Twelfth Night

Quote

Character

Act/Scene

“A virtuous maid, the daughter of a count / That died... her brother... also died; for whose dear love / (They say) she hath abjured the sight / And company of men.”

Sea Captain

Act 1 Scene 2

“ I pray you bring your hand to h’buttery-bar and let it drink... It’s dry, sir.”

Maria

Act 1 Scene 3

“I hope to see a huswife take thee between her legs”

Sir Toby

Act 1 Scene 3

“Dear lad... they shall yet belie thy happy years / That say thou art a man: Diana’s lip / Is not more smooth and rubious; thy small pipe / Is as the maiden’s organ... And all is semblative of a woman’s part.”

Orsino

Act 1 Scene 4

“Not yet old enough for a man, nor young enough for a boy... One would think his mother’s milk were scarce out of him.”

Malvolio

Act 1 Scene 5

“’Tis nature truly blent, whose red and white / Nature’s own sweet and cunning hand laid on. / Lady, you are the cruellest she alive, / If you will lead these graces to the grave... You are too proud”

Viola

Act 1 Scene 5

“I cannot love him.”

Olivia

Act 1 Scene 5

“I am yet so near the manners of my mother that, upon the least occasion more, mine eyes will tell tales of me.”

Sebastian

Act 2 Scene 1

“How easy is it for the proper false / In women’s waxen hearts to set their forms! / Alas, our frailty is the cause... What thriftless sighs shall pour Olivia breath?”

Viola

Act 2 Scene 2

“Good night, Penthesilea” (Sir Toby), “Before me, she’s a good wench”

Sir Andrew

Act 2 Scene 3

“Let still the woman take / An elder than herself: so wears she to him, / So sways she level in her husband’s heart: / For, boy, however we do praise ourselves, / Our fancies are more giddy and unfirm, / More longing, wavering, sooner lost and worn, Than women’s are.”

Orsino

Act 2 Scene 4

“Women are as roses, whose fair flower / Being once display’d, doth fall that very hour.”

Orsino

Act 2 Scene 4

“And so they [women] are: alas, that they are so; / To die, even when they to perfection grow!”

Viola

Act 2 Scene 4

“’Tis that miracle and queen of gems / That nature pranks [Olivia] in attracts my soul.”

Orsino

Act 2 Scene 4

“There is no woman’s sides / Can bide the beating of so strong a passion / As love doth give my heart; no woman’s heart / So big, to hold so much; they lack retention... make no compare / Between that love a woman can bear me / And that I owe Olivia.”

Orsino

Act 2 Scene 4

“In faith, [women] are as true of heart as [men]... [I know a woman who] never told her love... 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 still we prove / Much in our vows, but little in our love.”

Viola

Act 2 Scene 4

“I could marry this wench [Maria] for this device... Wilt thou set thy foot o’ my neck?... Shall I play my freedom at tray-trip, and become thy

bond-slave?... [I would follow thou] To the gates of Tartar, thou most excellent devil of wit!”

Sir Toby

Act 2 Scene 5

“The Lady Olivia has no folly: she will keep no fool, sir, till she be married; and fools are as like husbands as pilchards are to herrings; the husband’s the bigger”

Feste

Act 3 Scene 1

“O, what a deal of scorn looks beautiful / In the contempt and anger of his lip!”

Olivia

Act 3 Scene 1