Quotes (The Tempest)

Key quotes from The Tempest by William Shakespeare

 “O, I have suffered

With those that I saw suffer.”

(Miranda, Act 1 Scene 2)

“Good wombs have borne bad sons.”

(Miranda, Act 1 Scene 2)

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“Hell is empty and all the devils are here.”

(Ariel, Act 1, Scene 2)

“My library was dukedom large enough.”

(Prospero, Act 1 Scene 2)

“Awake, dear heart, awake. Thou hast slept well. Awake.”

(Prospero, Act 1, Scene 2)

“Thou shalt be free

As mountain winds: but then exactly do

All points of my command.”

(Prospero, Act 1, Scene 2)

“With hair up-staring – then like reeds, not hair – 

Was the first man that leaped; cried ‘Hell is empty

And all the devils are here.’

(Ariel, Act 1 Scene 2)

“You taught me language, and my profit on’t

Is I know how to curse. The red plague rid you

For learning me your language! “

(Caliban, Act 1, Scene 2)

“Your tale, sir, would cure deafness.”

(Caliban, Act 1, Scene 2)

“For I am all the subjects that you have,

Which first was mine own king.”

(Caliban, Act 1 Scene 2)

“What’s past is prologue.”

(Antonio, Act 2, Scene 1)

“Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.”

(Trinculo, Act 2, Scene 1)

“Watch out he’s winding the watch of his wit, by and by it will strike.”

(Sebastian, Act 2, Scene 1)

“Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.”

(Trinculo, Act 2 Scene 2)

“Hast thou not dropped from heaven?”

(Caliban, Act 2 Scene 2)

“There be some sports are painful, and their labour

Delight in them sets off. Some kinds of baseness

Are nobly undergone, and most poor matters

Point to rich ends. This my mean task

Would be as heavy to me as odious, but

The mistress which I serve quickens what’s dead

And makes my labours pleasures.”

(Ferdinand, Act 3, Scene 1)

“I am your wife, if you will marry me:

If not, I'll die your maid: to be your fellow

You may deny me, but I'll be your servant,

Whether you will or no.”

(Miranda, Act 3 Scene 1)

“I would not wish

Any companion in the world but you,

Nor can imagination form a shape, #

Besides yourself, to like of.”

(Miranda, Act 3, Scene 1)

“Be not afeard. The isle is full of noises,

Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.

Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments

Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices

That, if I then had waked after long sleep

Will make me sleep again; and then in dreaming

The clouds methought would open and show riches

Ready to drop upon me, that when I waked

I cried to dream again.”

(Caliban, Act 3, Scene 2)

“Thought is free.”

(Stefano, Act 3, Scene 2)

“Now I will believe that there are unicorns…”

(Sebastian, Act 3, Scene 3)

“Our revels now are ended. These our actors,

As I foretold you, were all spirits and

Are melted into air, into thin air;

And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,

The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,

The solemn temples, the great globe itself,

Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,

And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,

Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff 

As dreams are made on: and our little life 

Is rounded with a sleep.”

(Prospero, Act 4 Scene 1)

“Where the bee sucks, there suck I:

In a cowslip's bell I lie:

There I couch when owls do cry.

On the bat's back I do fly

After summer merrily.

Merrily, merrily, shall I live now

Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.”

(Ariel, Act 5 Scene 1)

“O, wonder!

How many goodly creatures are there here!

How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,

That has such people in't.”

(Miranda, Act 5 Scene 1)

“Let us not burthen our remembrance with

A heaviness that’s gone.”

(Prospero, Act 5, Scene 1)

“As you from crimes would pardoned be,

Let your indulgence set me free.”

(Prospero, Epilogue)