William Shakespeare Quotes About Duty

• Every subject's duty is the Kings, but every subject's soul is his own.

  William Shakespeare

  Kings, Freedom, Soul

  'Henry V' (1599) act 4, sc. 1, l. [189]

• Were I the Moor I would not be Iago. In following him I follow but myself; Heaven is my judge, not I for love and duty, But seeming so for my peculiar end. For when my outward action doth demonstrate The native act and figure of my heart In compliment extern, ’tis not long after But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve For daws to peck at. I am not what I am

  William Shakespeare

  Heart, Long, Judging

  1603-4 Iago. Othello, act1, sc.1, l.60-5.

• God bless thee; and put meekness in thy breast, Love, charity, obedience, and true duty!

  William Shakespeare

  Charity, Obedience, God Bless

  William Shakespeare (2013). “Histories of Shakespeare in Plain and Simple English (a Modern Translation and the Original Version)”, p.426, BookCaps Study Guides

• It is to be all made of fantasy, All made of passion and all made of wishes, All adoration, duty, and observance, All humbleness, all patience and impatience, All purity, all trial, all observance

  William Shakespeare

  Passion, Wish, Trials

  'As You Like It' (1599) act 5, sc. 2, l. [90]

• Yes, faith; it is my cousin's duty to make curtsy and say 'Father, as it please you.' But yet for all that, cousin, let him be a handsome fellow, or else make another curtsy and say 'Father, as it please me.

  William Shakespeare

  Cousin, Father, Please Me

  William Shakespeare (2013). “Much Ado About Nothing Simplified!: Includes Study Guide, Biography, and Modern Retelling”, p.106, BookCaps Study Guides

• My noble father, I do perceive here a divided duty. To you I am bound for life and education. My life and education both do learn me How to respect you. You are the lord of my duty, I am hitherto your daughter. But here’s my husband, And so much duty as my mother showed To you, preferring you before her father, So much I challenge that I may profess Due to the Moor my lord.

  William Shakespeare

  Daughter, Mother, Husband

  William Shakespeare, John Payne Collier, Charles Knight (1847). “Romeo and Juliet. Othello. Hamlet. Macbeth. King Lear. Cymbeline. Timon of Athens. Coriolanus. Julius Caesar. Anthony and Cleopatra. Troilus and Cressida. Titus Andronicus. Pericles”

• My liege, and madam, to expostulate What majesty should be, what duty is, Why day is day, night night, and time is time, Were nothing but to waste night, day and time. Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit, And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes, I will be brief.

  William Shakespeare

  Night, Soul, Majesty

  William Shakespeare (1963). “Hamlet”, p.41, CUP Archive

• Every subject's duty is the King's; but every subject's soul is his own. Therefore, should every soldier in the wars do as every sick man in his bed, wash every mote out of his conscience; and dying so, death is to him advantage; or not dying, the time was blessedly lost wherein such preparation was gained; and in him that escapes, it were no sin to think that, making God so free an offer, He let him outlive the day to see His greatness and to teach others how they should prepare.

  William Shakespeare

  Kings, War, Greatness

  William Shakespeare (2012). “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare”, p.2393, Graphic Arts Books

• 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, And having that do choke their service up Even with the having. . . .

  William Shakespeare

  Fashion, Art, Men

  'As You Like It' (1599) act 2, sc. 3, l. 56

• The words of Mercury are harsh after the songs of Apollo.

  William Shakespeare

  Song, Apollo, Mercury

  'Love's Labour's Lost' (1595) act 5, sc. 2, l. [938]

• Reflection is the business of man; a sense of his state is his first duty: but who remembereth himself in joy? Is it not in mercy then that sorrow is allotted unto us?

  William Shakespeare

  Reflection, Men, Joy

• This is some fellow,
  Who having been prais'd for bluntness, doth affect
  A saucy roughness and constrains the garb
  Quite from his nature: he can't flatter, he!
  An honest mind and plain,--he must speak truth!
  And they will take it so; if not he's plain.
  These kind of knaves I know, which in this plainness
  Harbor more craft, and far corrupter ends,
  Than twenty silly, ducking observants,
  That stretch their duty nicely.

  William Shakespeare

  Silly, Mind, Crafts

  William Shakespeare (1866). “A Treasury of Thought from Shakespeare: The Choice Sayings of His Principal Characters, Analytically and Alphabetically Arranged”, p.38

• Never anything can be amiss, when simpleness and duty tender it.

  William Shakespeare

  Simplicity, Midsummer, Duty

  'A Midsummer Night's Dream' (1595-6) act 5, sc. 1, l. 82

• In the modesty of fearful duty, I read as much as from the rattling tongue of saucy and audacious eloquence.

  William Shakespeare

  Tongue, Modesty, Duty

  'A Midsummer Night's Dream' (1595-6) act 5, sc. 1, l. 100

• What wouldst thou do, old man?
  Think'st thou that duty shall have dread to speak
  When power to flattery bows?

  William Shakespeare

  Fear, Men, Thinking

  William Shakespeare, Samuel Johnson, George Steevens (1785). “The Plays of William Shakspeare ...”, p.387

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