50 Important Quotes You Should Pay Attention to in Much Ado About Nothing

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Quotes by Hero in Much Ado About Nothing

#11: So you walk softly, and look sweetly, and say nothing, I am yours for the walk, and especially when I walk away. 

• Techniques: Parataxis, conduplicatio, motif (of silence), tricolon, free-verse
• Characters: Hero (Speaker), Don Pedro 
• Act  2 Scene 1

#12: I will do any modest office, my lord, to help my cousin to a good husband. 

• Techniques: Dramatic irony, characterisation, connotations
• Characters: Hero (Speaker), Don Pedro
• Act 2 Scene 2

#13: …of this matter / Is little Cupid’s crafty arrow made, /That only wounds by hearsay.

• Techniques: Greek mythological allusion, metaphor, subversion, motif (of war)
• Characters: Hero (Speaker), Margaret
• Act 3 Scene 1 

#14: Then go we near her, that her ear lose nothing / Of the false sweet bait that we lay for it.

• Techniques: Motif, synecdoche, iambic pentameter, dramatic irony 
• Characters: Hero (Speaker), Ursula, Beatrice
• Act 3 Scene 1

#15: she is too disdainful. / I know her spirits are as coy and wild / As haggards of the rock

• Techniques: Simile, connotations
• Characters: Hero (Speaker), Ursula, Beatrice
• Act 3 Scene 1 

#16: He is the only man of Italy, / Always excepted my dear Claudio.

• Techniques: Hyperbole, metaphor
• Characters: Hero (Speaker), Ursula, Benedick
• Act 3 Scene 1

#17: God give me joy to wear it [Hero’s wedding gown], for my heart is exceeding heavy.

• Techniques: Metaphor, ambiguity, foreshadowing
• Characters: Hero (Speaker), Ursula
• Act 3 Scene 4

#18: Help to dress me, good coz, good Meg, good Ursula. 

• Techniques: Tricolon, tension
• Characters: Hero (Speaker), Beatrice, Margaret, Ursula
• Act 3 Scene 4

#19: Is my lord well, that he doth speak so wide?

• Techniques: Free-verse, consonance, contrast 
• Characters: Hero (Speaker), Claudio
• Act 4 Scene 1

#20: One Hero died defiled; but I do live, And surely as I live, I am a maid.

• Techniques: Pun, symbolism, tricolon
• Characters: Hero (Speaker), Claudio
• Act 5 Scene 4

Much Ado About Nothing Quotes about Deception 

#21: in her bosom I’ll unclasp my heart / And take her hearing prisoner with the force / And strong encounter of my amorous tale

• Techniques: Motif (of war), metaphor, contrast 
• Characters: Don Pedro (Speaker), Claudio, Hero 
• Act 1 Scene 2

#22: though I cannot be said to be a flattering honest man, it must not be denied but I am a plain-dealing villain.

• Techniques: Contrast, characterisation, syllogism 
• Characters: Don John (Speaker), Conrade
• Act 1 Scene 3

#23: I have a good eye, uncle; I can see a church by daylight.

• Techniques: Metaphor, symbolism
• Characters: Beatrice (Speaker), Leonato
• Act 2 Scene 1

#24: I cannot tell what to think of it, but she loves him with an enraged affection, it is past the infinite of thought.

• Techniques: Hyperbole, free-verse
• Characters: Leonato (Speaker), Don Pedro, Benedick 
• Act 2 Scene 3

#25: When rich villains have need of poor ones, poor ones may make what price they will.

• Techniques: Conduplicatio, chiasmus 
• Characters: Borachio (Speaker), Conrade, Don John
• Act 3 Scene 3

#26: There is not chastity enough in language / Without offence to utter them.

• Techniques: Dramatic irony, free-verse 
• Characters: Claudio (Speaker), Hero 
• Act 4 Scene 1

#27: O villain! Thou wilt be condemned into everlasting redemption for this.

• Techniques: Malapropism, comic relief, exaggeration
• Characters: Dogberry (Speaker), Borachio
• Act 4 Scene 2

#28: Done to death by slanderous tongues / Was the Hero that here lies

• Techniques: Consonance, double entendre, metonym 
• Characters: Claudio (Speaker), Hero
• Act 5 Scene 3

Quotes by Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing

#29: You always end with a jade’s trick. I know you of old.

• Techniques: Metonym (Jade = an ill horse), innuendo, characterisation, connotations
• Characters: Beatrice (Speaker), Benedick
• Act 1 Scene 1

#30: No, but to the gate, and there will the devil meet me like an old cuckold with horns on his head, and say “Get you to heaven, Beatrice, get you to heaven; here’s no place for you maids.

• Techniques: Irony, simile, witty humour, biblical allusion
• Characters: Beatrice (Speaker)
• Act 1 Scene 2

#31: He that hath a beard is more than a youth, and he that hath no beard is less than a man; and he that is more than a youth is not for me, and he that is less than a man, I am not for him. 

• Techniques: Anaphora, motif, characterisation, polysyndeton 
• Characters: Beatrice (Speaker), Leonato
• Act 2 Scene 1

#32: Kill Claudio.

• Techniques: Parataxis, commanding language, contrast, dramatic irony
• Characters: Beatrice (Speaker), Benedick 
• Act 4 Scene 1

#33: He is now as valiant as Hercules / that only tells a lie and swears it. 

• Techniques: Simile, Greek mythological allusion, contrast 
• Characters: Beatrice (Speaker), Benedick, Claudio
• Act 4 Scene 2

Much Ado About Nothing Quotes about Gender 

#34: Shall I never see a bachelor of threescore again?

• Techniques: Rhetorical question, characterisation
• Characters: Benedick (Speaker), Claudio, Don Pedro
• Act 1 Scene 1

#35: Well, as time shall try: ‘In time the savage bull doth bear the yoke.

• Techniques: Motif (of man and bull), metaphor 
• Characters: Benedick (Speaker), Claudio, Don Pedro
• Act 1 Scene 1

#36: Your silence most offends me, and to be merry best becomes you, for out o’ question you were born in a merry hour

• Techniques: Sarcastic language, syllogism, characterisation
• Characters: Don Pedro (Speaker), Beatrice  
• Act 2 Scene 1

#37: Not till God make men of some other metal than earth. Would it not grieve a woman to be overmastered with a piece of valiant dust?

• Techniques: Iambic, pentameter, consonance, witty language, logical fallacy, rhetorical question
• Characters: Beatrice (Speaker), Leonato
• Act 2 Scene 1

#38: Even she: Leonato’s Hero, your Hero, every man’s Hero. 

• Techniques: Pun, innuendo, conduplicatio 
• Characters: Don John (Speaker), Claudio
• Act 3 Scene 2

#39: Could she here deny / The story that is printed in her blood?— Do not live, Hero, do not ope thine eyes

• Techniques: Metaphor, diacope, commanding language
• Characters: Leonato (Speaker), Hero
• Act 4 Scene 1

#40: And what have I to give you back whose worth / May counterpoise this rich and precious gift?…Nothing, unless you render her again.

• Techniques: Symbolism, metonym
• Characters: Claudio (Speaker), Don Pedro (Speaker), Leonato 
• Act 4 Scene 1

#41: But you are more intemperate in your blood / Than Venus or those pampered animals / That rage in savage sensuality

• Techniques: Connotations, Greek mythological allusion, dehumanising language, sibilance, motif (of man and bull)
• Characters: Claudio (Speaker), Hero
• Act 4 Scene 1

#42: …get thee a wife, get thee a wife: there is no staff more reverent than one tipped with horn.

• Techniques: Motif (of man and bull), characterisation, epizeuxis 
• Characters: Benedick (Speaker), Don Pedro
• Act 5 Scene 4

Quotes about Love in Much Ado About Nothing 

#43: When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married.

• Techniques: Juxtaposition, metaphor, procatalepsis
• Characters: Benedick (Speaker)
• Act 2 Scene 3

#44: her cousin [Beatrice], an she were not possessed with a fury, exceeds her as much in beauty as the first of May doth the last of December

• Techniques: Free-verse, connotations, simile, characterisation 
• Characters: Benedick (Speaker), Claudio, Beatrice
• Act 1 Scene 1

#45: Suffer love! —a good epithet. I do suffer love indeed, for I love thee against my will.

• Techniques: Free-verse, repetition, chiasmus, tricolon 
• Characters: Benedick (Speaker), Beatrice
• Act 1 Scene 1 

#46: There is a kind of merry war betwixt Signior Benedick and her. They never meet but there’s a skirmish of wit between them. 

• Techniques: Motif (of love and war), characterisation, contrast
• Characters: Leonato (Speaker), Benedick, Beatrice
• Act 5 Scene 2

#47: Peace! I will stop your mouth.

• Techniques: Metaphor, exclamatory language, subversion
• Characters: Benedick (Speaker), Beatrice
• Act 5 Scene 4

#48: Thou and I are too wise to woo peaceably. 

• Techniques: Consonance, characterisation, subversion
• Characters: Benedick (Speaker), Beatrice
• Act 5 Scene 3

#49: I love you with so much of my heart that none is left to protest.

• Techniques: Hyperbole, metaphor, characterisation
• Characters: Beatrice (Speaker), Benedick
• Act 4 Scene 1

#50: I was not born under a rhyming planet.

• Techniques: Metaphor, dramatic foil 
• Characters: Benedick (Speaker), Beatrice
• Act 5 Scene 2