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Shylock Quotes

Browse 37 quotes about Shylock.

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Shylock Quotes

“In addition, unlike Othello, whose profession of arms is socially honorable, Shylock is a professional usurer who, like a prostitute, has a social function but is an outcast from the community. But, in the play, he acts unprofessionally; he refuses to charge Antonio interest and insists upon making their legal relation that of debtor and creditor, a relation acknowledged as legal by all societies. Several critics have pointed to analogies between the trial scene and the medieval Processus Belial in which Our Lady defends man against the prosecuting Devil who claims the legal right to man’s soul. […] But the differences between Shylock and Belial are as important as their similarities. The comic Devil of the mystery play can appeal to logic, to the letter of the law, but he cannot appeal to the heart or to the imagination, and Shakespeare allows Shylock to do both. In his "Hath not a Jew eyes…" speech in Act III, Scene I, he is permitted to appeal to the sense of human brotherhood, and in the trial scene, he is allowed to argue, with a sly appeal to the fear a merchant class has of radical social evolution: You have among you many a purchased slave Which like your asses and your dogs and mules, You use in abject and in slavish parts, which points out that those who preach mercy and brotherhood as universal obligations limit them in practice and are prepared to treat certain classes of human beings as things.”

ShylockBelial
Book:The Dyer's Hand and Other Essays
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“The perfect Semite (Jews are not Semites but are Khazars, descended from Japheth) is positive and impassioned. The two elements exercise a reciprocal influence, each moderating what is too excessive and therefore unlikely to live in the other, creating a being apart who easily arrives at domination, for nothing can stop such a man...It is the eternal opposition of Shylock and Jessica. It is the illogical and monstrous mixture of the rarest qualities with the most abject defects, mixture of irresistible force and of irremediable weakness.”

MenTwoForcePerfectQualityInfluenceExerciseElementsEternalCreatingWeaknessJewOppositionDefectsDominationUnlikelyMixturesIrresistibleMonstrousIllogicalJessicaReciprocalImpassionedShylockIrresistible Force
Author:Kadmi Cohen
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“I am a Jew: Hath not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with die same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is?”

MeanHandsEyeChristianDiesPassionHurtSubjectsDiseaseSummerWeaponsWinterAffectionJewSensesDimensionsFedsInstructionOrgansHealedVeniceMerchantsMerchant Of VeniceShylockMerchant Of Venice Famous
Author:William Shakespeare
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“There was once a great actor named George C. Scott. He was on stage in the Delacourt Theater in Central Park, where they do Shakespeare every summer, and he was playing Shylock in The Merchant of Venice. At one point he took the robes he was wearing and just started flipping them up in the air, out of nowhere. And later, an actor said to him, "What was that, George, what were you doing?" And he said, "They were sleeping." You're always trying to catch them.”

TryingSaidActorsSleepAirStageSummerTheaterParksAlways TryingVeniceMerchantsRobesGreat ActorsMerchant Of VeniceUp In The AirCentral ParkShylock
Author:Al Pacino
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“The quality of mercy is not strain'd, It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest; It blesseth him that gives and him that takes: 'Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes The throned monarch better than his crown; His sceptre shows the force of temporal power, The attribute to awe and majesty, Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings; But mercy is above this sceptred sway; It is enthroned in the hearts of kings, It is an attribute to God himself; And earthly power doth then show likest God's When mercy seasons justice.”

GivingHeartShowsForceHeavenJusticeQualityKingsRainMercySeasonsGentleAweAttributesDreadCrownsStrainMajestyVeniceMerchantsMonarchsMerchant Of VeniceMercy Of GodJustice And MercyShylockMerchant Of Venice FamousMercy And ForgivenessGentle Rain
Author:William Shakespeare
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“Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? ...If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example?”

IfsShouldHandsEyeChristianDiesPassionExampleHumilityLike YouAffectionJewRevengeSensesPoisonDimensionsOrgansVeniceMerchantsMerchant Of VeniceShylockMerchant Of Venice FamousNo Revenge
Author:William Shakespeare
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