| “Ay me, for aught that I could ever read, Could ever hear by tale or history, The course of true love never did run smooth. . . .” | Lysander to Hermia |
| “Lord, what fools these mortals be!” | Puck |
| “I have had a most rare vision. I have had a dream past the wit of man to say what dream it was. Man is but an ass if he go about t’expound this dream.” | Bottom(after adventure with Titania) |
| “If we shadows have offended,Think but this, and all is mended:That you have but slumbered here,While these visions did appear;And this weak and idle theme,No more yielding but a dream,Gentles, do not reprehend.If you pardon, we will mend.” | Puck |
| “Through Athens I am thought as fair as she. But what of that? Demetrius thinks not so. He will not know what all but he do know. And as he errs, doting on Hermia’s eyes, So I, admiring of his qualities. Things base and vile, holding no quantity, Love can transpose to form and dignity. Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.” | Helena |
| “Content with Hermia? No, I do repent the tedious minutes I with her have spent.” | Lysander to Helena when under the spell |
| “Why are you grown so rude? What change is this, Sweet love?” | Hermia to Lysander |
| “To fit your fancies to your father’s will, or else the law of Athens yields you up (which by no means may extenuate) To death or to a vow of single life.” | Lysander |
| “Ay me! For aught that i could ever read, could ever hear by tale or history, the course of true love never did run smooth.” | Lysander trying to calm Hermia |
| “How canst thou thus for shame, Titania, Glance at my credit with Hippolyta, knowing I know thy love to Theseus?” | Oberon to Titania |
| “And drop the liquor of it in her eyes.” | Oberon |
| “Now thou and I are new in amity, And will tomorrow midnight solemnly Dance in Duke Theseus’ house triumphantly, And bless it to all fair prosperity.” | Oberon |
| “Lovers and madmen have such seething brains, such shaping fantasies, that apprehend more than cool reason ever comprehends.” | Theseus |
| “The poet’s eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven.” | Theseus |
| “But all the story of the night told over, and all their minds transfigured so together, more witnesseth than fancy’s images and grows to something of great constancy, But, howsoever, strange and admirable.” | Hippolyta |
| “Beshrew my heart but I pity the man.” | Hippolyta |
Quotes – Midsummer Night’s Dream
August 20, 2019