Jaques Quotes in History of the World: Part I (1981)

Jaques: Josephus! How did you get here from the Roman Empire?

Josephus: Don't be square, mon cher! Movies is magic!

Jaques: And so, from hour to hour we ripe and ripe, and from hour to hour, we rot and rot, and thereby hangs a tale.

Jaques: All the world's a stage,/ And all the men and women merely players: /They have their exits and their entrances; /And one man in his time plays many parts,/ His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,/ Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms./ And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel/ And shining morning face, creeping like snail /Unwillingly to school. And then the lover, /Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad /Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier, /Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard, /Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,/ Seeking the bubble reputation /Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice, /In fair round belly with good capon lined, /With eyes severe and beard of formal cut, /Full of wise saws and modern instances; /And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts /Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon, /With spectacles on nose and pouch on side, /His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide /For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice, /Turning again toward childish treble, pipes /And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all, /That ends this strange eventful history, /Is second childishness and mere oblivion, /Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

Jaques: Good morrow, fool!

Touchstone: O sir, call me not fool till heaven hath sent me fortune.

Jaques: More. More. I prithee, more.

Amiens: It will make you melancholy, Monsieur Jaques.

Jaques: I thank it. More, I prithee, more. I can suck melancholy out of a song, as a weasel sucks eggs. More, prithee, more.

Amiens: My voice is ragged: I know I cannot please you.

Jaques: I do not desire you to please me, I do desire you to sing. Come, more; another stanza: call you 'em stanzas?

Amiens: What you will, Monsieur Jaques.

Jaques: Nay, I care not for their names. They owe me nothing. Will you sing?

Amiens: More at your request than to please myself.

Jaques: Well then, if ever I thank any man, I'll thank you. Come, warble.

Amiens: The duke hath been all this day to look you.

Jaques: I have been all this day to avoid him. I'll go sleep, if I can; if I cannot, I'll rail against all the first-born of Egypt.

Jaques: I prithee, pretty youth, let me be better acquainted with thee.

Rosalind: They say you are a melancholy fellow.

Jaques: I am so; I do love it better than laughing.

Rosalind: Those that are in extremity of either are abominable fellows and betray themselves to every modern censure worse than drunkards.

Jaques: Why, 'tis good to be sad and say nothing.

Rosalind: Why then, 'tis good to be a post.

Jaques: I have neither the scholar's melancholy, which is emulation, nor the musician's, which is fantastical, nor the courtier's, which is proud, nor the soldier's, which is ambitious, nor the lawyer's, which is politic, nor the lady's, which is nice, nor the lover's, which is all these: but it is a melancholy of mine own, compounded of many simples, extracted from many objects, and indeed the sundry's contemplation of my travels, in which my often rumination wraps me m a most humorous sadness.

Rosalind: A traveler! By my faith, you have great reason to be sad: I fear you have sold your own lands to see other men's; then, to have seen much and to have nothing, is to have rich eyes and poor hands.

Jaques: Yes, I have gained my experience.

Rosalind: And your experience makes you sad: I had rather have a fool to make me merry than experience to make me sad; and to travel for it too!

Orlando De Boys: Good day and happiness, dear Rosalind!

Jaques: Nay, then, God by you, an you talk in blank verse.

Rosalind: Farewell, Monsieur Traveler.