There are many well-known quotes in Twelfth Night – here we've listed a few of them, in order of appearance in the play.
If music be the food of love, play on.
(Orsino, Act 1 Scene 1)
What country, friends, is this?
(Viola, Act 1 Scene 2)
But I am a great eater of beef, and I believe that does harm to my wit.
(Sir Andrew, Act 1 Scene 3)
I'll do my best
To woo your lady. – Yet, a barful strife!
Whoe'er I woo, myself would be his wife.
(Viola, Act 1, Scene 4)
Many a good hanging prevents a bad marriage.
(Feste, Act 1 Scene 5)
Better a witty fool than a foolish wit.
(Feste, Act 1 Scene 5)
Make me a willow cabin at your gate,
And call upon my soul within the house.
(Viola, Act 1, Scene 5)
How now?
Even so quickly may one catch the plague?
(Olivia, Act 1 Scene 5)
O time, thou must untangle this, not I.
It is too hard a knot for me t'untie.
(Viola, Act 2 Scene 2)
Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?
(Sir Toby, Act 2, Scene 3)
I was adored once too.
(Sir Andrew, Act 2 Scene 3)
She pined in thought,
And with a green and yellow melancholy
She sat like patience on a monument,
Smiling at grief.
(Viola, Act 2 Scene 4)
Some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon 'em.
(Malvolio, Act 2 Scene 5)
Foolery, sir, does walk about the orb like the sun, it shines everywhere.
(Feste, Act 3 Scene 1)
If this were played upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction.
(Fabian, Act 3 Scene 4)
Prove true, imagination, O, prove true,
That I, dear brother, be now ta'en for you!
(Viola, Act Scene 4)
One face, one voice, one habit, and two persons,
A natural perspective that is and is not!
(Orsino, Act 5 Scene 1)
And thus the whirligig of time brings in his revenges.
(Feste, Act 5 Scene 1)
I’ll be revenged on the whole pack of you.
(Malvolio, Act 5 Scene 1)
Cesario, come –
For so you shall be, while you are a man.
But when in other habits you are seen,
Orsino's mistress, and his fancy's queen.
(Orsino, Act 5 Scene 1)