Here are the 57 best handpicked quotes from “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” by William Shakespeare:
From quotes by Theseus to quotes by Lysander to quotes by Helena.
So if you want the best quotes from “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” sorted by figure, then you’re in the right place.
Let’s go!
My Favorite “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” Quote
#1
“Lord, what fools these mortals be!”
— Puck
In this quote, I like how the mischievous character Puck emphasized the foolishness of humans in making decisions and how they become more irrational when it comes to matters of the heart.
With Puck’s line, I think this timeless play by Shakespeare is not only about the challenges the characters face in the name of their love affairs or the magical setting they are in but also underscores how powerful our emotions are that it causes us to do foolish things.
The foolish things we do are what makes us more flawed, but more human.
7 Quotes by Theseus
#2
“The lunatic, the lover, and the poet, are of imagination all compact.”
— Theseus
#3
“Lovers and madmen have such seething brains
Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend
More than cool reason ever comprehends.”
— Theseus
#4
“Here come the lovers, full of joy and mirth.— Joy, gentle friends! joy and fresh days of love Accompany your hearts!”
— Theseus
#5
“The iron tongue of Midnight hath
told twelve lovers, to bed; ’tis
almost fairy time. I fear we
shall outstep the coming morn
as much as we this night over-watch’d.”
— Theseus
#6
“And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen
Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.”
— Theseus
#7
“Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,
Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend
More than cool reason ever comprehends.
The lunatic, the lover and the poet
Are of imagination all compact:
One sees more devils than vast hell can hold,
That is, the madman: the lover, all as frantic,
Sees Helen’s beauty in a brow of Egypt:
The poet’s eye, in fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;
And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen
Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.”
— Theseus
#8
“One sees more devils than vast hell can hold.”
— Theseus
3 Quotes by Titania
#9
“The clamorous owl, that nightly hoots and wonders
At out quaint spirits. Sing me now asleep;
Then to your offices and let me rest.”
— Titania
#10
“Thou art as wise as thou art beautiful.”
— Titania
#11
“My Oberon, what visions have I seen!
Methought I was enamored of an ass.”
— Titania
5 Quotes by Lysander
#12
“If there were a sympathy in choice,
War, death, or sickness, did lay siege to it,
Making it momentary as a sound,
Swift as a shadow, short as any dream,
Brief as the lightning in the collied night
That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth,
And ere a man hath power to say ‘Behold!’
The jaws of darkness do devour it up;
So quick bright things come to confusion.”
— Lysander
#13
“So quick bright things come to confusion.”
— Lysander
#14
“The course of true love never die run smooth.”
— Lysander
#15
“Ay me! for aught that ever I could read,
could ever hear by tale or history,
the course of true love never did run smooth.”
— Lysander
#16
“Why should you think that I should woo in scorn?
Scorn and derision never come in tears:
Look, when I vow, I weep; and vows so born,
In their nativity all truth appears.
How can these things in me seem scorn to you,
Bearing the badge of faith, to prove them true?”
— Lysander
15 Quotes by Helena
#17
“O, I am out of breath in this chase!
The more my prayer, the lesser is my grace.”
— Helena
#18
“And sleep, that sometime shuts up sorrow’s eye,
Steal me a while from mine own company.”
— Helena
#19
“I’ll follow thee and make a heaven of hell,
To die upon the hand I love so well.”
— Helena
#20
“O, when she’s angry, she is keen and shrewd!
She was a vixen when she went to school;
And though she be but little, she is fierce.”
— Helena
#21
“So we grew together,
Like to a double cherry, seeming parted,
But yet an union in partition,
Two lovely berries moulded on one stem.”
— Helena
#22
“Is all the counsel that we two have shared,
The sisters’ vows, the hours that we have spent
When we have chid the hasty-footed time
For parting us? Oh, is all forgot?”
— Helena
#23
“Things base and vile, holding no quantity,
Love can transpose to form and dignity.
Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind,
And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.
Nor hath Love’s mind of any judgment taste;
Wings and no eyes figure unheedy haste.”
— Helena
#24
“It is not night when I do see your face,
Therefore I think I am not in the night;
Nor doth this wood lack worlds of company,
For you in my respect are all the world:
Then how can it be said I am alone,
When all the world is here to look on me?”
— Helena
#25
“The wildest hath not such a heart as you.
Run when you will, the story shall be changed:
Apollo flies, and Daphne holds the chase;
The dove pursues the griffin; the mild hind
Makes speed to catch the tiger; bootless speed,
When cowardice pursues and valour flies.”
— Helena
#26
“O, teach me how you look, and with what art You sway the motion of Demetrius’ heart.”
— Helena
#27
“Ay, in the temple, in the town, the field, You do me mischief. Fie, Demetrius! Your wrongs do set a scandal on my sex: We cannot fight for love, as men ay do; We should be woo’d, and were not made to woo. I’ll follow thee, and make a heaven of hell, To die upon the hand I love so well.”
— Helena
#28
“I will not trust you, I,
Nor longer stay in your curst company.
Your hands than mine are quicker for a fray,
My legs are longer though, to run away.”
— Helena
#29
“Wherefore was I to this keen mockery born?
When at your hands did I deserve this scorn?
Is’t not enough, is’t not enough, young man,
That I did never, no, nor never can,
Deserve a sweet look from Demetrius’ eye,
But you must flout my insufficiency?”
— Helena
#30
“And therefore is love said to be a child, because in choice he is so oft beguil’d.”
— Helena
#31
“Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind.”
— Helena
5 Quotes by Bottom
#32
“Take pains; be perfect.”
— Bottom
#33
“I have had a most vile vision. I have had a dream, past the wit of man to say what dream it was.”
— Bottom
#34
“… and yet, to say the truth, reason and love keep little company together now-a-days…”
— Bottom
#35
“The eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen, man’s hand is not able to taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report, what my dream was.”
— Bottom
#36
“We will meet; and there we may rehearse most obscenely and courageously.”
— Bottom
5 Quotes by Demetrius
#37
“O, why rebuke you him that loves you so?
Lay breath so bitter on your bitter foe.”
— Demetrius
#38
“Are you sure that we are awake? It seems to me that yet we sleep, we dream.”
— Demetrius
#39
“Relent, sweet Hermia: and, Lysander, yield
Thy crazed title to my certain right.”
“You have her father’s love, Demetrius;
Let me have Hermia’s: do you marry him.”
— Demetrius
#40
“I charge thee, hence, and do not haunt me thus.”
— Demetrius
#41
“O Helena, goddess, nymph, perfect, divine!
To what, my love, shall I compare thine eyne?
Crystal is muddy. O, how ripe in show
Thy lips, those kissing cherries, tempting grow!”
— Demetrius
1 Quote by The Wall
#42
“Thus have I, Wall, my part discharged so;
And, being done, thus Wall away doth go.”
— The Wall
4 Quotes by Oberon
#43
“I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,
Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,
With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine.”
— Oberon
#44
“I’ll met by moonlight, proud Titania.”
— Oberon
#45
“But we are spirits of another sort.”
— Oberon
#46
“Be as thou wast wont to be.
See as thou wast wont to see.”
— Oberon
5 Quotes by Puck
#47
“I’ll put a girdle round about the Earth In forty minutes.”
— Puck
#48
“If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumbered here
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream,
Gentles, do not reprehend:
If you pardon, we will mend:
And, as I am an honest Puck,
If we have unearned luck
Now to ‘scape the serpent’s tongue,
We will make amends ere long;
Else the Puck a liar call;
So, good night unto you all.
Give me your hands, if we be friends,
And Robin shall restore amends.”
— Puck
#49
“Through the forest have I gone.
But Athenian found I none,
On whose eyes I might approve
This flower’s force in stirring love.
Night and silence.–Who is here?
Weeds of Athens he doth wear:
This is he, my master said,
Despised the Athenian maid;
And here the maiden, sleeping sound,
On the dank and dirty ground.
Pretty soul! she durst not lie
Near this lack-love, this kill-courtesy.
Churl, upon thy eyes I throw
All the power this charm doth owe.
When thou wakest, let love forbid
Sleep his seat on thy eyelid:
So awake when I am gone;
For I must now to Oberon.”
— Puck
#50
“Up and down, up and down
I will lead them up and down
I am feared in field in town
Goblin, lead them up and down.”
— Puck
#51
“Give me your hands, if we be friends, and Robin shall restore amends.”
— Puck
1 Quote by The Fairy
#52
“Over hill, over dale,
Thorough bush, thorough brier,
Over park, over pale,
Thorough flood, thorough fire,
I do wander everywhere,
Swifter than the moon’s sphere;
And I serve the fairy queen,
To dew her orbs upon the green.
The cowslips tall her pensioners be:
In their gold coats spots you see;
Those be rubies, fairy favours,
In those freckles live their savours:
I must go seek some dewdrops here
And hang a pearl in every cowslip’s ear.
Farewell, thou lob of spirits; I’ll be gone:
Our queen and all our elves come here anon.”
— The Fairy
1 Quote by Hippolyta
#53
“Four days will quickly steep themselves in nights; Four nights will quickly dream away the time; And then the moon, like to a silver bow new bent in heaven, shall behold the night of our solemnities.”
— Hippolyta
1 Quote by Hermia
#54
“O hell! to choose love by another’s eyes!” “Or, if there were a sympathy in choice, War, death, or sickness did lay siege to it, Making it momentany as a sound, Swift as a shadow, short as any dream; Brief as the lighting in the collied night, That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth, And ere a man hath pwer to say, ‘Behold!’ The jaws of darkness do devour it up: So quick bright things come to confusion.”
— Hermia
1 Quote by Flute
1 Quote by Snout
#56
“Therefore another prologue must tell he is not a lion.”
— Snout
1 Quote by Pyramus
#57
“Thus I die. Thus, thus, thus.
Now I am dead,
Now I am fled,
My soul is in the sky.
Tongue, lose thy light.
Moon take thy flight.
Now die, die, die, die.”
— Pyramus