Quotes from Coriolanus
16 notable lines from William Shakespeare · c. 1608
There is a world elsewhere.
Like an eagle in a dove-cote, I Flutter'd your Volscians in Corioli: Alone I did it. Boy!
Coriolanus, his final boast, Act V, scene vi You common cry of curs! whose breath I hate As reek o' the rotten fens, whose loves I prize As the dead carcasses of unburied men That do corrupt my air, I banish you!
Coriolanus, banishing the citizens, Act III, scene iii Anger's my meat; I sup upon myself, And so shall starve with feeding.
Volumnia, Act IV, scene ii His nature is too noble for the world.
Menenius, Coriolanus His nature is too noble for the world: He would not flatter Neptune for his trident, Or Jove for's power to thunder.
Menenius, of Coriolanus, Act III, scene i What is the city but the people?
Sicinius, Act III, scene i O mother, mother! What have you done?
Coriolanus, Coriolanus I'll never Be such a gosling to obey instinct, but stand, As if a man were author of himself And knew no other kin.
Coriolanus, refusing to yield to his mother, Act V, scene iii Action is eloquence, and the eyes of the ignorant More learned than the ears.
Volumnia, Act III, scene ii Let me have war, say I; it exceeds peace as far as day does night: it's spritely waking, audible, and full of vent. Peace is a very apoplexy, lethargy; mull'd, deaf, sleepy, insensible; a getter of more bastard children than war's a destroyer of men.
First Servingman, Act IV, scene v He's a lamb indeed, that baes like a bear.
Brutus, of Coriolanus, Act II, scene i He's a bear indeed, that lives like a lamb.
Menenius, answering Brutus, Act II, scene i Nature teaches beasts to know their friends.
Sicinius, Act II, scene i There's no man in the world More bound to 's mother; yet here he lets me prate Like one i' the stocks.
Volumnia, pleading with her son, Act V, scene iii I am known to be a humorous patrician, and one that loves a cup of hot wine with not a drop of allaying Tiber in't.
Menenius, of himself, Act II, scene i