Much Ado About Nothing (I) (2012)

Alexis Denisof: Benedick

Photos 

Quotes 

• Beatrice : A bird of my tongue is better than a beast of yours.

  Benedick : I would my horse had the speed of your tongue, and so good a continuer.

• Benedick : It is certain I am loved of all ladies, only you excepted: and I would I could find in my heart that I had not a hard heart; for, truly, I love none.

  Beatrice : A dear happiness to women.

• Benedick : Methinks she's too low for a high praise, too brown for a fair praise, too little for a great praise.

• Benedick : Here's a dish I love not: I cannot endure my Lady Tongue.

• Beatrice : Against my will I am sent to bid you come in to dinner.

  Benedick : Fair Beatrice, I thank you for your pains.

  Beatrice : I took no more pains for those thanks than you take pains to thank me: if it had been painful, I would not have come.

  Benedick : You take pleasure then in the message?

  Beatrice : Yea, signior, just so much as you may take upon a knife's point. You have no stomach, signior? Fare you well.

  [exits] 

  Benedick : Ha! "Against my will I am sent to bid you come in to dinner." There's a double meaning in that. "I took no more pains for those thanks than you took pains to thank me." That's as much as to say, any pains that I take for you is as good as thanks! If I do not take pity of her, I am a villain. If I do not love her, I am a fool.

• Benedick : The world must be peopled. When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married.

• Beatrice : Do not swear, and eat it.

  Benedick : I will swear by it that you love me; and I will make him eat it that says I love not you.

  Beatrice : Will you not eat your word?

  Benedick : No sauce that can be devised to it.

• Benedick : I do love nothing in the world so well as you. Is not that strange?

  Beatrice : As strange as the thing I know not. It were as possible for me to say I loved nothing so well as you: but believe me not; and yet I lie not; I confess nothing, nor I deny nothing.

• Beatrice : O that I were a man! What, bear her in hand until they come to take hands; and then, with public accusation, uncovered slander, unmitigated rancor. O God, that I were a man! I would eat his heart in the market-place!

  Benedick : Hear me, Beatrice.

  Beatrice : Talk with a man out at a window! O, a proper saying!

  Benedick : Nay, but, Beatrice.

  Beatrice : Sweet Hero! She is wronged, she is slandered, she is undone.

  Benedick : Beatrice.

  Beatrice : Princes and counties, a goodly count. O that I were a man for his sake! Or that I had any friend who would be a man for my sake. But manhood is melted into courtesies, valor into compliment, and men are only turned into tongue, and trim ones too! For he is now as valiant as Hercules who only tells a lie and swears it! I cannot be a man with wishing, therefore I will die a woman grieving.

• Beatrice : I was about to protest I loved you.

  Benedick : And do it with all thy heart.

  Beatrice : I love you with so much of my heart that none is left to protest.

• Beatrice : What hath passed between you and Claudio?

  Benedick : Only foul words; and thereupon I will kiss thee.

  Beatrice : Foul words is but foul wind, and foul wind is but foul breath, and foul breath is noisome; therefore I will depart unkissed.

• Benedick : I pray thee now, tell me for which of my bad parts didst thou first fall in love with me?

  Beatrice : For them all together; which maintained so politic a state of evil that they will not admit any good part to intermingle with them. But for which of my good parts did you first suffer love for me?

  Benedick : Suffer love! A good epithet! I do suffer love indeed, for I love thee against my will.

  Beatrice : In spite of your heart, I think. If you spite it for my sake, I will spite it for yours; for I will never love that which my friend hates.

  Benedick : Thou and I are too wise to woo peaceably.

• Beatrice : Will you go hear this news, signior?

  Benedick : I will live in thy heart, die in thy lap, and be buried in thy eyes; and, moreover, I will go with thee.

• Benedick : I cannot show it in rhyme; I have tried: I can find out no rhyme to 'lady' but 'baby,' an innocent rhyme; for 'scorn,' 'horn,' a hard rhyme; for, 'school,' 'fool,' a babbling rhyme; very ominous endings: no, I was not born under a rhyming planet.

• Beatrice : By this good day, I yield upon great persuasion; and partly to save your life, for I was told you were in a consumption.

  Benedick : Peace! I will stop your mouth.

  [kiss] 

• Benedick : Man is a giddy thing, and this is my conclusion.

• [last lines] 

  Benedick : Play, music! Prince, thou art sad; get thee a wife. Get thee a wife.