Romeo and Juliet Good vs Evil Quotes

With baleful weeds and precious-juiced flowers.

– William Shakespeare

Romeo and Juliet, Act 2, Scene 3. The wise Friar Laurence makes his appearance with a soliloquy about the power of herbs and flowers to both heal and poison. He says that he must fill up his basket with poisonous herbs and flowers with precious juices. This is so that he can make up medicines that will help to heal people. The flowers and herbs represent the good and evil in the world, including the love between Romeo and Juliet and the poisonous feud between their warring families. Foreshadowed here are Juliet later drinking a sleeping potion to fake her own death, and Romeo taking poison.

O, mickle is the powerful grace that lies
In herbs, plants, stones, and their true qualities:
For nought so vile that on the earth doth live
But to the earth some special good doth give,
Nor aught so good but strain’d from that fair use
Revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse:
Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied;
And vice sometimes by action dignified.

– William Shakespeare

Romeo and Juliet, Act 2, Scene 3. As Friar Laurence gathers herbs in his garden, he speaks about the great power in herbs and plants. This can be a force for good or ill, depending on how it is handled. There is nothing on earth that is so evil it cannot provide the earth some good, he says. The friar is speaking about how herbs can be used to make medicine or poison. But is also referring to the human condition. Situations have the potential for good or evil, bounty or disaster. Virtue if misused can turn into vice, and vice can become virtue through incorrect action. This theme of the duality of all things is found throughout the play, it’s evident in many situations and characters. One example is the love between Romeo and Juliet. This is a good thing and transformative, but it is also dangerous and destructive, leading to their deaths following some rash decisions. Their deaths in turn also lead to good, bringing an end to the feud between their warring families. The friar’s speech is foreshadowing of the tragic events that happen at the end of the play.

Within the infant rind of this small flower
Poison hath residence and medicine power.

– William Shakespeare

Romeo and Juliet, Act 2, Scene 3. As Friar Laurence tends to his medicinal herbs, he speaks of the competing powers of good and evil contained within the tiny flowers. They can be used to produce poison or medicine. The plants are a metaphor for human nature. The passage is foreshadowing of the wrong decisions that the lovers Romeo and Juliet make leading to their deaths. This is the poison the friar speaks about. The passage also highlights the theme of appearance vs reality, a flower may appear pretty but if you eat it it can poison you.

Two such opposed kings encamp them still
In man as well as herbs, grace and rude will;
And where the worser is predominant,
Full soon the canker death eats up that plant.

– William Shakespeare

Romeo and Juliet, Act 2, Scene 3. Friar Laurence says that the dual nature of poison and medicine found in herbs, is also present in people. People have two sides to their nature, one evil and the other good. A metaphor compares this duality to "opposed kings." The friar also warns that where the evil side is stronger that becomes a cancer that kills. This is foreshadowing of how Romeo and Juliet, though they love each other, will be destroyed by the hatred surrounding them.

There is thy gold, worse poison to men’s souls,
Doing more murders in this loathsome world,
Than these poor compounds that thou mayst not sell.
I sell thee poison; thou hast sold me none.

– William Shakespeare

Romeo and Juliet, Act 5, Scene 1. As Romeo pays the poor Apothecary for the poison, he says that money and greed are a worse poison to men and their souls. Romeo sees money as a kind of evil that causes more murders that any amount of poison sold. Comparing gold to poison is an example of a metaphor.

Stop thy unhallow’d toil, vile Montague!
Can vengeance be pursued further than death?
Condemned villain, I do apprehend thee.

– William Shakespeare

Romeo and Juliet, Act 5, Scene 3. Paris mistakingly thinks that Romeo is at Juliet and Tybalt’s graves in order to desecrate them. As Romeo has already killed Tybalt, Paris believes that he has "come to do some villanous shame To the dead bodies." Paris questions how anyone could be so evil that they would take revenge on the dead. Here we have one of the many examples of dramatic irony in the play, since the audience knows that Romeo is there to kill himself and join Juliet in death.

Poison, I see, hath been his timeless end:
O churl! drunk all, and left no friendly drop
To help me after? I will kiss thy lips;
Haply some poison yet doth hang on them,
To make die with a restorative.
[Kisses him] Thy lips are warm.

– William Shakespeare

Romeo and Juliet, Act 5, Scene 3. Juliet awakens in the tomb and discovers Romeo dead. Overcome by sorrow, she kisses his lips in the hope that the poison he took will take her life too. Deciding that she cannot live without him, she sees the poison as a "restorative" – a medicine that will heal her by allowing her to be with her love in death. This fits in with the play’s theme of the relationship between and inseparability of good and evil, in this case the poison also containing the cure.

We still have known thee for a holy man.

– William Shakespeare

Romeo and Juliet, Act 5, Scene 3. Prince Escalus makes this moral judgment on Friar Laurence at the end of the play after the Friar confesses everything. Despite secretly marrying Romeo and Juliet and giving Juliet a sleeping potion to escape marriage to Paris, the Friar is forgiven by the Prince. While the Friar’s rash actions may have contributed to the fall of Romeo and Juliet, the Prince appears to accept the good-natured Friar’s honorable intentions. He sees him as more good than evil.

See, what a scourge is laid upon your hate,
That heaven finds means to kill your joys with love.
And I for winking at your discords too
Have lost a brace of kinsmen: all are punish’d.

– William Shakespeare

Romeo and Juliet, Act 5, Scene 3. Prince Escalus chastises Capulet and Montague and holds them responsible for Romeo and Juliet’s double suicide. He tells them that the evil feud and hate between the families led to the loss of their children. He also blames himself for losing two of his own family by turning a blind eye to the feud. As a result all of them have been punished. Escalus says, with irony, that heaven found a way of killing Capulet and Montague’s joys – their children – with the love they had for one another. He also personifies heaven, giving it the human ability to kill.
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