Bardolatry, the Quiz

It’s that time of year again; Shakespeare’s birthday on little cat’s feet attends. I have chosen a number of quotes from Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets, choosing the exceptionally lovely, including some most often quoted, incorporating a few of my favorites. Can you name the play from which the following quotes are taken? Give yourself extra points for naming the speaker. If you can place the quote in the correct act, scene, and line you are a) a Shakespearean actor of renown, b) an academic who teaches the works of the mighty bard, or c) you’re using the same sources that I have used. Dame Fortune be thy friend.



1. Smooth runs the water where the brook is deep.

2. For there was never yet a philosopher

    That could endure a toothache patiently,

3. Cowards die many times before their deaths;

    The valiant never taste of death but once.

4. For ‘tis the mind that makes the body rich.

5. Things without all remedy

    Should be without regard: what’s done is done.

6. Reputation, reputation, reputation! O, I have lost my

    reputation! I have lost the immortal part of myself, and

    what remains is bestial.

7. We are such stuff

    As dreams are made on, and our little life

    Is rounded with a sleep.

8. When to the sessions of sweet silent thought

    I summon up remembrance of things past,

    I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,

    And with old woes new wail my dear time’s waste:

9. A friend i’ the court is better than a penny in purse.

10. O, how bitter a thing it is to look into happiness

     through another man’s eyes!

11. The moon, like to a silver bow

      New-bent in heaven.

12. Those wounds heal ill that men do give themselves.

13. The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.

     An evil soul producing holy witness

     Is like a villain with a smiling cheek,

     A goodly apple rotten at the heart:

     O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!

14. Experience is by industry achieved

     And perfected by the swift course of time.

15. Slander,

     Whose edge is sharper than the sword, whose tongue

     Outvenoms all the worms of Nile, whose breath

     Rides on the posting winds and doth belie

     All corners of the world.

16. Let Hercules himself do what he may,

     The cat will mew and dog will have his day.

17. Silence is the perfectest herald of joy: I were but little

     happy, if I could say how much.

18. Who steals my purse steals trash; ‘tis something, nothing;

     ‘Twas mine, ‘tis his, and has been slave to thousands;

     But he that filches from me my good name

     Robs me of that which not enriches him

     And makes me poor indeed.

19. And do as adversaries do in law,

     Strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends.

20. They say, best men are moulded out of faults:

     And, for the most, become much more the better,

     For being a little bad.

21. Every good servant does not all commands.

22. He that dies pays all debts.

23. Neither a borrower nor a lender be;

     For loan oft loses both itself and friend,

     And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.

     This above all: to thine own self be true,

     And it must follow, as the night the day,

     Thou canst not then be false to any man.

24. There is a tide in the affairs of men,

     Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;

     Omitted, all the voyage of their life

     Is bound in shallows and in miseries.

25. We, ignorant of ourselves,

     Beg often our own harms, which the wise powers

     Deny us for our good; so find we profit

     By losing of our prayers.



Zounds that was fun! Each time I read Shakespeare there is something new to admire. I hope you enjoyed the quotes. Answers follow.

1. King Henry VI Part II – III.i.53 (Earl of Suffolk)

2. Much Ado About Nothing – V.i.35-36 (Leonato)

3. Julius Caesar – II.ii.32-33 (Caesar)

4. The Taming of the Shrew – IV.iii.174 (Petruchio)

5. Macbeth – III.ii.11-12 (Lady Macbeth)

6. Othello – II.iii.262-264 (Cassio)

7. The Tempest – IV.i.156-158 (Prospero)

8. Sonnet XXX – first four lines

9. King Henry IV Part II – V.i.33 (Shallow)

10. As You Like It – V.ii.47-48 (Orlando)

11. A Midsummer Night’s Dream – I.i.9-10 (Hippolyta) A marvelous simile!

12. Troilus and Cressida – III.iii.229 (Patroclus)

13. The Merchant of Venice – I.iii.99-103 (Antonio)

14. The Two Gentlemen of Verona – I.iii.22-23 (Antonio)

15. Cymbeline – III.iv.35-39 (Pisanio)

16. Hamlet – V.i.314-315 (Hamlet)

17. Much Ado About Nothing – II.i.316-317 (Claudio)

18. Othello – III.iii.157-161 (Iago)

19. The Taming of the Shrew – I.ii.278-279 (Hortensio)

20. Measure for Measure – V.i.444-446 (Mariana)

21. Cymbeline – IV.i.6 (Posthumus)

22. The Tempest – III.ii.140 (Stephano)

23. Hamlet – I.iii.75-80 (Polonius)

24. Julius Caesar – IV.iii.218-221 (Brutus)

25. Antony and Cleopatra – II.i.5-8 (Menecrates)



Happy Birthday, Will.