As You Like It Quotes

As You Like It is a famous pastoral play by William Shakespeare. The comedy as all the great elements of a satire--with songs and banter to add levels of the comic and entertainment value. The play also touches no hot topics related to the human experience, love, death, exile, illusion versus reality, and much more. Here are a few quotes from the play.

• "Fleet the time carelessly, as they did in the golden world."
  - William Shakespeare, As You Like It, 1.1
  
  
• "Let us sit and mock the good housewife Fortune from
  her wheel, that her gifts may henceforth be bestowed equally."
  - William Shakespeare, As You Like It, 1.2
  
  
• "Hereafter, in a better world than this,
  I shall desire more love and knowledge of you."
  - William Shakespeare, As You Like It, 1.2
  
  
• "My pride fell with my fortunes."
  - William Shakespeare, As You Like It, 1.2
  
  
• "O, how full of briers is this working-day world!"
  - William Shakespeare, As You Like It, 1.3
  
  
• "Beauty provoketh thieves sooner than gold."
  - William Shakespeare, As You Like It, 1.3
  
  
• "We'll have a swashing and a martial outside,
  As many other mannish cowards have."
  - William Shakespeare, As You Like It, 1.3
  
  
• "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 every thing."
  - William Shakespeare, As You Like It, 2.1
  
  
• "Sweep on, you fat and greasy citizens."
  - William Shakespeare, As You Like It, 2.1
  
  
• "For in my youth I never did apply
  Hot and rebellious liquors in my blood."
  - William Shakespeare, As You Like It, 2.3
  
  
• "Therefore my age is as a lusty winter,
  Frosty, but kindly."
  - William Shakespeare, As You Like It, 2.3
  
  
• "O, good old man, how well in thee appears
  The constant service of the antique world,
  When service sweat for duty, not for meed!
  Thou art not for the fashion of these times,
  Where none will sweat but for promotion."
  - William Shakespeare, As You Like It, 2.3
  
  
• "Ay, now am I in Arden: the more fool I.
  When I was at home I was in a better place;
  but travellers must be content."
  - William Shakespeare, As You Like It, 2.4
  
  
• "In my youth thou wast as true a lover
  As ever sighed upon a midnight pillow."
  - William Shakespeare, As You Like It, 2.4
  
  
• "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."
  - William Shakespeare, As You Like It, 2.5
  
  
• "I can suck melancholy out of a song as a weasel sucks eggs."
  - William Shakespeare, As You Like It, 2.5
  
  
• "I met a fool i' the forest,
  A motley fool."
  - William Shakespeare, As You Like It, 2.7
  
  
• "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."
  - William Shakespeare, As You Like It, 2.7
  
  
• "My lungs began to crow like chanticleer,
  That fools should be so deep-contemplative;
  And I did laugh sans intermission
  An hour by his dial. O noble fool!
  A worthy fool! Motley's the only wear."
  - William Shakespeare, As You Like It, 2.7
  
  
• "True is it that we have seen better days."
  - William Shakespeare, As You Like It, 2.7
  
  
• "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. At first the infant,
  Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
  And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
  And shining morning face, creeping like snail
  Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
  Sighing like furnace, with a woful ballad
  Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
  Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard;
  Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
  Seeking the bubble reputation
  Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
  In fair round belly with good capon lined,
  With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
  Full of wise saws and modern instances;
  And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
  Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,
  With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
  His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
  For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
  Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
  And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
  That ends this strange eventful history,
  Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
  Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything."
  - William Shakespeare, As You Like It, 2.7
  
  
• "Blow, blow, thou winter wind!
  Thou art not so unkind
  As man's ingratitude."
  - William Shakespeare, As You Like It, 2.7
  
  
• "Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly:
  Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly:
  Then, heigh-ho, the holly!
  This life is most jolly."
  - William Shakespeare, As You Like It, 2.7
  
  
• "Run, run Orlando: carve on every tree
  The fair, the chaste, and unexpressive she."
  - William Shakespeare, As You Like It, 2.7
  
  
• "From the east to western Ind,
  No jewel is like Rosalind."
  - William Shakespeare, As You Like It, 3.2
  
  
• "Let us make an honourable retreat."
  - William Shakespeare, As You Like It, 3.2
  
  
• "With bag and baggage."
  - William Shakespeare, As You Like It, 3.2
  
  
• "O, wonderful, wonderful, and most wonderful wonderful!
  and yet again wonderful, and after that out of all whooping."
  - William Shakespeare, As You Like It, 3.2
  
  
• "Answer me in one word."
  - William Shakespeare, As You Like It, 3.2
  
  
• "I do desire we may be better strangers."
  - William Shakespeare, As You Like It, 3.2
  
  
• "Time travels in divers paces with divers persons.
  I'll tell you who Time ambles withal, who Time trots withal,
  who Time gallops withal, and who he stands still withal."
  - William Shakespeare, As You Like It, 3.2
  
  
• "Neither rhyme nor reason."
  - William Shakespeare, As You Like It, 3.2
  
  
• "I would the gods had made thee poetical."
  - William Shakespeare, As You Like It, 3.2
  
  
• "I am not a slut, though I thank the gods I am foul."
  - William Shakespeare, As You Like It, 3.3
  
  

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