As You Like It quotes

Sweet are the uses of adversity, Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, Wears yet a precious jewel in his head; And this our life, exempt from public haunt, Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good in everything.

— Duke Senior · Act II, Scene I — The Forest of Arden

All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages.

— Jaques · Act II, Scene VII — Another part of the Forest

“The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.”

— Touchstone · Act V, Scene I — The Forest of Arden

Why then, can one desire too much of a good thing?

— Rosalind · Act IV, Scene I — The Forest of Arden

And so from hour to hour we ripe and ripe, And then from hour to hour we rot and rot, And thereby hangs a tale.

— Jaques · Act II, Scene VII — Another part of the Forest

Men have died from time to time and worms have eaten them, but not for love.

— Rosalind · Act IV, Scene I — The Forest of Arden

Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly.

— Amiens · Act II, Scene VII — Another part of the Forest

I pray you do not fall in love with me, For I am falser than vows made in wine.

— Rosalind · Act III, Scene V — Another part of the Forest

O, how full of briers is this working-day world!

— Rosalind · Act I, Scene III — A Room in the Palace

Do you not know I am a woman? When I think, I must speak.

— Rosalind · Act III, Scene II — The Forest of Arden

Love is merely a madness, and, I tell you, deserves as well a dark house and a whip as madmen do; and the reason why they are not so punished and cured is that the lunacy is so ordinary that the whippers are in love too.

— Rosalind · Act III, Scene II — The Forest of Arden

For your brother and my sister no sooner met but they looked; no sooner looked but they loved; no sooner loved but they sighed; no sooner sighed but they asked one another the reason; no sooner knew the reason but they sought the remedy; and in these degrees have they made pair of stairs to marriage, which they will climb incontinent, or else be incontinent before marriage.

— Rosalind · Act V, Scene II — Another part of the Forest

But O, how bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man’s eyes!

— Orlando · Act V, Scene II — Another part of the Forest

Well said. That was laid on with a trowel.

— Celia · Act I, Scene II — A Lawn before the Duke’s Palace

Under the greenwood tree, Who loves to lie with me And turn his merry note Unto the sweet bird’s throat, Come hither, come hither, come hither! Here shall he see No enemy But winter and rough weather.

— Amiens · Act II, Scene V — Another part of the Forest

I can suck melancholy out of a song as a weasel sucks eggs.

— Jaques · Act II, Scene V — Another part of the Forest

Beauty provoketh thieves sooner than gold.

— Rosalind · Act I, Scene III — A Room in the Palace

No, truly; for the truest poetry is the most feigning, and lovers are given to poetry, and what they swear in poetry may be said, as lovers, they do feign.

— Touchstone · Act III, Scene III — Another part of the Forest

As the ox hath his bow, sir, the horse his curb, and the falcon her bells, so man hath his desires; and as pigeons bill, so wedlock would be nibbling.

— Touchstone · Act III, Scene III — Another part of the Forest

But it cannot be sounded; my affection hath an unknown bottom, like the Bay of Portugal.

— Rosalind · Act IV, Scene I — The Forest of Arden

A poor virgin, sir, an ill-favoured thing, sir, but mine own; a poor humour of mine, sir, to take that that no man else will.

— Touchstone · Act V, Scene IV — Another part of the Forest