The Merchant of Venice quotes run from Antonio’s opening line, “In sooth I know not why I am so sad,” to Portia’s plea that “The quality of mercy is not strained,” and several have passed into everyday English, from “a pound of flesh” to “all that glisters is not gold.”
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 the old proverbs the play borrows, and at what it does with them. For the plot and the characters, see our full guide to The Merchant of Venice. 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 The Merchant of Venice for quick reference.
Act 1 Quotes
A sad merchant, a bored heiress, and a loan with a strange condition.
“In Sooth I Know Not Why I Am So Sad”
Antonio, Act 1, scene 1, the first line of the play. His friends guess that he is worried about his ships or in love, and he denies both. The sadness is never explained, and it hangs over the merchant for the rest of the play.
“A Stage Where Every Man Must Play a Part, / And Mine a Sad One”
Antonio, Act 1, scene 1, answering Gratiano, who says he looks unwell. Antonio holds the world “but as the world,” a stage on which he has been cast in a sad role. Shakespeare returns to the image in Jaques’s more famous speech in As You Like It, “All the world’s a stage.”
“Gratiano Speaks an Infinite Deal of Nothing”
Bassanio, Act 1, scene 1, after Gratiano has lectured Antonio at length. Gratiano’s reasons, Bassanio says, are “as two grains of wheat hid in two bushels of chaff: you shall seek all day ere you find them.”
“In Belmont Is a Lady Richly Left”
Bassanio, Act 1, scene 1, telling Antonio about Portia. “Richly left” means she has inherited a fortune, and he mentions her money before her beauty. He then compares her to the Golden Fleece and her suitors to “many Jasons,” come to win a prize.
“My Little Body Is Aweary of This Great World”
Portia, Act 1, scene 2, her first line. Like Antonio, she opens the play weary. Her reason is clearer than his: her dead father’s will decides whom she can marry, and she “may neither choose who I would nor refuse who I dislike.”
“If to Do Were as Easy as to Know What Were Good to Do”
Portia, Act 1, scene 2, answering Nerissa’s good advice. The sentence goes on: “chapels had been churches, and poor men’s cottages princes’ palaces.” Knowing what is right is easy, she says; doing it is hard. “I can easier teach twenty what were good to be done than to be one of the twenty to follow mine own teaching.”
“God Made Him, and Therefore Let Him Pass for a Man”
Portia, Act 1, scene 2, on the French suitor Monsieur Le Bon, as she and Nerissa run through her suitors. The joke is typical of the scene: she admits “it is a sin to be a mocker,” and then mocks him anyway.
“I Will Buy with You, Sell with You, Talk with You, Walk with You”
Shylock, Act 1, scene 3, turning down Bassanio’s invitation to dinner. He will do business with the Christians, “but I will not eat with you, drink with you, nor pray with you.” The line draws the boundary between trade, which Venice shares, and faith, which it does not.
“I Will Feed Fat the Ancient Grudge I Bear Him”
Shylock, aside, Act 1, scene 3, when Antonio enters. He hates Antonio “for he is a Christian, / But more for that in low simplicity / He lends out money gratis.” If he can “catch him once upon the hip,” a hold from wrestling, he will take his revenge.
“The Devil Can Cite Scripture for His Purpose”
Antonio, Act 1, scene 3, aside to Bassanio, after Shylock uses the Bible story of Jacob and Laban’s sheep to defend making money breed. Antonio adds, “O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!” The line is still used of anyone who quotes holy texts for selfish ends.
“For Suff’rance Is the Badge of All Our Tribe”
Shylock, Act 1, scene 3, reminding Antonio of his insults on the Rialto. He has borne them “with a patient shrug,” because endurance, he says, is the mark of all his people. He goes on: “You call me misbeliever, cutthroat dog, / And spet upon my Jewish gaberdine.”
“Hath a Dog Money?”
Shylock, Act 1, scene 3, in the same speech. Antonio has called him a dog and now comes to borrow from him: “Hath a dog money? Is it possible / A cur can lend three thousand ducats?” Antonio does not apologize. He says he is “as like to call thee so again.”
“An Equal Pound / Of Your Fair Flesh”
Shylock, Act 1, scene 3, naming the forfeit. He offers the loan without interest and asks, “in a merry sport,” that if Antonio fails to repay it, the penalty be “an equal pound / Of your fair flesh, to be cut off and taken / In what part of your body pleaseth me.” “A pound of flesh” now means any harsh payment demanded to the letter.
“I Like Not Fair Terms and a Villain’s Mind”
Bassanio, Act 1, scene 3, the last warning before the bond is signed. Antonio has just joked that “The Hebrew will turn Christian; he grows kind.” Bassanio distrusts the kindness, and he is right.
Act 2 Quotes
Two princes fail the casket test, a servant changes masters, and a daughter runs away.
“Mislike Me Not for My Complexion”
The Prince of Morocco, Act 2, scene 1, his first line to Portia. He asks her not to judge him by his dark skin, “The shadowed livery of the burnished sun,” and offers to prove his blood as red as any northern suitor’s. When he fails the test, Portia shows the prejudice he feared: “Let all of his complexion choose me so.”
“It Is a Wise Father That Knows His Own Child”
Lancelet Gobbo, Act 2, scene 2, teasing his nearly blind father, who does not recognize him. The clown turns around an old proverb, “It is a wise child that knows his own father.” The joke fits a play about fathers who lose track of their children.
“In the End, Truth Will Out”
Lancelet, Act 2, scene 2, in the same scene: “Truth will come to light, murder cannot be hid long—a man’s son may, but in the end, truth will out.” The saying is solemn; the speaker is lying to his father for fun.
“Our House Is Hell”
Jessica, Act 2, scene 3, saying goodbye to Lancelet, who is leaving her father’s service. She is ashamed of her unhappiness at home (“Alack, what heinous sin is it in me / To be ashamed to be my father’s child?”), but she plans to leave and “Become a Christian and thy loving wife.”
“But Love Is Blind, and Lovers Cannot See”
Jessica, Act 2, scene 6, dressed as a boy on the night of her elopement. Lovers cannot see “The pretty follies that themselves commit,” she says, or Cupid himself would blush to see her “thus transformèd to a boy.” The proverb was old; her use of it is playful and a little ashamed.
“All Things That Are, / Are with More Spirit Chasèd Than Enjoyed”
Gratiano, Act 2, scene 6, waiting for Lorenzo, who is late for his own elopement. Nobody, he says, rises from a feast as hungry as he sat down. Desire is keener than possession.
“All That Glisters Is Not Gold”
The scroll in the gold casket, read by the Prince of Morocco in Act 2, scene 7, after he finds a skull inside. The next line admits the saying is not new: “Often have you heard that told.” “Glisters” means glitters, and the line is usually quoted today as “All that glitters is not gold.”
“My Daughter, O My Ducats, O My Daughter!”
Shylock, as reported by Solanio, Act 2, scene 8, after Jessica runs off with his money. The audience never sees the outburst; it hears it retold as a joke, and Salarino adds that “all the boys in Venice follow him.” Whether Shylock mourns his daughter or his money is left for the audience to judge.
“Hanging and Wiving Goes by Destiny”
Nerissa, Act 2, scene 9, after the Prince of Arragon chooses the silver casket and finds “The portrait of a blinking idiot.” She introduces it as “The ancient saying,” a proverb that fate decides both whom you marry and how you die.
Act 3 Quotes
Shylock turns to revenge, Bassanio chooses lead, and the bond falls due.
“Hath Not a Jew Eyes?”
Shylock, Act 3, scene 1, to Salarino and Solanio, who ask what good Antonio’s flesh would do him. He lists what Jews share with Christians: “Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions?” and asks, “If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?” The speech is a plea for common humanity that ends as a threat: “The villainy you teach me I will execute.”
“I Would Not Have Given It for a Wilderness of Monkeys”
Shylock, Act 3, scene 1, when Tubal reports that Jessica traded one of his rings for a monkey. It was his turquoise: “I had it of Leah when I was a bachelor.” The line is one of the few moments when Shylock’s grief sounds like love rather than loss of property.
“Tell Me Where Is Fancy Bred”
The song sung in Act 3, scene 2, while Bassanio studies the caskets. It asks whether “fancy,” or infatuation, is born “in the heart, or in the head” and answers that it is “engendered in the eye” and dies young. Some readers notice that its opening lines rhyme with “lead” and suspect a hint; the play never says.
“The World Is Still Deceived with Ornament”
Bassanio, Act 3, scene 2, rejecting the gold and silver caskets. “Still” means always: the world is forever fooled by outward show, in law, in religion, and in beauty. He chooses the plain lead casket, “Thy paleness moves me more than eloquence,” and finds Portia’s picture.
“Since You Are Dear Bought, I Will Love You Dear”
Portia, Act 3, scene 2, sending Bassanio off to rescue Antonio. The pun on “dear” (costly and beloved) sums up a play in which love and money are hard to separate.
“Since I Am a Dog, Beware My Fangs”
Shylock, Act 3, scene 3, refusing to hear Antonio’s pleas as the jailer leads him out: “Thou call’dst me dog before thou hadst a cause, / But since I am a dog, beware my fangs.” The insult Antonio used freely now comes back to him. Shylock repeats one sentence again and again: “I’ll have my bond.”
Act 4 Quotes
The trial of the bond, and a disguised lawyer who turns the law around.
“I Am a Tainted Wether of the Flock, / Meetest for Death”
Antonio, Act 4, scene 1, calming Bassanio as the trial begins. A wether is a castrated ram, and a tainted, or sickly, one is the first to be culled. Antonio goes on: “The weakest kind of fruit / Drops earliest to the ground, and so let me.”
“The Quality of Mercy Is Not Strained”
Portia, disguised as the lawyer Balthazar, Act 4, scene 1, after Shylock asks, “On what compulsion must I?” be merciful. Mercy cannot be forced, she answers: “It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven / Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest: / It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.” Shylock is unmoved: “I crave the law.”
“A Daniel Come to Judgment!”
Shylock, Act 4, scene 1, delighted when the young lawyer refuses to bend the law. Daniel was the biblical figure famous as a wise young judge. Minutes later, Gratiano throws the phrase back at Shylock: “A second Daniel! A Daniel, Jew!”
“Tarry a Little. There Is Something Else.”
Portia, Act 4, scene 1, as Shylock prepares to cut. “This bond doth give thee here no jot of blood,” she says. If he sheds “One drop of Christian blood,” his lands and goods are forfeit. It is the turning point of the trial.
“You Take My Life / When You Do Take the Means Whereby I Live”
Shylock, Act 4, scene 1, when the Duke spares his life but takes his wealth. “Nay, take my life and all,” he says. “Pardon not that.” For a moneylender in Venice, he argues, wealth is life itself.
“I Am Not Well”
Shylock, Act 4, scene 1, near his last lines in the play, after agreeing to convert and to leave his wealth to Jessica and Lorenzo: “I pray you give me leave to go from hence. / I am not well.” He asks that the deed be sent after him, and he leaves the play.
“He Is Well Paid That Is Well Satisfied”
Portia, still disguised, Act 4, scene 1, refusing Bassanio’s offer of three thousand ducats for her work. She will not take money, but she will take his ring, which sets up the comedy of Act 5.
Act 5 Quotes
A moonlit night at Belmont, music, and a quarrel over rings.
“In Such a Night as This”
Lorenzo, Act 5, scene 1, beginning a duet with Jessica: “The moon shines bright. In such a night as this.” They take turns naming lovers from old stories on such a night, Troilus, Thisbe, Dido, and Medea, and several of them came to grief. Then they name themselves.
“How Sweet the Moonlight Sleeps upon This Bank”
Lorenzo, Act 5, scene 1, calling for music. He tells Jessica that the stars sing as they move, and that “Such harmony is in immortal souls, / But whilst this muddy vesture of decay / Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.”
“The Man That Hath No Music in Himself”
Lorenzo, Act 5, scene 1, after Jessica says, “I am never merry when I hear sweet music.” Such a man, he says, “Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils,” and he concludes, “Let no such man be trusted.”
“So Shines a Good Deed in a Naughty World”
Portia, Act 5, scene 1, returning home and seeing a light in her hall: “How far that little candle throws his beams! / So shines a good deed in a naughty world.” “Naughty” meant wicked, a stronger word than it is today.
A Closer Reading: “Often Have You Heard That Told”
Several of the best-known lines in The Merchant of Venice were not new when Shakespeare wrote them. The play even says so. When Morocco opens the gold casket, the scroll inside begins:
All that glisters is not gold—
Often have you heard that told.
The idea was centuries old; Chaucer had used it twice. The scroll’s point is not that the saying is wise, but that Morocco knew it and chose gold anyway. The play is full of proverbs used this way, as familiar wisdom that the speaker knows and fails to live by. Portia admits it in her first scene: she can “easier teach twenty what were good to be done than to be one of the twenty to follow mine own teaching.”
Other proverbs come out bent. Lancelet, lying to his blind father, turns the saying “It is a wise child that knows his own father” around and then, still lying, adds that “truth will out.” Jessica, on the night she robs her father, excuses her boy’s disguise with “love is blind.” Nerissa, watching Arragon leave, calls on “The ancient saying” that “Hanging and wiving goes by destiny,” in a scene where a suitor has just chosen his own fate. Even Lancelet’s joke about his two masters is built on “The old proverb”: Bassanio has “the grace of God,” and Shylock has “enough.”
The pattern matters in a play about bonds and appearances. A proverb is a kind of bond, a promise that the past’s wisdom still holds, and like the bonds of Venice, it can be read to suit the reader. The characters quote the old sayings as if they settled things, and the play keeps showing that they do not. It is fitting that the lines people quote most from this play are less often its proverbs than its arguments: “a pound of flesh,” “The quality of mercy,” and “Hath not a Jew eyes?”
Common Questions
The questions readers ask most often about the famous lines in The Merchant of Venice, answered briefly.
What Is the Most Famous Quote from The Merchant of Venice?
“The quality of mercy is not strained,” from Portia’s speech at the trial in Act 4, scene 1. Shylock’s “Hath not a Jew eyes?” from Act 3, scene 1, is a close second.
Is It “All That Glitters” or “All That Glisters”?
Shakespeare wrote “All that glisters is not gold.” The two verbs mean the same thing, and “glitters” has long since become the usual form. The line appears on the scroll in the gold casket in Act 2, scene 7.
What Does “a Pound of Flesh” Mean?
In the play, it is the literal penalty in Shylock’s bond: a pound of Antonio’s flesh if the loan is not repaid. In everyday English, it means a payment or penalty demanded in full, however harsh.
Who Says “Hath Not a Jew Eyes?”
Shylock, in Act 3, scene 1, to Antonio’s friends Salarino and Solanio, after his daughter has run away. The speech argues that Jews and Christians share the same humanity, and it ends by justifying revenge.
What Does “A Daniel Come to Judgment” Mean?
It praises a young person who judges with unexpected wisdom, after the biblical Daniel. Shylock says it of the disguised Portia when she seems to rule in his favor, and Gratiano mockingly repeats it once she rules against him.
Related Reading
Three pages that take The Merchant of Venice further.