Exit, Pursued by a Quote (Part 2)

About This Quiz

Shakespeare unleashed one-liners like a Renaissance rap star suffering a quill addiction. Your exercise? Attribute these deathless zingers to their own plays.

Caveat: the Bard repurposed themes like a pro composter—star-crossed lovers yonder, power-maddened villains yon, fools speaking truth here and everywhere.

Hear the unmistakable sounds. Does it sound like someone's having an existential dilemma at 2 in the morning? Chances are Hamlet. Someone plotting murder while rhyming? Hi Macbeth. Teenagers making poor decisions in the process of love? That's Verona calling.

Start simple, end in tears.

Early questions are softball questions even your high school English teacher could hit out of the park. Later questions? Those are the questions that separate groundlings from scholars.

Caught between two choices? Trust your instincts—or else default to whatever has a higher body count.

START QUIZ

1/30

"No legacy is so rich as honesty."

[C] All's Well That Ends Well | Diana drops truth about integrity being worth more than Bitcoin, in a play where everyone lies constantly.

2/30

"Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them."

[B] Twelfth Night | Malvolio reads fake advice about greatness while wearing yellow stockings, becoming history's first victim of catfishing.

3/30

"Nothing will come of nothing."

[B] King Lear | Lear's mathematical theorem about inheritance backfires spectacularly when honesty equals banishment and flattery wins kingdoms.

4/30

"All's well that ends well."

[A] All's Well That Ends Well | The title drop that basically means "no harm, no foul" in a play full of harm and plenty of fouls.

5/30

"Things won are done; joy's soul lies in the doing."

[D] Troilus and Cressida | Cressida explains why the chase beats the catch, foreshadowing every dating app relationship ever.

6/30

"He that is strucken blind cannot forget the precious treasure of his eye."

[A] King Lear | Valentine mourns lost sight like a Shakespearean optometry advertisement, making blindness sound romantically tragic instead of just tragic.

7/30

"It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

[D] Macbeth | Macbeth reviews life like it's a one-star Yelp entry, basically calling existence a loud, meaningless Twitter thread.

8/30

"There is no remedy for love but to love more."

[D] Much Ado About Nothing | Hero prescribes the hair-of-the-dog cure for heartbreak, because Shakespeare believed in homeopathic romance therapy.

9/30

"There's a divinity that shapes our ends."

[A] Hamlet | Hamlet finally accepts divine providence after spending five acts trying to control everything like a Renaissance control freak.

10/30

"A fool's bolt is soon shot."

[C] King Lear | The Fool shoots verbal arrows quickly, proving that wisdom dressed as comedy still stings when aimed correctly.

11/30

"Let every eye negotiate for itself and trust no agent."

[D] The Merchant of Venice | Morocco advises DIY judgment in the casket game, solid advice from a guy who chose completely wrong.

12/30

"Lord, what fools these mortals be!"

[C] A Midsummer Night's Dream | Puck drops this line in Act 3, Scene 2 as he watches the love geometry he’s scrambled spin into farce—exactly the play’s joke that human passion is hilariously mis-aimed; in the Folger text it lands around the “Shall we their fond pageant see?” exchange with Oberon.

13/30

"The more pity that fools may not speak wisely what wise men do foolishly."

[C] Twelfth Night | Feste explains why jesters have job security: someone needs permission to roast the powerful when they're being idiots.

14/30

"Though she be but little, she is fierce."

[B] A Midsummer Night's Dream | Helena describes Hermia, accidentally writing the motto for every short girl's dating profile for eternity.

15/30

"What is past is prologue."

[A] The Tempest | Antonio uses dramatic structure to justify attempted murder, because Shakespeare villains major in evil liberal arts.

16/30

"Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt."

[A] Measure for Measure | Lucio philosophizes about self-sabotage in Vienna's most problematic comedy about consent and coercion.

17/30

"We are made of the stuff of dreams."

[B] The Tempest | Prospero reflects on the fleeting nature of life, reminding us that our existence is as fragile and temporary as a dream fading at dawn.

18/30

"Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds."

[A] Sonnet 116 | Shakespeare defines true love as stubborn constancy, the wedding reading that launches a thousand doomed marriages.

19/30

"To be a well-favored man is the gift of fortune, but to write or read comes by nature."

[B] Twelfth Night | Malvolio's backwards logic about literacy and looks, from someone who can read but can't read a room.

20/30

"The better part of Valour, is Discretion."

[A] Henry IV, Part 1 | Falstaff justifies cowardice with philosophy after playing dead, becoming history's most eloquent chicken.

21/30

"A plague o' both your houses!"

[D] Romeo and Juliet | After Tybalt slips a blade under Romeo’s arm, Mercutio staggers and spits this curse in Act 3, Scene 1—an oath that damns Montague and Capulet alike and tilts the play from flirtation to fallout; the line is immediately followed by his grim “They have made worms’ meat of me.”

22/30