William Shakespeare Venice Quotations

If you prick us do we not bleed? If you tickle us do we not laugh? If you poison us do we not die? And if you wrong us shall we not revenge?

Nature hath framed strange fellows in her time.

If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men's cottage princes' palaces.

I like not fair terms and a villain's mind.

I am not bound to please thee with my answer.

I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano; A stage where every man must play a part, And mine is a sad one.

Though justice be thy plea consider this, that in the course of justice none of us should see salvation.

I am never merry when I hear sweet music.

O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!

Affection, mistress of passion, sways it to the mood of what it likes or loathes.

The weakest kind of fruit drops earliest to the ground.

Do all men kill the things they do not love?

If it will feed nothing else, it will feed my revenge.

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!

I know a lady in Venice would have walked barefoot to Palestine for a touch of his nether lip

We do pray for mercy, and that same prayer doth teach us all to render the deeds of mercy.

There is no vice so simple but assumes some mark of virtue on his outward parts.

The quality of mercy is not strained

In law, what plea so tainted and corrupts, but being seasoned with a gracious voice obscures the show of evil.

They are sick that surfeit with too much, as they that starve with nothing.

All that glisters is not gold; Often have you heard that told.

You take my life when you do take the means whereby I live

love is blind and lovers cannot see the pretty follies that themselves commit

Do all men kill the things they do not love ............ The quality of mercy is not strain'd It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest It blesseth him that gives and him that takes

But love is blind and lovers cannot see

Sufferance is the badge of all our tribe.

In sooth I know not why I am so sad. It wearies me, you say it wearies you; But how I caught it, found it, or came by it, What stuff 'tis made of, whereof it is born, I am to learn;...

Bassanio: Do all men kill all the things they do not love? Shylock: Hates any man the thing he would not kill? Bassanio: Every offence is not a hate at first.

He is well paid that is well satisfied.

Gratiano speaks an infinite deal of nothing, more than any man in all Venice. His reasons are as two grains of wheat hid in two bushels of chaff: you shall seek all day ere you find them, and when you have them, they are not worth the search.

Superfluity comes sooner by white hairs, but competency lives longer.

Tell me where is fancy bred, Or in the heart, or in the head?

The villany you teach me I shall execute; and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.

I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano!