Famous quotes from Measure for Measure

Measure for Measure is sometimes called a “problem play” because of its exploration of social issues. Audiences today continue to debate the questions the play raises. While it may be one of Shakespeare’s less frequently performed works, several quotes from it are well known. Check out some of these quotes in the order in which they appear in the play.

Heaven doth with us as we with torches do,
Not light them for themselves; for if our virtues
Did not go forth of us, ’twere all alike
As if we had them not.
—Duke, Act 1, Scene 1

Our doubts are traitors
And makes us lose the good we oft might win
By fearing to attempt.
—Lucio, Act 1, Scene 5

Some rise by sin and some by virtue fall.
—Escalus, Act 2, Scene 1

Condemn the fault and not the actor of it?
—Angelo, Act 2, Scene 2

O, it is excellent
To have a giant’s strength, but it is tyrannous
To use it like a giant.
—Isabella, Act 2, Scene 2

But man, proud man,
Dressed in a little brief authority,
Most ignorant of what he’s most assured,
His glassy essence, like an angry ape
Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven
As makes the angels weep.
—Isabella, Act 2, Scene 2

Is this her fault or mine?
The tempter or the tempted, who sins most?
—Angelo, Act 2, Scene 2

The miserable have no other medicine
But only hope.
—Claudio, Act 3, Scene 1

Ay, but to die, and go we know not where,
To lie in cold obstruction and to rot,
This sensible warm motion to become
A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit
To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside
In thrilling region of thick-ribbèd ice,
To be imprisoned in the viewless winds
And blown with restless violence round about
The pendent world…
The weariest and most loathèd worldly life
That age, ache, penury, and imprisonment
Can lay on nature is a paradise
To what we fear of death.
—Claudio, Act 3, Scene 1

The hand that hath made you fair hath made you good.
—Duke, Act 3, Scene 1

Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful.
—Duke, Act 3, Scene 1

O, what may man within him hide,
Though angel on the outward side!
—Duke, Act 3, Scene 2

Truth is truth
To th’ end of reck’ning.
—Isabella, Act 5, Scene 1

Haste still pays haste, and leisure answers leisure;
Like doth quit like, and measure still for measure.
—Duke, Act 5, Scene 1

What’s mine is yours, and what is yours is mine.
—Duke, Act 5, Scene 1