Some well-known quotes from The Merry Wives of Windsor, listed in order of appearance in the play.

Sir John Falstaff stands among the crowd in a red garden, a wine glass in hand
Desmond Barrit as Sir John Falstaff in the 2012 production of The Merry Wives of Windsor, directed by Phillip Breen.
Photo by Pete le May © RSC Browse and license our images

All his successors - gone before him - hath done’t, and all his ancestors - that come after him –may. 
(Slender, Act 1 Scene 1)

Thou art the Mars of malcontents.  
(Pistol, Act 1 Scene 3)

Here will be an old abusing of God's patience and the King's English.  
(Mistress Quickly, Act 1 Scene 4)

I love not the humour of bread and cheese.  
(Nim, Act 2 Scene 1) 

Why, then the world's mine oyster, which I with sword will open. 
(Pistol, Act 2 Scene 2)

Marry, this is the short and the long of it.  
(Mistress Quickly, Act 2 Scene 2) 

Setting the attractions of my good parts aside, I have no other charms. 
(Falstaff, Act 2 Scene 2)

Falstaff: Of what quality was your love, then?  
Ford: Like a fair house built on another man’s ground  
(Act 2 Scene 2)

Better three hours too soon than a minute too late.  
(Ford, Act 2 Scene 2)

A man of my kidney.  
(Falstaff, Act 3 Scene 5)

Why, woman, your husband is in his old lines again: he so takes on yonder with my husband, so rails against all married mankind, so curses all Eve's daughters of what complexion soever.  
(Mistress Page, Act 4 Scene 2)

Wives may be merry, and yet honest too. 
(Mistress Page, Act 4 Scene 2)

I hope good luck lies in odd numbers. 
(Falstaff, Act 5 Scene 1)

O powerful Love, that in some respects makes a beast a man, in some other a man a beast.
(Falstaff, Act 5 Scene 5)

I think the devil will not have me damned, lest the oil that's in me should set hell on fire.  
(Falstaff, Act 5 Scene 5)

In love the heavens themselves do guide the state.
Money buys lands, and wives are sold by fate. 
(Ford, Act 5 Scene 5)

 

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