Quotes from The Merry Wives of Windsor

16 notable lines from William Shakespeare · c. 1597

Why, then the world's mine oyster.

Pistol, The Merry Wives of Windsor

  1. Why, then the world's mine oyster, Which I with sword will open.

    Pistol, Act II, Scene 2

  2. This is the short and the long of it.

    Mistress Quickly, The Merry Wives of Windsor

  3. Marry, this is the short and the long of it.

    Mistress Quickly, Act II, Scene 2

  4. I cannot tell what the dickens his name is my husband had him of.

    Mistress Page, Act III, Scene 2

  5. We burn daylight.

    Mistress Ford, Act II, Scene 1

  6. I do begin to perceive that I am made an ass.

    Falstaff, The Merry Wives of Windsor

  7. O powerful love! that, in some respects, makes a beast a man, in some other, a man a beast.

    Falstaff, Act V, Scene 5

  8. This is the third time; I hope good luck lies in odd numbers. Away I go. They say there is divinity in odd numbers, either in nativity, chance, or death.

    Falstaff, Act V, Scene 1

  9. We'll leave a proof, by that which we will do, Wives may be merry, and yet honest too.

    Mistress Page, Act IV, Scene 2

  10. You may know by my size that I have a kind of alacrity in sinking; if the bottom were as deep as hell, I should down.

    Falstaff, Act III, Scene 5

  11. I think the devil will not have me damned, lest the oil that's in me should set hell on fire.

    Falstaff, Act V, Scene 5

  12. Here will be an old abusing of God's patience and the king's English.

    Mistress Quickly, Act I, Scene 4

  13. I will make a Star-chamber matter of it: if he were twenty Sir John Falstaffs, he shall not abuse Robert Shallow, esquire.

    Justice Shallow, opening line, Act I, Scene 1

  14. Like a fair house built on another man's ground; so that I have lost my edifice by mistaking the place where I erected it.

    Falstaff, Act II, Scene 2

  15. In love the heavens themselves do guide the state; Money buys lands, and wives are sold by fate.

    Ford, Act V, Scene 5