Measure for Measure

"We have strict statutes and most biting laws, The needful bits and curbs to headstrong steeds, — Which for these fourteen years we have let sleep; Even like an oergrown lion in a cave, That goes not out to prey. Now, as fond fathers, Having bound up the threatning twigs of birch, Only to stick it in their childrens sight For terror, not to use, in time the rod Becomes more mockd than feard; so our decrees, Dead to infliction, to themselves are dead, And liberty plucks justice by the nose; The baby beats the nurse, and quite athwart Goes all decorum."

"I hold you as a thing ensky’d and sainted."

"A man whose blood Is very snow-broth; one who never feels The wanton stings and motions of the sense."

"He arrests him on it; And follows close the rigour of the statute, To make him an example."

"Condemn the fault, and not the actor of it?"

"Tis one thing to be tempted, Escalus, Another thing to fall. I do not deny, The jury, passing on the prisoner’s life, May in the sworn twelve have a thief or two Guiltier than him they try."

"This will last out a night in Russia, When nights are longest there."

"No ceremony that to great ones ’longs, Not the king’s crown, nor the deputed sword, The marshal’s truncheon, nor the judge’s robe, Become them with one half so good a grace As mercy does."

"The law hath not been dead, though it hath slept."

"Why, all the souls that were, were forfeit once; And He that might the vantage best have took Found out the remedy. How would you be, If He, which is the top of judgment, should But judge you as you are?"

"O! it is excellent To have a giants strength; but it is tyrannous To use it like a giant."

"He was ever precise in promise-keeping."