A list of well-known quotes from Shakespeare's rarely staged problem play, in order of appearance.

The Countess, wearing a black dress, holds her son's hand. Bertram is kneeling on the floor and looking up at her.
A scene from the 2013 production of All's Well That Ends Well, directed by Nancy Meckler
Ellie Kurttz © RSC Browse and license our images

Moderate lamentation is the right of the dead, excessive grief the enemy to the living.
(Lafew, Act 1 Scene 1)

Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none. 
(Countess, Act 1 Scene 1)

'T were all one
That I should love a bright particular star
And think to wed it, he is so above me.
(Helen, Act 1 Scene 1)

The hind that would be mated by the lion,
Must die for love.
(Helen, Act 1 Scene 1)

His good remembrance, sir,
Lies richer in your thoughts than on his tomb
(Bertram, Act 1 Scene 2)

Service is no heritage.
(Lavatch, Act 1 Scene 3)

If men could be contented to be what they are, there were no fear in marriage
(Lavatch, Act 1 Scene 3)

Even so it was with me when I was young.
If we are nature’s, these are ours. This thorn
Doth to our rose of youth rightly belong.
Our blood to us, this to our blood is born:
It is the show and seal of nature’s truth,
Where love’s strong passion is impressed in youth.
By our remembrances of days foregone,
Such were our faults, or then we thought them none.
(Countess, Act 1 scene 3)

Great floods have flown
From simple sources, and great seas have dried
When miracles have by the great’st been denied.
(Helen, Act 2 scene 1)

A young man married is a man that’s marred.
(Parolles, Act 2 scene 3)

No legacy is so rich as honesty.
(Mariana, Act 3 Scene 5)

The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together.
(First Lord, Act 4 scene 3)

All's well that ends well, still the fine's the crown;
Whate'er the course, the end is the renown.
(Helen, Act 4 Scene 4)

For we are old, and on our quick'st decrees
Th’inaudible and noiseless foot of time
Steals ere we can effect them.
(King, Act 5 Scene 3)

 

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