“I'll stay a month longer. I am a fellow o' the strangest mind i' the world; I delight in masques and revels sometimes altogether (He's an oddity in that he enjoys having fun)”

“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.”

“O, that he were here to write me down an ass! But, masters, remember, that I am an ass; though it be not written down, yet forget not that I am an ass.”

“Put on what weary negligence you please,You and your fellows; I'll have it come to question:If he dislike it, let him to our sister,Whose mind and mine, I know, in that are one,Not to be over-ruled. Idle old man,That still would manage those authoritiesThat he hath given away! Now, by my life,Old fools are babes again; and must be usedWith cheques as flatteries,--when they are seen abused.Remember what I tell you.”

“He that commends me to mine own contentCommends me to the thing I cannot get.I to the world am like a drop of waterThat in the ocean seeks another drop,Who, falling there to find his fellow forth,Unseen, inquisitive, confounds himself:So I, to find a mother and a brother,In quest of them, unhappy, lose myself.”

“Dost thou not suspect my place? Dost thou not suspect my years? O that he were here to write me down an ass! But masters, remember that I am an ass. Though it be not written down, yet forget not that I am an ass. No, thou villain, thou art full of piety, as shall be proved upon thee by good witness. I am a wise fellow, and which is more, an officer, and which is more, a householder, and which is more, as pretty a piece of flesh as any is in Messina, and one that knows the law, go to . . . and one that hath two gowns, and everything handsome about him. Bring him away. O that I had been writ down an ass!”

“I to the world am like a drop of waterThat in the ocean seeks another drop, Who, falling there to find his fellow forth, Unseen, inquisitive, confounds himself.”