Famous quotes from A Midsummer Night's Dream

One of Shakespeare’s most-performed plays—and for many the first Shakespeare that they read in school, A Midsummer Night’s Dream features four fickle young lovers, a band of mischievous fairies including Robin “Puck” Goodfellow, and an amateur acting troupe rehearsing a play for the Duke’s upcoming marriage. It all happens in the woods outside Athens under the light of the moon. While “The course of true love never did run smooth” in the play, its path is frequently hilarious. Explore some of the comedy’s most well-known quotes in the order in which they appear in the play.

The course of true love never did run smooth.
—Lysander, Act 1, Scene 1

Love looks not with the eyes but with the mind;
And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.
—Helena, Act 1, Scene 1

I must go seek some dewdrops here
And hang a pearl in every cowslip’s ear.
—Fairy, Act 2, Scene 1

Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania.
—Oberon, Act 2, Scene 1

I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,
Quite overcanopied with luscious woodbine,
With sweet muskroses, and with eglantine.
There sleeps Titania sometime of the night,
Lulled in these flowers with dances and delight.
—Oberon, Act 2, Scene 1

Bless thee, Bottom, bless thee! Thou art translated!
—Quince, Act 3, Scene 1

What angel wakes me from my flow’ry bed?
—Titania, Act 3, Scene 1

To say the truth, reason and love keep little company together nowadays.
—Bottom, Act 3, Scene 1

Lord, what fools these mortals be!
—Puck, Act 3, Scene 2

O, when she is angry, she is keen and shrewd.
She was a vixen when she went to school,
And though she be but little, she is fierce.
—Helena, Act 3, Scene 2

Cupid is a knavish lad
Thus to make poor females mad.
—Puck, Act 3, Scene 2

Jack shall have Jill;
Naught shall go ill;
The man shall have his mare again, and all shall be well.
—Puck, Act 3, Scene 2

My Oberon, what visions have I seen!
Methought I was enamored of an ass.
—Titania, Act 4, Scene 1

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 to expound this dream … The eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen, man’s hand is not able to taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report what my dream was.
—Bottom, Act 4, Scene 1

The lunatic, the lover, and the poet
Are of imagination all compact.
—Theseus, Act 5, Scene 1

This is the silliest stuff that ever I heard.
—Hippolyta, Act 5, Scene 1

Not a mouse
Shall disturb this hallowed house.
I am sent with broom before,
To sweep the dust behind the door.
—Puck, Act 5, Scene 1

If we shadows have offended,
Think but this and all is mended:
That you have but slumbered here
While these visions did appear.
—Puck, Act 5, Scene 1