Henry IV Quotes

Part 1

Act 1

No more the thirsty entrance of this soil shall daub her lips with her own childrens' blood.
-Henry

O, that it could be proved that some night-tripping fairy had exchanged in cradle-clothes our children where they lay.
-Henry

The fortune of us that are the moon's men doth ebb and flow like the sea, being governed, as the sea is, by the moon.
-Hal

Do not, when thou art king, hang a thief.
-Falstaff

Thou didst well, for wisdom cries out in the streets and no man regards it.
-Hal

'Tis no sin for a man to labor in his vocation.
-Falstaff

If all the year were playing holidays, to sport would be as tedious as to work.
-Hal

I'll so offend to make offense a skill, redeeming time when men least think I will.
-Hal

Shall our coffers then be emptied to redeem a traitor home?  Shall we buy treason and indent with fears when they have lost and forfeited themselves?
-Henry

An if the devil come and roar for them, I will not send them.
-Hotspur

And that same sword-and-buckler Prince of Wales-but that I think his father loves him not and would be glad he met with some mischance-I would have him poisoned with a pot of ale.
-Hotspur

And see already how he doth begin to make us strangers to his looks of love.
-Worcester

Act 2

Poor fellow never joyed since the price of oats rose.  It was the death of him.
-first carrier

Hang thyself in thine own heir-apparent garters!
-Falstaff

Now could thou and I rob the thieves and go merrily to London, it would be argument for a week, laughter for a month, and a good jest forever.
-Hal

There's no more valor in Poins than in a wild duck.
-Falstaff

An I were now by this rascal, I could brain him with his lady's fan.
-Hotspur

I am not yet of Percy's mind, the Hotspur of the north, he that kills me some six or seven dozen of Scots at a breakfast, washes his hands, and says to his wife "Fie upon this quiet life!  I want work."
-Hal

I tell thee what, Hal, if I tell thee a lie, spit in my face, call me horse.
-Falstaff

What doth Gravity out of his bed at midnight?
-Falstaff

Shall the son of England prove a thief and take purses?
-Falstaff as King Henry

This pitch, as ancient writers do report, doth defile; so doth the company thou keepest.
-Falstaff as King Henry

Act 3

These promises are fair, the parties sure, and our induction full of prosperous hope.
-Mortimer

All the courses of my life do show that I am not in the roll of common men.
-Glendower

O, he is tedious as a tired horse, a railing wife, worse than a smoky house.
-Hotspur

Wouldst thou have thy head broken?
-Lady Percy

But thou dost in the passages of thy life make me believe that thou art only marked for the hot vengeance and the rod of heaven to punish my mistreadings.
-Henry

And I will die a hundred thousand deaths ere break the smallest parcel of this vow.
-Hal

I was as virtuously given as a gentleman need to be, virtuous enough : swore little; diced not above seven times-a week; went to a bawdy house not above once in a quarter-of an hour; paid money that I borrowed-three or four times; lived well and in good compass; and now I live out of all order, out of all compass.
-Falstaff

Do thou amend thy face, and I'll amend my life.
-Falstaff

Thou knowest in the state of innocency Adam fell, and what should poor Jack Falstaff do in the days of villainy?  Thou seest I have more flesh than another man and therefore more frailty.
-Falstaff

Percy stands on high, and either we or they must lower lie.
-Hal

Act 4

Zounds, how has he the leisure to be sick in such a justling time?
-Hotspur

His letters bears his mind, not I, my lord.
-messenger

This sickness doth infect the very lifeblood of our enterprise.  'Tis catching hither, even to our camp.
-Hotspur

Let them come.  They come like sacrifices in their trim.
-Hotspur

Doomsday is near.  Die all, die merrily.
-Hotspur

They'll fill a pit as well as better.
-Falstaff

Act 5

Then with losers let it sympathize, for nothing can seem foul to those that win.
-Henry

This is not well, my lord; this is not well.
-Henry

It pleased your majesty to turn your looks of favor from myself and all our house.
-Worcester

For my part, I may speak it to my shame, I have a truant been to chivalry, and so I hear he doth account me too.
-Hal

But if he will not yield, rebuke and dread correction wait on us, and they shall do their office.
-Henry

Honor is a mere scutcheon.  And so ends my catechism.
-Falstaff

For treason is but trusted like the fox, who, never so tame, so cherished and locked up, will have a wild trick of his ancestors.
-Worcester

I never in my life did hear a challenge urged more modestly, unless a brother should a brother dare to gentle exercise and proof of arms.
-Vernon

An if we live, we live to tread on kings; if die, brave death, when princes die with us.
-Hotspur

My name is Harry Percy.
Why then I see a very valient rebel of the name.
-Hotspur/Hal

Could not all this flesh keep in a little life?
-Hal

'Sblood, 'twas time to counterfeit, or that hot termagant Scot had paid me scot and lot too.
-Falstaff

The better part of valor is discretion, in the which better part I have saved my life.
-Falstaff

Bear Worcester to the death, and Vernon too.
-Henry

Part 2

Act 1

O, such a day, so fought, so followed, and so fairly won, came not till now to dignify the times since Caesar's fortunes.
-Lord Bardolph

I ran from Shrewsbury, my noble lord, where hateful death put on his ugliest mask to fright our party.
-Morton

I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that is wit in other men.
-Falstaff

Thou whoreson mandrake, thou art fitter to be worn in my cap than to wait at my heels.
-Falstaff

But it was always yet the trick of our English nation, if they have a good thing, to make it too common.
-Falstaff

I were better eaten to death with a rust than to be scoured to nothing perpetual motion.
-Falstaff

I can get no remedy against this consumption of the purse.
-Falstaff

And so, with great imagination proper to madmen, led his powers to death and, winking, leapt into destruction.
-Lord Bardolph

O thoughts of men accursed!  Past and to come seems best; things present, worst.
-Archbishop of York

We are time's subjects, and time bids begone.
-Hastings

Act 2

It may chance cost some of us our lives, for he will stab.
-Constable Snare

Throw me in the channel?  I'll throw thee in the channel.  Wilt thou, wilt thou, thou bastardly rogue?
-Mistress Quickly

He hath put all my substance into that fat belly of his.
-Mistress Quickly

No, my lord, my humble duty remembered, I will not be your suitor.
-Falstaff

I had thought weariness durst not have attached one of so high blood.
-Poins

A proper gentlewoman, sir, and a kinswoman of my master's.
Even such kin as the parish heifers are to the town bull.
-Falstaff's servant/Hal

So that in speech, in gait, in diet, in affections of delight, in military rules, humors of blood, he was the mark and glass, copy and book, that fashioned others.
-Lady Percy

Him you did leave, second to none, unseconded by you.
-Lady Percy

Thou art going to the wars, and whether I shall ever see thee again or no, there is nobody cares.
-Doll Tearsheet

Away, you bottle-ale rascal, you basket-hilt stale juggler, you.
-Doll Tearsheet

Is it not strange that desire should so many years outive performance?
-Poins

Thou whoreson mad compound of majesty, by this light flesh and corrupt blood, thou art welcome.
-Falstaff

You whoreson candle-mine, you, how vilely did you speak of me even now before thishonest, virtuous, civil gentlewoman!
-Hal

I dispraised him before the wicked, that the wicked might not fall in love with thee; in which doing, I have done the part of a careful friend and a true subject, and thy father is to give me thanks for it.
-Falstaff

Act 3

Then, happy low, lie down.  Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.
-Henry

Then you perceive the body of our kingdom how foul it is, what rank diseases grow, and with what danger near the heart of it.
-Henry

King Richard might create a perfect guess that great Northumberland, then false to him, would of that seed grow to a greater falseness, which should not find a ground to root upon unless on you.
-Warwick

You had not four such swinge-bucklers in all the Inns o' Court again.
-Shallow

The mad days that I have spent!  And to see how many of my old acquaintance are dead.
-Shallow

Sir, pardon.  A soldier is better accomodated than with a wife.
-Bardolph

Thou wilt be as valiant as the wrathful dove or most magnanimous mouse.
-Falstaff

We have heard the chimes at midnight, Master Shallow.
-Falstaff

No man's too good to serve 's prince, and let it go which way it will, he that dies this year is quit for the next.
-Francis Feeble

He presents no mark to the enemy.  The foeman may with as great aim level at the edge of a penknife.  O, give me the spare men, and spare me the great ones.
-Falstaff

Act 4

Thus do the hopes we have in him touch ground and dash themselves to pieces.
-Mowbray

We are all diseased and with our surfeiting and wanton hours have brought ourselves into a burning fever, and we must bleed for it.
-Archbishop of York

But this is mere digression from my purpose.
-Westmoreland

But he hath forced us to compel this offer, and it proceeds from policy, not love.
-Mowbray

My lord of York, it better showed with you when that your flock, assembled with the bell, encircled you to hear with reverence your exposition on the holy text than now to see you here.
-John of Lancaster

You are too shallow, Hastings, much too shallow to sound the bottom of the after-times.
-John of Lancaster

Against ill chances men are ever merry, but heaviness foreruns the good event.
-Archbishop of York

Good tidings, my Lord Hastings, for the which I do arrest thee, traitor, of high treason.
-Westmoreland

Is this proceeding just and honorable?
Is your assembly so?
-Mowbray/Westmoreland

Well then, Colevile is your name, a knight is your degree, and your place the Dale.  Colevile shall be still your name, a traitor your degree, and the dungeon your place, a place deep enough so shall you be still Colevile of the Dale.
-Falstaff

I never knew yet but rebuke and check was the reward of valor.
-Falstaff

It was more of his courtesy than your deserving.
-John of Lancaster

Hereof comes it that Prince Harry is valiant, for the cold blood he did naturally inherit of his father he hath, like lean, sterile, and bare land, manured, husbanded, and tilled with excellent endeavor of drinking good and good store of fertile sherris, that he is become very hot and valiant.
-Falstaff

For he is gracious if he be observed; he hath a tear for pity, and a hand open as day for melting charity; yet notwithstanding, being incensed he is flint, as humorous as winter, and as sudden as flaws congealed in the spring of day.
-Henry

For when his headstrong riot hath no curb, when rage and hot blood are his counsellors, when means and lavish manners meet together, o, with what wings shall his affections fly towards fronting peril and opposed decay!
-Henry

There is not now a rebel's sword unsheathed, but peace puts forth her olive everywhere.
-Westmoreland

Will fortune never come with both hands full, but write her fair words still in foulest letters?
-Henry

How now, rain within doors, and none abroad?
-Hal

My gracious lord, my father, this sleep is sound indeed.  This is a sleep that from this golden rigol hath divorced so many English kings.
-Hal

This from thee will I leave mine, as 'tis left to me.
-Hal

See, sons, what things you are, how quickly nature falls into revolt when gold becomes her object!
-Henry

My lord, I found the prince in the next room, washing with kindly tears his gentle cheeks, with such a deep demeanor in great sorrow that tyranny, which never quaffed but blood, would, by beholding him, have washed his knife with gentle eyedrops.
-Warwick

Pluck down my officers, break my decress, for now a time is come to mock at form.  Harry the Fifth is crowned.  Up, vanity, down, royal state, all you sage councillors, hence, and to the English court assemble now, from every region, apes of idleness.
-Henry

To thee it shall descend with better quiet, better opinion, better confirmation.
-Henry

How I came by the crown, O God forgive, and grant it may with thee in true peace live.
-Henry

Act 5

I will not excuse you.  You shall not be excused.  Excuses shall not be admitted.  There is no excuse shall serve.  You shall not be excused.
-Shallow

They, by observing of him, do bear themselves like foolish justices; he, by conversing with them, is turned into a justice-like servingman.  Their spirits are so marred in conjunction with the participation of society that they flock together in consent like so many wild geese.
-Falstaff

it is certain that either wise bearing or ignorant carriage is caught, as men take diseases, one of another.  Therefore let men take heed of their company.
-Falstaff

How doth the King?
Exceeding well.  All his cares are ended.
-Chief Justice/Warwick

And I do wish your honors may increase till you do live to see a son of mine offend you and obey you as I did.
-Hal

And with his spirits sadly I survivie to mock the expectation of the world, to frustrate prophecies, and to raze out rotten opinion, who hath writ me down after my seeming.
-Hal

Sir John, thy tender lambkin now is king.  Harry the Fifth's the man.
-Bardolph

The laws of England are at my commandment.  Blessed are they that have been my friends, and woe to my Lord Chief Justice.
-Falstaff

My king, my Jove, I speak to thee, my heart!
-Falstaff

I know thee not, old man.  Fall to thy prayers.  How ill white hairs becomes a fool and jester.  I have long dreamt of such a kind of man, so surfeit-swelled, so old, and so profane; but being awaked, I do despise my dream.  Make less thy body hence, and more thy grace; leave gormandizing.  Know the grave doth gapefor thee thrice wider than for other men.  Reply not to me with a fool-born jest.  Presume not that I am the thing I was, for God doth know-so shall the world perceive-that I have turned away my former self.  So will I those that kept me company.
-Hal

First my fear, then my curtsy, last my speech.  My fear is your displeasure, my curtsy my duty, and my speech, to beg your pardons.
-epilogue

Falstaff shall die of a sweat, unless already he be killed with your hard opinions; for Oldcastle died a martyr, and this is not the man.
-epilogue

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