Romeo and Juliet Love Quotes

A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life;
Whose misadventured piteous overthrows
Do with their death bury their parents’ strife.

– William Shakespeare

Romeo and Juliet, Act 1, Prologue. There is a great deal of foreshadowing in opening Prologue to history’s greatest love story. We learn from the Chorus that the young lovers are fated to bring their feuding families together by the tragic taking of their own lives. This passage speaks to the intensity of the teenage couple’s love. "Star-cross’d" is a metaphor for the higher power of fate that controls human destiny. Shakespeare creates dramatic irony here by telling the audience what will happen to the characters before they know it themselves.

Why then, O brawling love! O loving hate!
O any thing, of nothing first create!
O heavy lightness! serious vanity!
Mis-shapen chaos of well-seeming forms!
Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health!
Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is!

– William Shakespeare

Romeo and Juliet, Act 1, Scene 1. Romeo is full of conflicted emotions because of his unrequited love for Rosaline. To express this he uses oxymorons, a figure of speech in which what seem contradictory terms appear in conjunction. This passage blurs the lines between love and hate and reflects the themes of the play, in which love and hate are intricately bound up in one another. When he speaks of "brawling," "hate" and "chaos," Romeo is not only lamenting Rosaline not returning his love, but also the feud raging between his family, the Montagues, and the Capulets.
Love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs - quote

Love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs;
Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers’ eyes;
Being vex’d a sea nourish’d with lovers’ tears.

– William Shakespeare

Romeo and Juliet, Act 1, Scene 1. Romeo is not finding love very easy. He uses three metaphors to explain the heartbreaks it causes. He compares it to a smoke made up of lovers’ sighs, a fire burning in the eyes of lovers, and when twarted a sea filled with lovers’ tears. This is one of Shakespeare’s most famous definitions of love, showing how it be either a source of great happiness or heartbreak.

And too soon marr’d are those so early made.
The earth hath swallow’d all my hopes but she,
She is the hopeful lady of my earth.

– William Shakespeare

Romeo and Juliet, Act 1, Scene 2. Juliet occupies a special place in Capulet’s heart and initially he refuses to marry her to Paris because she is too young. She is his last remaining hope of future generations of descendants, since his other children have died. His affection for Juliet is clear in this passage. Earth is personified because it has the human ability to swallow – it has "swallow’d" all Capulet’s children except Juliet.

But woo her, gentle Paris, get her heart,
My will to her consent is but a part;
An she agree, within her scope of choice
Lies my consent and fair according voice.

– William Shakespeare

Romeo and Juliet, Act 1, Scene 2. Capulet agrees that Paris may woo his daughter Juliet. But he stresses that even if he consents to the marriage, she has the final say and may exercise her own free will. However, he later changes his mind and tries to force Juliet into a marriage with Paris. The word "heart" in this passage is a metaphor for love.

One fire burns out another’s burning,
One pain is lessen’d by another’s anguish.

– William Shakespeare

Romeo and Juliet, Act 1, Scene 2. Benvolio is trying to get the lovesick Romeo to forget about Rosaline, by encouraging him to look at another girl. He uses the image of quenching one metaphorical love fire by starting another. There is irony and foreshadowing here, since Romeo will be replacing his heartbreak pain over the loss of Rosaline by another pain – his doomed love for Juliet.

When the devout religion of mine eye
Maintains such falsehood, then turn tears to fires;
And these, who often drown’d could never die,
Transparent heretics, be burnt for liars!
One fairer than my love! the all-seeing sun
Ne’er saw her match since first the world begun.

– William Shakespeare

Romeo and Juliet, Act 1, Scene 2. Romeo uses vivid religious metaphors and hyperbole as he counters Benvolio’s suggestion that looking at another woman will make him forget all about Rosaline. Romeo says how his eyes worship Rosaline, and if he lied his tears would turn into fire and be burnt at the stake as heretics. He shows himself to be rather shallow here, valuing Rosaline’s physical beauty above all else.
The prettiest babe that e’er I nursed - Nurse to Juliet

Thou wast the prettiest babe that e’er I nursed:
An I might live to see thee married once,
I have my wish.

– William Shakespeare

Romeo and Juliet, Act 1, Scene 3. The Nurse’s words to Juliet underscores the tender and close relationship she enjoyed with Juliet ever since she nursed her as a baby. A secondary mother to Juliet, she is more of a mother to her than Lady Capulet. Her wish to see Juliet married after watching her grow up illustrates the strong motherly feelings she has for her.

Well, think of marriage now; younger than you,
Here in Verona, ladies of esteem,
Are made already mothers: by my count,
I was your mother much upon these years
That you are now a maid. Thus then in brief:
The valiant Paris seeks you for his love.

– William Shakespeare

Romeo and Juliet, Act 1, Scene 3. Lady Capulet, who wants Juliet to marry Paris, tells her that there are mothers younger than Juliet in Verona. She reminds her daughter that she was already her mother at Juliet’s age of almost 14 years.

This precious book of love, this unbound lover,
To beautify him, only lacks a cover.

– William Shakespeare

Romeo and Juliet, Act 1, Scene 3. Lady Capulet uses a vivid metaphor to compare Paris to a "precious book of love" that needs only a cover – Juliet – to complete him and make him more beautiful. She is trying to persuade her daughter Juliet to marry Paris. The lines that precede this with an extended book metaphor are: "Read o’er the volume of young Paris’ face, And find delight writ there with beauty’s pen; Examine every married lineament, And see how one another lends content And what obscured in this fair volume lies Find written in the margent of his eyes."

LADY CAPULET: Speak briefly, can you like of Paris’ love?
JULIET: I’ll look to like, if looking liking move:
But no more deep will I endart mine eye
Than your consent gives strength to make it fly.

– William Shakespeare

Romeo and Juliet, Act 1, Scene 3. Juliet quibbles and refuses a straight answer when Lady Capulet asks if she can love Paris. Juliet’s mother wants her to agree to her father’s plan for her to marry the young nobleman. But in Juliet’s clever noncommittal response, she agrees to look at Paris with the intention of liking him, if looking can cause her to like him. She uses a Cupid-like metaphor to say that her eye won’t fly flirtatious darts of love at Paris beyond what her mother consents. She puts on the appearance of obeying her parents, but at the same time she is keeping her options open and in effect disobeying them.

MERCUTIO: You are a lover; borrow Cupid’s wings,
And soar with them above a common bound.
ROMEO: I am too sore enpierced with his shaft
To soar with his light feathers, and so bound,
I cannot bound a pitch above dull woe:
Under love’s heavy burden do I sink.

– William Shakespeare

Romeo and Juliet, Act 1, Scene 4. Mercutio tries his best to talk Romeo out of his gloom and not be a party pooper when they are at the Capulets’ ball. He advises him to metaphorically "borrow Cupid’s wings" and soar because he is in love. But Romeo, whose love is unrequited, puns that he is too "sore" to "soar." In another pun, "bound" is used in two different senses, first to mean constraint, and secondly to mean leap. This reflects the conflicting aspects to romantic love.

If love be rough with you, be rough with love;
Prick love for pricking, and you beat love down.

– William Shakespeare

Romeo and Juliet, Act 1, Scene 4. The playful and cynical Mercutio makes light of Romeo’s moaning about love being rough and pricking "like thorn." He uses pun and sexual innuendo to advise Romeo to have sex ("prick love" and "beat love down") to get over his sexual frustration ("pricking") because of Rosaline’s chastity vow. Mercutio personifies love as if it were a person who can be beaten down, speaking of it in aggressive and violent terms.

She gallops night by night
Through lovers’ brains, and then they dream of love;
O’er courtiers’ knees, that dream on court’sies straight,
O’er lawyers’ fingers, who straight dream on fees,
O’er ladies’ lips, who straight on kisses dream.

– William Shakespeare

Romeo and Juliet, Act 1, Scene 4. Mercutio describes how Queen Mab nightly brings dreams to sleepers in answer to their deepest desires. She brings love to lovers, curtsies to courtiers, fees to lawyers, and kisses to the ladies. But everything is fantasy and illusion, according to Mercutio.

O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!
It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night
Like a rich jewel in an Ethiope’s ear;
Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear!
So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows,
As yonder lady o’er her fellows shows.

– William Shakespeare

Romeo and Juliet, Act 1, Scene 5. These lines tell us how Romeo is smitten by Juliet when he first lays eyes on her at the Capulets’ ball. In the first line Romeo uses a metaphor to compare Juliet to a torch lighting up the room. Then in a simile he compares her shining beauty against the night to an jeweled earring sparkling on the ear of an Ethiopian. Another metaphor likens Juliet to a magnificent "snowy dove" in a room full of "crows." Romeo uses the imagery of light against the dark to describe the radiance of Juliet’s loveliness. His speech indicates a love-at-first-sight moment for the young man. But Romeo’s ominous statement that Juliet has "beauty too rich to use, for earth too dear" is foreshadowing of how she will be laid out in the tomb too early and of the tragic events that follow. We also see here an example of Romeo’s impetuous and impulsive behavior. From being depressed before this over his unrequited love for Rosaline, he instantly falls for Juliet the moment he sets eyes on her. This is a case of situational irony, since Romeo came to the Capulet party hoping to see Rosaline, so one wouldn’t expect him to instantly fall in love with another girl.

Did my heart love till now? forswear it, sight!
For I ne’er saw true beauty till this night.

– William Shakespeare

Romeo and Juliet, Act 1, Scene 5. There are two kinds of irony here in Romeo’s soliloquy, as the young Montague meets Juliet for the first time and is immediately smitten. He instantaneously and unexpectedly forgets his love for Rosaline and falls hopelessly and completely for Juliet. This is an example of situational irony. There is also dramatic irony, because what he doesn’t know and the audience does is that Juliet is a Capulet, making their love impossible because of the long-standing feud between the two families. This quote also provides evidence of Romeo’s immaturity and impulsivity.

If I profane with my unworthiest hand
This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this:
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.

– William Shakespeare

Romeo and Juliet, Act 1, Scene 5. An impulsive Romeo rushes up to Juliet at the Capulet ball and speaks his first words to her, clearly smitten. Boldly asking for a kiss, he recklessly ignores the fact that Juliet is a Capulet, the enemies of his Montague clan. He indulges in hyperbole, speaking to her reverentially as if she were a demi-goddess or saint. He uses two metaphors to compare Juliet’s hand to a "holy shrine" and his lips to "two blushing pilgrims."
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