We have listed some well-known quotes from Henry VI Part I in the order they appear in the play.

My thoughts are whirled like a potter's wheel:
I know not where I am, nor what I do.
(Talbot, Act 1 Scene 5)

I have heard it said, unbidden guests
Are often welcomest when they are gone.
(Bedford, Act 2 Scene 2)

Faith, I have been a truant in the law,
And never yet could frame my will to it,
And therefore frame the law unto my will.
(Suffolk, Act 2 Scene 4)

I have perhaps some shallow spirit of judgement:
But in these nice sharp quillets of the law,
Good faith, I am no wiser than a daw.
(Warwick, Act 2 Scene 4)

Chuk Iwuji as Henry VI, wearing a slick golden robe and a crown
Chuk Iwuji as Henry VI in Michael Boyd's 2006 production of Henry VI Part I
Photo by Ellie Kurttz © RSC Browse and license our images

Here I prophesy: this brawl today, 
Grown to this faction in the Temple garden, 
Shall send, between the red rose and the white, 
A thousand souls to death and deadly night.
(Warwick, Act 2 Scene 4)

Defer no time, delays have dangerous ends.
(Reignier, Act 3 Scene 2)

No simple man that sees 
This jarring discord of nobility, 
This shouldering of each other in the court,
This factious bandying of their favourites, 
But that it doth presage some ill event.
(Exeter, Act 4 Scene 1)

I owe him little duty, and less love.
(Somerset, Act 4 Scene 4)

Here on my knee I beg mortality, 
Rather than life preserved with infamy.
(John, Act 4 Scene 5)

So doth the swan her downy cygnets save,
Keeping them prisoners underneath her wings.
(Suffolk, Act 5 Scene 3)

She’s beautiful, and therefore to be wooed;
She is a woman, therefore to be won.
(Suffolk, Act 5 Scene 3)

To be a queen in bondage is more vile
Than is a slave in base servility.
(Margaret, Act 5 Scene 3)

Marriage is a matter of more worth
Than to be dealt in by attorneyship.
(Suffolk, Act 5 Scene 5)

You may also like