Quotes from A Midsummer Night’s Dream
18 notable lines from William Shakespeare · c. 1595
The course of true love never did run smooth.
Lord, what fools these mortals be!
Puck, A Midsummer Night's Dream Though she be but little, she is fierce.
Helena, A Midsummer Night's Dream Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind; And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind.
Helena, Act I, Scene i If we shadows have offended, Think but this, and all is mended, That you have but slumber'd here While these visions did appear.
Puck, closing speech, Act V, Scene i The lunatic, the lover, and the poet Are of imagination all compact.
Theseus, Act V, Scene i Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania.
Oberon, Act II, Scene i I am that merry wanderer of the night.
Puck (Robin Goodfellow), Act II, Scene i And though she be but little, she is fierce.
Helena, of Hermia, Act III, Scene ii The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven.
Theseus, Act V, Scene i Lovers and madmen have such seething brains, Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend More than cool reason ever comprehends.
Theseus, Act V, Scene i So quick bright things come to confusion.
Lysander, Act I, Scene i I am your spaniel; and, Demetrius, The more you beat me, I will fawn on you.
Helena to Demetrius, Act II, Scene i Swift as a shadow, short as any dream; Brief as the lightning in the collied night.
Lysander, Act I, Scene i I have had a dream, past the wit of man to say what dream it was: man is but an ass, if he go about to expound this dream.
Bottom, Act IV, Scene i What angel wakes me from my flowery bed?
Titania, Act III, Scene i 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, Act IV, Scene i The best in this kind are but shadows; and the worst are no worse, if imagination amend them.
Theseus, Act V, Scene i