As You Like It Famous Quotes

All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances.

Jaques in Act 2, Scene 7, launching into the seven ages of man speech — from infant to second childhood — as a response to Orlando's crisis in the Forest of Arden. Jaques does not help practically; he philosophises.

One man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages.

Jaques continuing the world-as-stage speech in Act 2, Scene 7 — the seven ages he lists (infant, schoolboy, lover, soldier, justice, old man, second childhood) move from small to large to comic diminishment.

Sweet are the uses of adversity, Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, Wears yet a precious jewel in his head.

Duke Senior in Act 2, Scene 1, making the case for forest exile over court life — the precious jewel in the toad's head is a folk belief from the period, used here as evidence that hardship has hidden benefits.

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

Rosalind (disguised as Ganymede) to Orlando in Act 4, Scene 1, demolishing his claim that he will die if she does not love him — the most anti-romantic line in one of Shakespeare's most romantic plays, delivered by someone who is plainly in love with him.

Love is merely a madness, and, I tell you, deserves as well a dark house and a whip as madmen do.

Rosalind to Orlando in Act 3, Scene 2, offering to cure him of his love as if it were an illness — she then immediately offers herself as the cure, which suggests her diagnosis is strategic rather than sincere.

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

Rosalind to Celia in Act 4, Scene 1 after Orlando asks for yet another wedding ceremony — the question is rhetorical and her answer is clearly no, which makes the coy framing the joke.

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

Touchstone to William in Act 5, Scene 1 — warning off his romantic rival with a maxim rather than a fight. The line predates Dunning-Kruger by four centuries and reaches the same conclusion.

I do desire we may be better strangers.

Orlando to Jaques in Act 3, Scene 2, ending a conversation that has gone badly — a polite way of saying 'I prefer your absence to your company.' Jaques is not offended because he was not expecting warmth.

The truest poetry is the most feigning; and lovers are given to poetry.

Touchstone to Audrey in Act 3, Scene 3 — 'feigning' means both 'pretending' and 'desiring', and Touchstone is using both meanings at once. His point is that love poetry lies, which is why it is persuasive.

Blow, blow, thou winter wind. Thou art not so unkind As man's ingratitude.

Amiens's song in Act 2, Scene 7, sung for Duke Senior in the forest — a song about finding nature's harshness easier to bear than human betrayal, which is exactly what the Duke is doing.

Under the greenwood tree Who loves to lie with me, And turn his merry note Unto the sweet bird's throat.

Amiens's song in Act 2, Scene 5 for the Duke's exiled court in the Forest of Arden — an invitation to anyone willing to swap ambition for a life of nature. Jaques immediately parodies it.

Hath not old custom made this life more sweet Than that of painted pomp?

Duke Senior to his lords in Act 2, Scene 1, arguing that forest exile beats court life — 'painted pomp' is the courtly show of power that they have left behind. His exiles are not all convinced.

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

Rosalind to Celia in Act 3, Scene 2, after spotting Orlando in the forest — she is bursting with things to say and cannot contain them. The line is both a comment on herself and a joke about gendered expectations.

Time travels in divers paces with divers persons.

Rosalind to Orlando in Act 3, Scene 2, going on to list who Time trots with, ambles with, gallops with, and stands still with — the speech is one of her sharpest, a comedy lecture on relativity four centuries before Einstein.

It was a lover and his lass, With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino.

A song sung by two pages for Touchstone and Audrey in Act 5, Scene 3 — a simple lyric about springtime and young love, placed just before the multiple weddings of the final scene.