The Duchess of Malfi

• "With all your divinity, do but direct me the way to it." - Bosola to the Cardinal
• "Believe my experience: that realm is never long in quiet, where the ruler is a soldier." - Castruccio to Ferdinand
• "If he laughs heartily, it is to laugh all honest out of fashion." - Antonio about Ferdinand
• "For the devil speaks in them." - Antonio about the Cardinal
• "That sure her nights, nay more, her very sleeps, are more in heaven than other ladies' shrifts." - Antonio on the Duchess
• "She stain the time past, lights the time to come." - Antonio on the Duchess
• "Doth he study physiognomy? There's no more credit to be given to th' face than to a sick man's urine," - Bosola to Ferdinand about the Cardinal
• "You see, the oft shaking of the cedar-tree fastens it more at root." - Ferdinand
• "It seems you would create me one of your familiars." - Bosola to Ferdinand
• "Sometimes the devil doth preach." - Bosola to/about Ferdinand
• "Diamonds are of most value, they say, that have passed through most jewellers' hands.

  Whores, by that rule, are precious." - The Duchess and Ferdinand
• "like the irregular crab, which, though't goes backward, thinks that it goes right," - Ferdnand to the Duchess
• "And women like that part which, like the lamprey, hath ne'er a bone in't." - Ferdinand to the Duchess
• "Saint Winifred, that were a strange will!" - the Duchess to Antonio
• "but he's a fool that, being a-cold, would thrust his hands i'th' fire to warm them." - Antonio to the Duchess (on ambition)
• "We are forced to woo, because none dare woo us;" - the Duchess to Antonio
• "This is flesh, and blood, sir; 'Tis not the figure cut in alabaster kneels at my husband's tomb." - The Duchess to Antonio
• "and like a widow I use but half a blush in't." - The Duchess to Antonio
• "What can the church force more?" - The Duchess to Antonio
• "What thing is in this outward form of man to be beloved?" - Bosola
• "I forgot to tell you the knave gardner only to raise his profit by them sooner, did ripen them in horse-dung." - Bosola to the Duchess
• "This grafting [...] To make a pippin grow upon a crab, a damson on a blackthorn." - Bosola (mixing of classes)
• "the devil takes delight to hang at a woman's girdle," - Bosola
• "Old friends, like old swords, still are trusted best." - Delio to Antonio
• "The great are like the base, nay, they are the same, when they seek shameful ways to avoid shame." - Antonio
• "Though lust do mask in ne'er so strange disguise, she's oft found witty, but is never wise." - Bosola
• "The self-same tears will fall into your husband's bosom, lady, with a loud protestation that you love him above the world." - the Cardinal to Julia
• "You fly beyond your reason." - the Cardinal to Ferdinand
• "Tis' not your whore's milk that shall quench my wild-fire, but your whore's blood." - Ferdinand to the Cardinal
• "When I choose a husband, I will marry for your honour." - the Duchess to Ferdinand
• "A pestilent air which princes' palaces are seldom purg'd of." - Ferdinand to the Duchess
• "Indeed, my rule is only in the night." - Antonio
• "Die then, quickly. Virtue, where art thou hid? What hideous thing is it that doth thee?" - Ferdinand to the Duchess
• "Yes, if I could change eyes with a basilisk." - Ferdinand on seeing Antonio
• "Wwhy might not I marry? I have not gone about, in this, to create any new world, or custom." - the Duchess to Ferdinand
• "You have shook hands with Reputation, and made him invisible."- Ferdinand to the Duchess
• "Why should only I, of all the other princes of the world, be cased up, like a holy relic?" - The Duchess to Ferdinand
• "You may see, gentlemen, what 'tis to serve a prince with body and soul." - Antonio upon being banished
• "I do not like this jesting with religion, this feigned pilgrimage." - Cariola to the Duchess
• "Fortune makes this conclusion general: all things do help th' unhappy man to fall." - First Pilgrim