Othello - Themes and Quotes

"Even now, now, very now, an old black ram
Is tupping your white ewe. Arise, arise!
Awake the snorting citizens with the bell,
Or else the devil will make a grandsire of you" - Iago Act 1 Scene 1

"To fall in love with what she feared to look on!" - Brabantio Act 1 Scene 3

"Your son-in-law is far more fair than black" - Duke of Venice Act 1 Scene 3

"Her name, that was as fresh
As Dian's visage, is now begrimed and black
As mine own face." - Othello Act 3 Scene 3

"All my fond love thus do I blow to heaven.
'Tis gone.
Arise, black vengeance, from the hollow hell!" - Othello Act 3 Scene 3

"O, the more angel she, and you the blacker devil!" - Emilia Act 5 Scene 2

"Awake! What ho, Brabantio! Thieves, thieves! 

Look to your house, your daughter, and your bags!

Thieves, thieves!" - Iago

"Now will I question Cassio of Bianca,

A huswife that by selling her desires

Buys herself bread and clothes" - Iago

"I will not stay to offend you" - Desdemona

"But I do think it is their husbands' faults

If wives do fall. Say that they slack their duties,

And pour our treasures into foreign laps;

Or else break out in peevish jealousies,

Throwing restraint upon us. Or say they strike us,

Or scant our former having in despite." - Emilia

“Why do you speak so faintly? Are you not well?” - Desdemona 

“My noble Moor is true of mind and made of no such baseness” -Desdemona  

"Look to her, Moor, if thou hast eyes to see.
She has deceived her father, and may thee" - Brabantio Act 1 Scene 3

"If I can fasten but one cup upon him
With that which he hath drunk tonight already,
He'll be as full of quarrel and offense
As my young mistress' dog" - Iago Act 2 Scene 3

"Othello: Was not that Cassio parted from my wife?
Iago: Cassio, my lord! No, sure, I cannot think it
That he would steal away so guiltylike,
Seeing you coming." - Iago & Othello Act 3 Scene 3

"Do it not with poison. Strangle her in her bed, 
even the bed she hath contaminated." - Iago Act 4 Scene 1

"I’ll pour this pestilence into his ear" - Iago Act 2 Scene 3 "

"The Moor is of a free and open nature, That thinks men honest that but seem to be so, And will as tenderly be led by the nose As asses are" - Iago Act 1 Scene 3

"Get me some poison, Iago, this night: I'll not
expostulate with her lest her body and beauty
unprovide my mind again. This night, Iago." - Othello Act 4 Scene 1

“In Aleppo once where a malignant and a turbaned Turk beat a venetian and traduced the state, I took by the throat the circumcised dog, and smote him thus (He stabs himself)” - Othello Act 5 Scene 2

“What noise is that? Not dead? Not yet quite dead? I that am cruel am yet merciful; I would not have thee linger in thy pain” Othello 

Ay, let her rot, and perish and be damned 
tonight, for she shall not live. - Othello Act 

 I'll not shed her blood; nor scar that whiter skin of hers than snow, and smooth as monumental alabaster. Yet she must die, else she'll betray more men. Othello Act 5 Scene 2

And yet I fear you; for you are fatal then when your eyes roll so: why I should fear I know not, since guiltiness I know not; but yet I feel I fear. - Desdemona Act 5 Scene 2