-
Richard: [to the Duke of Buckingham] I am not in the giving vein today.
-
Richard: Why, I can smile... And murder while I smile!
-
Richard III: Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this sun of York.
-
Lady Anne: No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity.
Richard III: But I know none, and therefore am no beast.
-
Queen Elizabeth: I have no more sons of the royal blood for you to slaughter.
Richard III: You have a daughter.
-
Richard III: [to the camera] Plots have I laid.
-
Richard III: Madam, mother, I do humbly crave your blessing.
Duchess of York: God comfort you; and put meekness in your breast, love, charity, obedience and true duty!
Richard III: Amen;
[aside]
Richard III: and make me die a good old man! That is the butt-end of a mother's blessing.
-
Richard: [to the camera] I'll have her, but I'll not keep her long.
-
Richard: [to the Duke of Buckingham] Shall I be plain? I wish the bastards dead.
-
Queen Elizabeth: Shall I be tempted by the devil thus?
Richard III: Yes, if the devil tempt you to do good.
-
Richard III: [to the camera] I am not made of stone.
-
Queen Elizabeth: [to Richard III] Tell me, thou villain slave!
[screams]
Queen Elizabeth: Where are my children?
-
Queen Elizabeth: No doubt the murderous knife was dull before it was whetted on your stone-hard heart.
-
Queen Elizabeth: But you did kill my children.
Richard III: But in your daughter's womb, I bury them: Where, in that nest of spicery, they will breed.
-
[his last words]
Duke of Buckingham: Made I him king for this?
[Tyrell garrotes him]
-
Richard III: Conscience is but a word cowards use.
-
Richard III: A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!
-
Duchess of York: Are you my son?
Richard: Yes. I thank God, my father, and yourself.
-
Duke of Buckingham: My Lord protector, what should we do if we perceive Hastings will not yield to our plans?
Richard: Chop off his head.
-
[first lines]
Prince Edward: Goodnight, your majesty.
King Henry: Goodnight, son.
Prince Edward: Father.
-
George, Duke of Clarence: I will send you to my brother Richard, who shall reward you better for my life than will the King for tidings of my death.
James Tyrell, Richard's Chief Henchman: You are deceived. Your brother Richard hates you.
George, Duke of Clarence: Oh, you are wrong. He loves me, and he holds me dear: Go you to him. Tell him that, he will weep.
-
Lord William Hastings, Prime Minister: If she hath done this deed, my lord...
Richard III: If! Thou protector of this damned strumpet, talk'st thou to me of if? Thou art a traitor! Off with his head. By St Paul I shall not dine until I see the same. Those who love me stand and follow me!
James Tyrell, Richard's Chief Henchman: [to Hastings] His grace would have dinner.
-
Young Prince: I shall not sleep in quiet at the tower.
Richard III: Why? What should you fear?
Young Prince: My Uncle Clarence's angry ghost: My grandma told me he was murdered there.
Prince Edward: I fear no Uncles dead.
Richard III: Nor none who live, I hope.
-
Duchess of York: [to Richard III] You came on earth to make the earth my hell.
-
Richard III: [to the camera] Simple, plain Clarence! I do love you so, that I shall shortly send your soul to heaven. If heaven will take the present from my hands.
-
Queen Elizabeth: [to Richard III] You envy my advancement and my family: God grant we never may have need of you!
-
Queen Elizabeth: The King is sickly, weak and melancholy.
Lord Rivers: Have patience, sister: There's no doubt his Majesty will soon recover his accustom'd health.
Queen Elizabeth: But his physicians fear for him mightily. If he were dead, what would become of me?
-
Lady Anne: [to Richard III] Did you not kill my husband?
-
Richard III: [to Lady Anne] Your beauty which did haunt me in my sleep could make me undertake the death of all the world.
-
Lord Rivers: To whom in all this presence speaks your grace?
Richard III: To you, who have neither honesty, nor Grace.
-
Queen Elizabeth: Edward, my Lord, your son, our King, is dead.
-
Queen Elizabeth: I see the ruin of my family.
-
Duke of Buckingham: [to Richard III] Know then, it is your fault that you refuse the supreme seat, the throne majestical. We heartily solicit you take on the kingly government of this your land. Not as Lord protector, but from blood to blood, your right of birth, your empery, your own.
-
Duke of Buckingham: Long live, King Richard!
-
Duchess of York: [to Richard] Oh, hear me a little, for I shall never speak to you again! To war take with you my most grievous curse! My prayers shall on Richmond's party fight. Bloody you are, bloody will be your end! Shame serves your life and will your death attend!
-
[last lines]
Richard III: Let us to't pell-mell, if not to heaven, then hand in hand to hell.
-
Lady Anne: When scarce the blood was well-washed from his hands which issued from my other, angel husband. Oh, when I say I looked on Richard's face, this was my wish. "Be you," I said, "accursed. And when you wed, let sorrow haunt your bed." Within so small a time, my woman's heart grossly grew captive to his honey words, and proved subject to my own soul's curse.
-
Richard III: [to the camera] I must be married now, to young Elizabeth, or else my kingdom stands on brittle glass.
-
Richard III: Relenting fool and shallow, changing woman!
-
Richmond: The Queen has heartily consented that I marry Princess Elizabeth.
Archbishop: England rejoice! Good, Lord Stanley. Brackenbury.
Brackenbury: Archbishop.
Stanley: Prepare your advance early in the morning. On your side, I may not be too forward. Your cousin George is held in custody.
Richmond: Wretched, bloody and usurping swine.
Brackenbury: I do not doubt but his friends will turn to you.
Archbishop: He has no friends.
-
Archbishop: Oh Lord, let Richmond and Elizabeth by your fair ordinance be joined together. And let their heirs, God, if thy will be so... Enrich the time to come with smooth-faced peace.
-
Richmond: Oh thou, whose captain I account myself, look on my forces with a gracious eye, put in their hands thy bruising arms of wrath that we may praise thee in thy victory. Sleeping and waking. Defend me still.
-
Richard III: I did but dream. Oh, coward conscience. What do I fear? There's none else by. Richard loves Richard. That is, I am I. Is there a murderer here? No. Yes... I am. I love myself. But why? For any good that I myself have done unto myself? Oh, no. Alack, I rather hate myself... For hateful deeds committed by myself. I am a villain. But I lie. I am not. Fool, of thyself speak well. Fool, do not flatter. My conscience has a thousand, several tongues thronged to the bar, crying all, "Guilty! Guilty!" I shall despair. There is no creature loves me, and if I die, no soul will pity me.
-
Princess Elizabeth: How have you slept, my lord?
Richmond: The sweetest sleep, the fairest-boding deams that ever entered in a drowsy head.
-
Richard III: [to Richmond and his last words] Let's do it pell-mell. If not to heaven, then hand in hand to hell.
-
Richard: I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks, nor made to court an amorous looking-glass. I, that am rudely stamped, deformed, unfinished, sent before my time, into this breathing world scarce half made up. And that so lamely and unfashionable, that dogs bark at me as I halt by them. Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace, have no delight to pass away the time, unless to spy my shadow in the sun and descant on mine own deformity.
-
Richard: Since I cannot prove a lover, I am determined to prove a villain - and hate the idle pleasures of these days.
-
Richard: This it is when men are ruled by women.
-
Richard: And now, I'll marry. What though I killed her husband and his father?
-
Lady Anne: Did you not kill my husband?
Richard: I grant you, yes.
Lady Anne: You grant me, hedgehog?
-
Lady Anne: He was gentle, mild and virtuous.
Richard: The fitter for the King of Heaven who has him.
Lady Anne: And you unfit for any place but hell!
Richard: Yes, but one place else, if you will hear me name it.
Lady Anne: Some dungeon!
Richard: Your bedchamber.
-
Richard: Let's leave this keen encounter of our wits. Your beauty, which did haunt me in my sleep, could make me undertake the death of all the world - so I might live one hour in your sweet bosom.
-
Lady Anne: Never hung poison on a fouler toad! Out of my sight! You do infect my eyes!
-
Richard: Teach not your lip such scorn, for it was made for kissing, lady, not for such contempt.
-
Richard: But shall I live in hope?
Lady Anne: All men, I hope, live so.
-
Richard: Who is it that complains unto the King that I, in truth, am stern and love them not? Because I cannot flatter and look fair smile in men's faces, smooth, deceive and cog, I must be held a rancorous enemy. Cannot a plain man live and think no harm?
-
Richard: The world is grown so bad that wrens make prey where eagles dare not perch!
-
Richard: Your eyes drop millstones when fools' eyes fall tears.
-
Richard: Let me put in your mind, if you forget what you have been before and what you are; indeed what I have been and what I am.
Queen Elizabeth: A bottled spider!
-
Queen Elizabeth: My dear brother-in-law, in those busy days, when now you try to prove us enemies, we followed then Edward, our lawful king.
Lord Rivers: So should she you, if you should be her king.
Richard III: If I should be? I'd rather be a pedlar!
-
Queen Elizabeth: You poisonous, bunch-backed toad!
-
Duchess of York: What means this scene of rude impatience?
Queen Elizabeth: Edward, my lord, your son, our King, is dead! Why grow the branches now the root is withered? Why wither not the leaves, the sap being gone?
-
Lord William Hastings, Prime Minister: Catesby, what news in this our tottering state?
Catesby: It is a reeling world indeed, sir.
-
Lord William Hastings, Prime Minister: I'll have this crown of mine cut from my shoulders before I see the Crown so foul misplaced!
-
Catesby: It is a vile thing to die when men are unprepared and look not for it.
-
Duke of Buckingham: We know each other's faces. For our hearts? He knows no more of mine than I of yours. Or, I of his, my lord, than you of mine.
-
Richard: I am in so far in blood that sin will pluck on sin.
-
Richard: Tear-falling pity dwells not in this eye.
-
Duchess of York: Are you my son?
Richard: Yes, I thank God, my father and yourself.
Duchess of York: You toad! Where are the princes and your wife?
-
Duchess of York: I leave for France. Be not tongue-tied. You're a dream of what you were. A breath, a Queen in jest! Where is your husband now? Where is your brother? Where are your two sons? Wherein, joy? Who sues and kneels and says, "God save the Queen"? Where are the bended peers that flattered you? Where be the thronging troops that followed you?
Queen Elizabeth: Teach me how to curse my enemy!
Duchess of York: Forbear to sleep the nights and fast the days. Think that your babes were sweeter than they were and he that slew them fouler than he is!
-
Queen Elizabeth: How can you woo her?
-
Richard: Say that I did all this for love of her.
Queen Elizabeth: Well, then, she cannot choose but hate you.
-
Richard: What is done cannot be now amended.
-
Richard: Men shall deal unadvisedly sometimes.
-
Richard: We have many goodly days to see. The liquid drops of tears that you have shed, shall come again, transformed to orient pearl.
-
Richard: When these troops of mine have chastised the petty rebel Richmond and dull-brained Buckingham, bound with triumphant garlands will I come and lead your daughter to a conqueror's bed.
-
Richard: Harp not on that string, madam, that is past!
Queen Elizabeth: Harp on it still shall I till heartstrings break!
-
Richard: Remember whom you are to cope with - all a sort of vagabonds, rascals and runaways. And who does lead 'em but a paltry fellow, a milksop? If we be conquered, let men conquer us. Let's whip these stragglers over the seas again! Shall these enjoy our lambs? Lie with our wives? Ravish our daughters?
-
Richard: Be sudden in the execution. For Clarence is well spoken and perhaps may move your hearts to pity.
James Tyrell, Richard's Chief Henchman: We go to use our hands and not our tongues.
-
James Tyrell, Richard's Chief Henchman: What, are you afraid?
2nd Murderer: Not to kill him, having a warrant for it; but,to be damned for killing him from which no warrant can defend me.
-
James Tyrell, Richard's Chief Henchman: Remember our reward when the deed's done.
2nd Murderer: He dies. I forgot the reward.
James Tyrell, Richard's Chief Henchman: And where's your conscience now?
2nd Murderer: In the Duke of Gloucester's purse.
-
George, Duke of Clarence: What are you?
2nd Murderer: A man.
James Tyrell, Richard's Chief Henchman: As you are.
George, Duke of Clarence: But not, as I am, royal.
James Tyrell, Richard's Chief Henchman: Nor you, as we are, loyal.
-
George, Duke of Clarence: Oh, do not slander him, for he is kind.
2nd Murderer: Right! As snow in harvest!
-
Richard: [exposing deformed arm] Let your eyes be the witness to their evil!
Richard III Quotes
Extended Reading
