The most famous Twelfth Night quotes run from Orsino’s opening line, “If music be the food of love, play on,” to Feste’s closing song, and in between they give the English language “cakes and ale,” “midsummer madness,” and “some are born great.”
This page explains 40 of the play’s best-known lines, act by act. For each one, you will find who says it, when it comes in the story, and what it means. It ends with a closer look at one of the play’s most quoted sentences, and at the three different ways the play says it. For the plot and the characters, see our full guide to Twelfth Night. For famous lines from all of Shakespeare’s plays, see our Shakespeare quotes hub.
At a Glance
Here are the key facts about the famous lines in Twelfth Night for quick reference.
Act 1 Quotes
A lovesick duke, a shipwrecked twin, and a countess who falls in love at first sight.
“If Music Be the Food of Love, Play On”
Orsino, Act 1, scene 1, the first line of the play. It is often quoted as a tribute to music and romance, but the sentence goes on: “Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting, / The appetite may sicken and so die.” Orsino wants to overeat until he loses his hunger for love. A few lines later he has had enough of the tune: “Enough; no more. / ’Tis not so sweet now as it was before.”
“That Instant Was I Turned into a Hart”
Orsino, Act 1, scene 1. When Curio asks if he will hunt the hart, Orsino turns the word into a pun on “heart.” The first time he saw Olivia, he says, he became the hunted animal, “And my desires, like fell and cruel hounds, / E’er since pursue me.” The image recalls the myth of Actaeon, the hunter turned into a stag and torn apart by his own dogs.
“What Country, Friends, Is This?”
Viola, Act 1, scene 2, her first line, spoken on the shore after the shipwreck. The Captain answers, “This is Illyria, lady,” and Viola replies with a sad pun: “And what should I do in Illyria? / My brother he is in Elysium.” Elysium was the paradise of the dead in classical myth.
“I Am Sure Care’s an Enemy to Life”
Sir Toby, Act 1, scene 3, complaining that his niece Olivia is mourning her brother too hard. The line is Toby’s whole philosophy: worry shortens life, so drink, sing, and stay up late.
“I Am a Great Eater of Beef, and I Believe That Does Harm to My Wit”
Sir Andrew, Act 1, scene 3, after Maria has made fun of him. He suspects that he has “no more wit than a Christian or an ordinary man has,” and blames his diet. Toby agrees at once, and Andrew threatens to give up beef.
“Whoe’er I Woo, Myself Would Be His Wife”
Viola, aside, Act 1, scene 4, as Orsino sends her to woo Olivia for him. Just before it she calls the errand “a barful strife,” a task full of obstacles. The rhyming couplet sums up the love triangle in a single line: she must court another woman for the man she loves.
“Many a Good Hanging Prevents a Bad Marriage”
Feste, Act 1, scene 5, to Maria, who warns him that Olivia will hang him or turn him away for being absent. Feste answers with a joke proverb: better to be hanged than badly married.
“Better a Witty Fool Than a Foolish Wit”
Feste, Act 1, scene 5, quoting a philosopher named Quinapalus, who appears to be his own invention. The saying is Feste’s defense of his trade: a professional Fool who knows he lacks wisdom may be wiser than a clever man who thinks he has it.
“O, You Are Sick of Self-Love, Malvolio”
Olivia, Act 1, scene 5, after Malvolio sneers at Feste. She goes on: “and taste with a distempered appetite.” It is the first diagnosis of Malvolio’s vanity, the weakness Maria’s letter will later exploit.
“I Am Not That I Play”
Viola, Act 1, scene 5, when Olivia asks, “Are you a comedian?” meaning an actor. The full line is “And yet by the very fangs of malice I swear I am not that I play.” Viola tells the truth in a way Olivia cannot understand: the young man in front of her is a role.
“Make Me a Willow Cabin at Your Gate”
Viola, Act 1, scene 5, when Olivia asks what she would do if she loved her. She would build a hut of willow, the tree of rejected lovers, and “Cry out ‘Olivia!’” until the hills echoed. The speech is meant for Orsino’s cause, but it wins Olivia’s heart for the messenger.
“Even So Quickly May One Catch the Plague?”
Olivia, Act 1, scene 5, alone after Cesario leaves. She feels the youth’s perfections “creep in at mine eyes” and compares falling in love to catching an infection, one of the play’s many images of love as a sickness.
Act 2 Quotes
A ring sent back, a night of drinking and singing, and a letter dropped in a garden walk.
“Disguise, I See Thou Art a Wickedness”
Viola, Act 2, scene 2, after Malvolio delivers Olivia’s ring and she realizes Olivia has fallen for her. The line continues “Wherein the pregnant enemy does much,” meaning the devil, who is quick to use disguises. Viola pities Olivia, who would “better love a dream.”
“O Time, Thou Must Untangle This, Not I”
Viola, Act 2, scene 2, ending the same speech: “It is too hard a knot for me t’ untie.” Loved by Olivia and in love with Orsino, she can do nothing without revealing herself, so she leaves the problem to time. The final act proves her right.
“Journeys End in Lovers Meeting”
Feste’s song “O mistress mine,” Act 2, scene 3, sung for Sir Toby and Sir Andrew. The line promises that travels end when lovers meet, a quiet prediction of the twins’ reunion and the marriages to come.
“Youth’s a Stuff Will Not Endure”
The same song, second stanza. It begins “What is love? ’Tis not hereafter. / Present mirth hath present laughter,” and ends with this warning that youth does not last. The song urges the listener to seize the moment, and it gives the revelers’ night a note of sadness.
“Dost Thou Think, Because Thou Art Virtuous, There Shall Be No More Cakes and Ale?”
Sir Toby, Act 2, scene 3, to Malvolio, who has come to break up the late-night singing. Toby asks whether one man’s virtue should end everyone else’s pleasure. “Cakes and ale” has stood for the good life ever since, and W. Somerset Maugham took the phrase as the title of his 1930 novel.
“I Was Adored Once, Too”
Sir Andrew, Act 2, scene 3, after Toby boasts that Maria “adores me.” It is a rare glimpse of the foolish knight’s loneliness, and in performance it can stop the laughter for a moment before the scene moves on.
“Come Away, Come Away, Death”
Feste’s song for Orsino, Act 2, scene 4. The singer is a lover “slain by a fair cruel maid” who asks to be buried without flowers or mourners. Orsino loves its melancholy, and the song flatters his picture of himself as a rejected lover.
“Thy Mind Is a Very Opal”
Feste, Act 2, scene 4, taking his leave of Orsino. He wishes that “the melancholy god protect thee” and that the tailor make Orsino’s doublet of “changeable taffeta.” An opal changes color as it moves, and so, Feste hints, does the duke’s mind.
“She Sat like Patience on a Monument, / Smiling at Grief”
Viola, Act 2, scene 4, telling Orsino about an imaginary sister who “never told her love, / But let concealment, like a worm i’ th’ bud, / Feed on her damask cheek.” The sister sat still like a statue of Patience on a tomb. The story is Viola’s own, told in the only way her disguise allows.
“I Am All the Daughters of My Father’s House”
Viola, Act 2, scene 4, when Orsino asks if the sister died of love. She answers, “I am all the daughters of my father’s house, / And all the brothers, too—and yet I know not.” The riddle hides a confession, and the last words show that she still hopes her brother is alive.
“To Be Count Malvolio”
Malvolio, Act 2, scene 5, daydreaming in the garden before he finds the letter, while Toby, Andrew, and Fabian watch from a box tree. He imagines marrying Olivia and lecturing Toby. The fantasy shows that the trick only feeds a dream he already has.
“Some Are Born Great, Some Achieve Greatness, and Some Have Greatness Thrust upon ’Em”
Maria’s forged letter, read aloud by Malvolio, Act 2, scene 5. The letter tells him “be not afraid of greatness” and urges him to seize his fortune by marrying his lady. It is among the play’s most quoted sentences, and it was written as bait. The Closer Reading below follows it through the play.
Act 3 Quotes
Olivia declares her love, Malvolio appears cross-gartered, and Sir Toby arranges a duel nobody wants.
“This Fellow Is Wise Enough to Play the Fool”
Viola, Act 3, scene 1, after a bout of wordplay with Feste. She continues, “And to do that well craves a kind of wit.” A good Fool, she says, must read each person’s mood and the moment, which is as hard as any wise man’s work.
“Love Sought Is Good, but Given Unsought Is Better”
Olivia, Act 3, scene 1, declaring her love to Cesario. She argues that he should not reject her just because she has spoken first, since love freely offered is worth more than love pursued. Viola answers that no woman shall ever be mistress of her heart “save I alone.”
“I Am Not What I Am”
Viola, Act 3, scene 1, to Olivia, who has just said that each of them thinks the other is not what they are. Viola agrees: “Then think you right. I am not what I am.” Iago speaks the same words in Othello, where they announce a villain’s deceit rather than a heroine’s secret.
“Why, This Is Very Midsummer Madness!”
Olivia, Act 3, scene 4, when Malvolio appears in yellow stockings and cross-garters, smiling and quoting a letter she has never seen. Midsummer was traditionally associated with madness, and the phrase is still used for wild, foolish behavior.
“If This Were Played upon a Stage Now, I Could Condemn It as an Improbable Fiction”
Fabian, Act 3, scene 4, after Malvolio storms out. The joke is that it is being played upon a stage. Shakespeare lets a character say what the audience is thinking about the plot’s coincidences.
“In Nature There’s No Blemish but the Mind”
Antonio, Act 3, scene 4, arrested and denied by the youth he thinks is Sebastian. He goes on, “None can be called deformed but the unkind.” True ugliness, he says, lies in ingratitude, not in the face. Viola, hearing him call her Sebastian, begins to hope her brother is alive.
“A Little Thing Would Make Me Tell Them How Much I Lack of a Man”
Viola, aside, Act 3, scene 4, as Sir Toby forces her into a duel with Sir Andrew. The joke is double: she has no stomach for fighting, and she is not a man at all. On Shakespeare’s stage, where a boy played Viola, the line had a third layer.
Act 4 Quotes
Mistaken identity at its height: the wrong twin in a street fight, a hasty betrothal, and a steward in the dark.
“Nothing That Is So Is So”
Feste, Act 4, scene 1, to Sebastian, whom he takes for Cesario. When Sebastian denies knowing him, Feste mockingly lists everything that is not true, including “nor this is not my nose neither.” His joke describes the whole act, in which nothing is what it seems.
“Or I Am Mad, or Else This Is a Dream”
Sebastian, aside, Act 4, scene 1, when a beautiful stranger, Olivia, rescues him from a fight and invites him home. He decides to enjoy it: “If it be thus to dream, still let me sleep!”
“There Is No Darkness but Ignorance”
Feste, disguised as the curate Sir Topas, Act 4, scene 2, to Malvolio, who is locked in a dark room and insists he is sane. Feste tells him he is “more puzzled than the Egyptians in their fog,” a reference to the plague of darkness in Exodus. The line is a joke at Malvolio’s expense, but it also sounds like wisdom.
Act 5 Quotes
The twins meet, the knots untangle, and not everyone is happy.
“One Face, One Voice, One Habit, and Two Persons!”
Orsino, Act 5, scene 1, when Sebastian and Viola stand on the stage together for the first time. He calls the sight “A natural perspective, that is and is not!” A perspective was an optical device that produced illusions; here nature itself has made one.
“An Apple Cleft in Two Is Not More Twin”
Antonio, Act 5, scene 1, staring at the twins: “How have you made division of yourself? / An apple cleft in two is not more twin / Than these two creatures. Which is Sebastian?” It is his last speech in the play.
“Thrice Welcome, Drownèd Viola”
Sebastian, Act 5, scene 1, not yet sure that the youth in front of him is his sister. It is the first time anyone on stage speaks Viola’s name. The twins confirm who they are through a shared memory of their father, who died on Viola’s thirteenth birthday.
“And Thus the Whirligig of Time Brings in His Revenges”
Feste, Act 5, scene 1, to Malvolio, after the trick is exposed. He reminds Malvolio of his sneer in Act 1, “Madam, why laugh you at such a barren rascal,” and says the joke was payback. A whirligig is a spinning top: what goes around comes around.
“I’ll Be Revenged on the Whole Pack of You!”
Malvolio, Act 5, scene 1, his last line, spoken as he storms out. Olivia admits, “He hath been most notoriously abused.” The line leaves a shadow over the happy ending, and productions can make it a moment of real pain.
“For the Rain It Raineth Every Day”
Feste’s closing song, Act 5, scene 1, sung alone after the others leave. Each stanza traces a stage of a man’s life, from “a little tiny boy” to drunken old age, and each ends with the same refrain. The last stanza turns to the audience: “our play is done, / And we’ll strive to please you every day.”
A Closer Reading: “Some Have Greatness Thrust upon ’Em”
One of the best-known sentences in Twelfth Night is often quoted as encouragement, in speeches and on posters, as if it were the play’s own wisdom. In the play, it is a forgery. Maria writes it in Olivia’s hand to fool a vain man, and the sentence is built to flatter exactly what he wants to hear. It appears three times, and each time it changes.
The first version is the letter, read aloud by Malvolio in Act 2 while three men hide in a box tree:
Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and
some have greatness thrust upon ’em.
The second is Malvolio’s own. In Act 3 he recites it to Olivia herself, smiling and cross-gartered, sure that she wrote it. But he cannot get through it. He says “Some are born great—” and Olivia answers “Ha?” He says “Some achieve greatness—” and she asks, “What sayst thou?” He finishes, “And some have greatness thrust upon them,” and she replies, “Heaven restore thee!” The sentence that sounded like a prophecy in the garden now sounds like a madman’s babble, broken up by the woman it was supposed to describe.
The third comes from Feste in the final scene, after the trick has been exposed. He quotes the line back at Malvolio as a taunt, and he gets it slightly wrong: “some have greatness thrown upon them.” Whether he misremembers it or mangles it on purpose, the change fits. Greatness that was “thrust” on Malvolio as an honor is now “thrown” at him like mud. Malvolio leaves vowing revenge.
Many people who quote the line today use Malvolio’s “them” rather than the letter’s “’em,” so the version that survived is the one he spoke while being laughed at. The play would appreciate the irony. A sentence invented to make a fool of one man has become one of the ways people encourage one another to be great.
Common Questions
The questions readers ask most often about the famous lines in Twelfth Night, answered briefly.
What Is the Most Famous Quote from Twelfth Night?
“If music be the food of love, play on,” the play’s first line, spoken by Orsino. “Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon ’em” is a close second.
Who Says “Some Are Born Great” in Twelfth Night?
Maria writes it in a forged love letter, and Malvolio reads it aloud in Act 2, scene 5, believing Olivia wrote it. He repeats it to Olivia in Act 3, and Feste quotes it back to him in Act 5.
What Does “If Music Be the Food of Love” Mean?
Orsino means that if music feeds love, he wants so much of it that his appetite for love will be overfed and die. He is trying to cure his longing for Olivia by indulging it.
What Does “the Whirligig of Time Brings in His Revenges” Mean?
A whirligig is a spinning top, so the line means that time turns everything around and brings each person what they deserve. Feste uses it to tell Malvolio that the trick repaid his earlier contempt.
What Are the Last Lines of Twelfth Night?
The play ends with Feste’s song, whose final lines are “A great while ago the world begun, / With hey, ho, the wind and the rain, / But that’s all one, our play is done, / And we’ll strive to please you every day.”
Related Reading
Three pages that take Twelfth Night further.