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‘An Angelo for Claudio; death for death. / Haste still pays haste, and leisure; /  answers leisure; Like doth quit like, and Measure still for Measure.’ -  Duke

Measure for Measure (5.1.406-408)

This, I feel, is what the Duke and Angelo aspire to, this justice that’s black and white, an eye for eye. But there is none of this in any of them. They are corrupt, it is all show.

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“O my dread lord, / I should be guiltier than my guiltness / To think I can be undiscernible, / When I perceive you Grace, like power divine, / Hath looked upon my passes.” - Angelo

Measure for Measure (5.1.364-368)

Angelo discovering the Duke knows about his whole ordeal is satisfying, though the Duke has other intentions, and in many ways, is a pawn of the Duke’s final plan.

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Why, you are nothing then: neither maid, / widow, nor wife! - Duke

Measure for Measure (5.1.178-179)

While the Duke is painted to be some type of arbiter of justice, his lack of empathy shows in situations like these. Since Mariana cannot pay a dowry, her womanhood i stripped from her. Either she is a virgin, a wife, or a widow. But even chaste women, like Isabella, are not valued, as we see in the end.

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Friar, not I. I have been drinking hard all / night, and I will have more time to prepare me, or / they shall beat out my brains with billets. I will not / consent to die this day, that’s certain. - Barnadine

Measure for Measure (4.3.52-55)

I enjoy the prisoner’s reaction. It shows that even while a prisoner, he still has agency and some honor. It is very Bartleby-like. He prefers not to. 

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“Sir, I have been an unlawful bawd time out of / mind, but yet I will be content to be a lawful hang- / man. I would be glad to receive some instruction / from my fellow-partner.” - Pompey

Measure for Measure (4.2.14-17)

Pompey is the character that brings comedy to the play, but the break he is given runs contrary to Claudio’s fate. His inclusion only makes Isabella’s fate that more tragic; pimps are forgiven and given jobs while those with higher moral standing are targeted.

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“O, you beast! / O faithless coward! O dishonest wretch! Wilt thou be made a man out of my vice?” - Isabella

Measure for Measure (3.1.135-137)

Isabella’s story is tragic, she’s is constantly in corruption’s way. Angelo, Claudio, even the Duke. This scene is one of the better ones in the play, possibly because of the Duke’s eavesdropping and intervention.

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“Be you content, fair maid; / It is the law, not I, condemn your brother; / Were he my kinsman, brother, or my son, / It would be thus with him. He must die tomorrow.” - Angelo

Measure for Measure (2.2.79-82)

Angelo is all show, he pretends to be morally uncorrupt, but in fact we know that later he has sexual desire for Isabella and puts himself in a position to be bribed.

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“Now, good my lord, / Let there be some more test made of my metal, / Before so noble and so great a figure / Be stamp’d upon it.” - Angelo

Measure for Measure (1.1.50-54)

Angelo has received a position, but he still wants to prove himself to Duke Vincentio, which is means he feels he is underqualified for the position, or that the Duke is springing this position on him and has caught him offguard.

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“Where art thou, death / Come hither, come; come, come, and take a queen / Worth many babes and beggars!” - Cleopatra

Antony and Cleopatra (5.2.46-48)

Cleopatra calls on death to come and take her life after her unsuccessful suicide attempt and knowledge of her fate laying under Caesar’s thumb.

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“Have I the aspic in my lips? Dost fall? / If thou and nature can so gently part, / The stroke of death is as a lover’s pinch, / Which hurts, and is desir’d. Dost thou live still? If thus thou vanishest, thou tell’st the world / It is not worth leave-taking.” - Cleopatra

Antony and Cleopatra (5.2.292-297)

Cleopatra would rather die than be used as a puppet for Caesar’s purpose. We don’t know what happens to her children?

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“My captain, and my emperor: let me say /  Before I strike this bloody stroke, farewell.” - Eros

Antony and Cleopatra (4.14.90-91)

Eros kills himself before killing Antony. This is unexpected, but inconsequential. Why so many suicides?

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“Our fortune on the sea is out of breath, / And sinks most lamentably. Had out general / Been what he knew himself, it had gone well: / O, he had given example of out flight, / Most grossly by his own!” - Canadius

Antony and Cleopatra (3.10.25-29)

This is the turning point, Antony runs away, chasing Cleopatra, even while winning the battle. This is the last straw for many of his followers; many have switched allegiances.

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“The barge she sat in, like a burnish’d throne / Burn’d on the water: the poop was beaten gold; / Purple the sails, and so perfumed that / The winds were love-sick with them the oars were silver” - Enobarbus

Antony and Cleopatra (2.2.191-194)

The way that Cleopatra is described is very similar to the way the Greeks may have described the Gods, like Athena or Hera.

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“Nay, pray you, seek no colour for your going, / But bid farewell, and go: when you sued staying, / Then was the time for words; no going then; /  Eternity was in our lips, and eyes, / Bliss in our brows’ bent; none our parts so poor, / But was a race of heaven. They are so still, / Or thou, the greatest soldier of the world, / Art turn’d the greatest liar.” - Cleopatra

Antony and Cleopatra (1.3.32-38)

Cleopatra seems frustratingly difficult to please, but I wonder if her true actions are ones of seduction. She was known not only to have been beautiful but also very intelligent. I wonder if she is in love or if she is putting on a show.

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“Why, sir, give the gods a thankful sacrifice. When it pleaseth their deities to take the wife of a man from him, it shows to man the tailors of the earth; comforting therein, that when old robes are worn out, there are members to make new. If there were no more women but Fulvia, then had you indeed a cut, and the case to be lamented” - Enobarbus

Antony and Cleopatra (1.2.159-165)

Enobarbus enabling Antony to give into his desire for Cleopatra.

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“Alas, poor Yorick! I knew / him, Horatio - a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent / fancy. he hath borne me on his back a thousand times. And / now how abhorred in my imagination it is! My gorge rises/ at it” - Hamlet

Hamlet (5.1.169-173)

The moment Hamlet realizes death takes away all wit, power, accomplishments. Everyone dies, turns to dust and dirt.

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“He is dead and gone, lady, / He is dead and gone. / At his head a grass-green turf, / At his heels a stone.” - Ophelia

Hamlet (4.5.29-32)

Ophelia loses her mind. Always a kick reading Shakespeare’s characters reacting to each other especially when one has gone mad, or are accusing each other.