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Romeo and Juliet
by William Shakespeare
30 popular highlights from this book
Key Insights & Memorable Quotes
Below are the most popular and impactful highlights and quotes from Romeo and Juliet:
“These violent delights have violent endsAnd in their triumph die, like fire and powder,Which as they kiss consume. The sweetest honeyIs loathsome in his own deliciousnessAnd in the taste confounds the appetite.Therefore love moderately; long love doth so;Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow.”
“My bounty is as boundless as the sea,My love as deep; the more I give to thee,The more I have, for both are infinite.”
“Don't waste your love on somebody, who doesn't value it.”
“thus with a kiss I die”
“Good night, good night! parting is such sweet sorrow, That I shall say good night till it be morrow.”
“Did my heart love till now? forswear it, sight! For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night.”
“For never was a story of more woe than this of Juliet and her Romeo.”
“Do not swear by the moon, for she changes constantly. then your love would also change.”
“Love is heavy and light, bright and dark, hot and cold, sick and healthy, asleep and awake- its everything except what it is! (Act 1, scene 1)”
“What's in a name? that which we call a roseBy any other name would smell as sweet.”
“O teach me how I should forget to think (1.1.224)”
“Wisely and slow; they stumble that run fast.”
“Parting is such sweet sorrow that I shall say goodnight till it be morrow.”
“Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?SAMPSON [Aside to Gregory]: Is the law of our side, if I say ay?GREGORY [Aside to Sampson]: No.SAMPSON: No, sir, I do not bite my thumb at you, sir, but I bite my thumb, sir.”
“If I profane with my unworthiest handThis holy shrine, the gentle fine is this:My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready standTo smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.Juliet:Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,Which mannerly devotion shows in this;For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss.Romeo:Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?Juliet:Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.Romeo:O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do;They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.Juliet:Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake.Romeo:Then move not, while my prayer's effect I take.Thus from my lips, by yours, my sin is purged.Juliet:Then have my lips the sin that they have took.Romeo:Sin from thy lips? O trespass sweetly urged!Give me my sin again.Juliet:You kiss by the book.”
“Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs;Being purg'd, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes;Being vex'd, a sea nourish'd with lovers' tears;What is it else? A madness most discreet,A choking gall, and a preserving sweet.”
“O serpent heart, hid with a flowering face!Did ever dragon keep so fair a cave?Beautiful tyrant! fiend angelical!Dove-feather'd raven! wolvish-ravening lamb!Despised substance of divinest show!Just opposite to what thou justly seem'st,A damned saint, an honourable villain!O nature, what hadst thou to do in hell;When thou didst bower the spirit of a fiendIn mortal paradise of such sweet flesh?Was ever book containing such vile matterSo fairly bound? O that deceit should dwellIn such a gorgeous palace!”
“Two households, both alike in dignity,In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.From forth the fatal loins of these two foesA pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;Whole misadventured piteous overthrowsDo with their death bury their parents' strife.The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love,And the continuance of their parents' rage,Which, but their children's end, nought could remove,Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage;The which if you with patient ears attend,What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.”
“Come, gentle night; come, loving, black-browed night;Give me my Romeo; and, when I shall die,Take him and cut him out in little stars,And he will make the face of heaven so fineThat all the world will be in love with night...”
“See how she leans her cheek upon her hand. O, that I were a glove upon that hand That I might touch that cheek!”
“I defy you, stars.”
“Go wisely and slowly. Those who rush stumble and fall.”
“Women may fall when there's no strength in men.Act II”
“There's an old saying that applies to me: you can't lose a game if you don't play the game. (Act 1, scene 4)”
“O, hereWill I set up my everlasting rest,And shake the yoke of inauspicious starsFrom this world-wearied flesh. Eyes, look your last!Arms, take your last embrace! and, lips, O youThe doors of breath, seal with a righteous kissA dateless bargain to engrossing death!”
“Oh, I am fortune's fool!”
“Under love’s heavy burden do I sink.And, to sink in it, should you burden love;Too great oppression for a tender thing.Is love a tender thing? it is too rough,Too rude, too boisterous, and it pricks like thorn.If love be rough with you, be roughwith love;Prick love for pricking, and you beat love down.”
“Why then, O brawling love! O loving hate!O any thing, of nothing first create!O heavy lightness, serious vanity,Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms,Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health,Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is!This love feel I, that feel no love in this.”
“You are a lover. Borrow Cupid's wingsand soar with them above a common bound.”
“A glooming peace this morning with it brings;The sun, for sorrow, will not show his head:Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things;Some shall be pardon'd, and some punished:For never was a story of more woeThan this of Juliet and her Romeo.”