Romeo & Juliet Quotes and Themes

• Love


  It underpins most of the plot. Shakespeare explores the positive aspects of love, as well as the difficulties when different relationships are incompatible. He shows the difference in how the older and younger generations approach love.
• Romeo: 'Here's much to do with hate, but more with love. Why, then, O brawling love! O loving hate!'
• Mercutio: 'If love be rough with you, be rough with love; prick love for pricking, and you beat love down.'
• Romeo: 'Is she a Capulet? O, dear account! My life is my foe's debt'
• Juliet: 'My only love sprung from my only hate! Too early seen unknown, and known too late! Prodigious birth of love it is to me, that I must love a loathed enemy.'
• Romeo: 'But, soft! What light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun…It is my lady, O it is my love! O, that she knew she were!'
• Juliet: 'O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo? Deny thy father and refuse thy name; or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, and I'll no longer be a Capulet.'
• Juliet: 'What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet'
• Friar Laurence: 'Young men's love then lies not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes.'
• Juliet: 'Romeo, I come! This do I drink to thee.'
• Capulet: 'O brother Montague, give me thy hand'
• Prince: 'For never was a story of more woe that this of Juliet and her Romeo.'
• Fate


  Fate has a very interesting role in Romeo and Juliet. Various characters refer to fate guiding their lives. The audience gets a clear sense of fate's influence right from the start.
• Chorus: 'A pair of star-crossed lovers take their lives'
• Juliet: 'My grave is like to be my wedding bed.'
• Romeo: 'O, I am fortune's fool!'
• Juliet: 'O fortune, fortune! All men call thee fickle'
• Friar Laurence: 'Unhappy fortune!'
• Romeo: 'Is it even so? Then I defy you, stars!'
• Friar Laurence: 'Fear comes upon me: O, much I fear some ill unlucky thing,'
• Friar Laurence: 'A greater power than we can contradict hath thwarted our intents.'
• Conflict


  Conflict is central to the play, with the feuding families providing a dramatic background to the tale. Shakespeare shows the potential price of conflict in defence of honour.
• Tybalt: 'What, drawn, and talk of peace! I hate the word, as I hate hell, all Montagues, and thee'
• Romeo: 'My life were better ended by their hate, than death prorogued, wanting of thy love.'
• Friar Laurence: 'These violent delights have violent ends and in their triumph die'
• Mercutio: 'A plague o' both your houses!'
• Tybalt: 'Romeo, the hate I bear thee can afford no better term than this,- thou art a villain.'
• Mercutio: 'ask for me tomorrow, and you will find me a grave man.'
• Mercutio: 'Why the devil came you between us? I was hurt under your arm.'
• Prince: 'See, what a scourge is laid upon your hate, that heaven finds means to kill your joys with love. And I for winking at your discords too have lost a brace of kinsmen: all are punished.'
• Family


  Shakespeare explores the complex nature of family relationships. He shows us the strong connection of family as well as the alienation caused by going against a strong family.
• Cutio: 'Why the devil came you between us? I was hurt under your arm.'
• Family


  • Shakespeare explores the complex nature of family relationships. He shows us the strong connection of family as well as the alienation caused by going against a strong family. This theme links closely with love and conflict.
• The Montagues and Capulets are high status, wealthy families in Verona. In this position the binds to Montague and Capulet go far beyond their immediate families. Many people who worked for the families would owe allegiance to them and wear their livery (the colours associated with that family). This means that the family feud ranges across Verona and involves many people beyond the families.
• We see some big differences between contemporary and modern families, but also some timeless similarities.
• The 'ancient' family conflict between the Montagues and Capulets is the backdrop to the play and is shown to overwhelm people's lives.
• The conflict has been going on for years and the warring between the two sides is almost natural.
• It's strange, therefore, how similar the two families appear. Both high status, with children around the same age and a huge retinue of servants and allies.
• Both Romeo and Juliet are shown to be very young. Juliet is 13 and, although we don't hear Romeo's exact age, it is implied that he too is very young. Both characters are quite immature.
• The two families are only reconciled after the death of their children. Shakespeare presents the strength and power of conflicts between families, as only such tragedy can overcome their feud.