 Scene 1

“But fare thee well, most foul, most fair, farewell / Thou pure impiety, and impious purity, / For thee I’ll lock up the gates of love / And on my eyelids shall conjecture hang, / To turn all beauty into thoughts of harm.”

Claudio

Act 4 Scene 1

“When [Claudio] shall hear she died upon his words / Th’idea of her life shall sweetly creep / Into his study of his imagination, / And every lovely organ of her life, / Shall come apparelled in more precious habit”

Friar

Act 4 Scene 1

“By my sword, Beatrice, thou lovest me... I will swear by it that you love me, and I will make him eat it that says I love not you”

Benedick

Act 4 Scene 1

“Sweet Hero, now thy image doth appear, / In the rare semblance which I loved it first.”

Claudio

Act 5 Scene 1

“Thou and I are too wise to woo peaceably”

Benedick

Act 5 Scene 2

“And when I lived I was your other wife, / And when you loved, you were my other husband.”

Hero

Act 5 Scene 4