Falstaff Quotes

• A goodly portly man, i' faith, and a corpulent; of a cheerful look, a pleasing eye, and a most noble carriage; and, as I think, his age some fifty, or, by'r Lady, inclining to threescore; and now I remember me, his name is Falstaff.

  William Shakespeare

  Eye, Men, Thinking

  William Shakespeare (2013). “Second Tetralogy In Plain and Simple English: Includes Richard II, Henry IV Parts 1 and 2, and Henry V”, p.308, BookCaps Study Guides

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• The Falstaff people, romantics all, went for it. They were so anxious to find out what I was going to do that they could hardly bear to wait out the two weeks. I was rather anxious to find out what I was going to do, too.

  Bill Veeck

  Two, People, Waiting

  Bill Veeck, Ed Linn (2012). “Veeck--As In Wreck: The Autobiography of Bill Veeck”, p.12, University of Chicago Press

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• If all the year were playing holidays; To sport would be as tedious as to work.

  William Shakespeare

  Sports, Work, Holiday

  'Henry IV, Part 1' (1597) act 1, sc. 2, l. [226]

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• Literature doesn't have a country. Shakespeare is an African writer. His Falstaff, for example, is very African in his appetite for life, his largeness of spirit. The characters of Turgenev are ghetto dwellers. Dickens characters are Nigerians.

  Ben Okri

  Country, Character, Ghetto

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• What is honour? a word. What is in that word honour? what is that honour? air. A trim reckoning! Who hath it? he that died o' Wednesday. Doth he feel it? no. Doth he hear it? no.

  William Shakespeare

  Air, Honor, Reckoning

  'Henry IV, Part 1' (1597) act 5, sc. 1, l. [131]

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• Presume not that I am the thing I was.

  William Shakespeare

  Art, Philosophy, History

  'Henry IV, Part 2' (1597) act 5, sc. 5, l. [61]

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• Thou seest I have more flesh than another man, and therefore more frailty.

  William Shakespeare

  Men, Flesh, Obesity

  'Henry IV, Part 1' (1597) act 3, sc. 3, l. [184]

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• Lord, Lord, how this world is given to lying!

  William Shakespeare

  Liars, Lying, World

  'Henry IV, Part 1' (1597) act 5, sc. 4, l. [148]

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• Let us be Diana's foresters, gentlemen of the shade, minions of the moon

  William Shakespeare

  Love, Moon, Gentleman

  'Henry IV, Part 1' (1597) act 1, sc. 2, l. [28]

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• O, I do not like that paying back, 'tis a double labor.

  William Shakespeare

  Money, Labor

  William Shakespeare, Oliver William Bourn Peabody, Samuel Weller Singer, Charles Symmons, John Payne Collier (1839). “The Dramatic Works of William Shakspeare: Winter's tale. Comedy of errors. Macbeth. King John. Richard II. Henry IV, pt. 1”, p.525

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• Hal, if I tell thee a lie, spit in my face, call me horse.

  William Shakespeare

  Horse, Lying, Faces

  'Henry IV, Part 1' (1597) act 2, sc. 4, l. [214]

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• How ill white hairs become a fool and jester!

  William Shakespeare

  Hair, White, Fool

  'Henry IV, Part 2' (1597) act 5, sc. 5, l. [52]

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• If it really was Queen Elizabeth who demanded to see Falstaff in a comedy, then she showed herself a very perceptive critic. But even in The Merry Wives of Windsor, Falstaff has not and could not have found his true home because Shakespeare was only a poet. For that he was to wait nearly two hundred years till Verdi wrote his last opera. Falstaff is not the only case of a character whose true home is the world of music; others are Tristan, Isolde and Don Giovanni.

  W. H. Auden

  Queens, Character, Home

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• The politician has no more use for pride than Falstaff had for honour.

  Bernard Crick

  Pride, Use, Politician

  Bernard Crick (1954). “In defence of politics”, p.154, Bernard Crick

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• Nature has provided for the exigency of privation, by putting the measure of our necessities far below the measure of our wants. Our necessities are to our wants as Falstaff's pennyworth of bread to his any quantity of sack.

  Christian Nestell Bovee

  Want, Bread, Quantity

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• I'm Volstag and what you see is what you get. He's a bon vivant lover of life epicurean goodfellow. He's a god, which helps. He's full of life. He reminds me very much of Falstaff. There's a wonderful innocence to him and the steadfast loyalty of a big Saint Bernard dog.

  Ray Stevenson

  Loyalty, Dog, Saint

  Source: collider.com

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• A whole new world of Italian music was springing up, and [Giuseppe] Verdi was seen as old. Boito got Verdi all excited about the possibility of doing another opera, another kind of opera. In fact, Verdi composed his two best operas, Otello and Falstaff, in his eighties.

  Maurice Sendak

  Italian, Two, Opera

  Source: www.hbook.com

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• How astonishingly does the chance of leaving the world improve a sense of its natural beauties upon us. Like poor Falstaff, although I do not 'babble,' I think of green fields; I muse with the greatest affection on every flower I have know from my infancy - their shapes and colours are as new to me as if I had just created them with superhuman fancy.

  John Keats

  Death, Flower, Thinking

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