Top 100 Christopher Marlowe Quotes
#2. This tottered ensign of my ancestors
Which swept the desert shore of that dead sea
Whereof we got the name of Mortimer,
Will I advance upon these castle-walls.
Drums, strike alarum, raise them from their sport,
And sing aloud the knell of Gaveston!
Christopher Marlowe
#3. Now I will show myselfTo have more of the serpent than the dove;That is
more knave than fool.
Christopher Marlowe
#5. MACHEVILL: I count religion but a childish toy,
And hold there is no sin but ignorance.
Christopher Marlowe
#6. TAMBURLAINE. [to BAJAZETH] Soft sir, you must be dieted, too much eating will make you surfeit.
THERIDAMAS. So it would my lord, specially having so smal a walke, and so litle exercise.
Christopher Marlowe
#9. Hell strives with grace for conquest in my breast.
What shall I do to shun the snares of death?
Christopher Marlowe
#11. It lies not in our power to love or hate, For will in us is overruled by fate.
Christopher Marlowe
#13. Unhappy spirits that fell with Lucifer, / Conspired against our God with Lucifer, / And are for ever damned with Lucifer.
Christopher Marlowe
#14. You must be proud, bold, pleasant, resolute,
And now and then stab, when occasion serves.
Christopher Marlowe
#16. If I be cruel and grow tyrannous,
Now let them thank themselves, and rue too late.
Christopher Marlowe
#19. Philosophy is odious and obscure;
Both law and physic are for petty wits;
Divinity is basest of the three,
Unpleasant, harsh, contemptible, and vile.
'Tis magic, magic that hath ravished me.
Christopher Marlowe
#21. Love is not ful of pittie (as men say)
But deaffe and cruell, where he meanes to pray.
Christopher Marlowe
#22. FAUSTUS: Where are you damn'd?
MEPHISTOPHILIS: In hell.
FAUSTUS: How comes it, then, that thou art out of hell?
MEPHISTOPHILIS: Why, this is hell, nor am I out of it:
Christopher Marlowe
#23. Why should you love him whom the world hates so?
Because he love me more than all the world.
Christopher Marlowe
#25. O, thou art fairer than the evening air clad in the beauty of a thousand stars.
Christopher Marlowe
#26. Love is a golden bubble full of dreams,
That waking breaks, and fills us with extremes.
---From "Hero and Leander, Sestiad III
Christopher Marlowe
#27. KING EDWARD: But what is he whom rule and empery
Have not in life or death made miserable?
Christopher Marlowe
#28. Yet should there hover in their restless heads
One thought, one grace, one wonder at the least,
Which into words no virtue can digest.
Christopher Marlowe
#33. Think'st thou heaven is such a glorious thing?
I tell thee, 'tis not so fair as thou
Or any man that breathes on earth.
Christopher Marlowe
#34. What are kings, when regiment is gone, but perfect shadows in a sunshine day?
Christopher Marlowe
#36. YOUNGER MORTIMER: Fear'd am I more than lov'd; - let me be fear'd,
And, when I frown, make all the court look pale.
Christopher Marlowe
#37. TAMBURLAINE: Live still, my love, and so conserve my life,
Or, dying, be the author of my death.
Christopher Marlowe
#38. Ah fair Zenocrate, divine Zenocrate, Fair is too foul an epithet for thee.
Christopher Marlowe
#39. Religion! O Diabole! Fie, I am asham'd, however that I seem, To think a word of such simple sound, Of such great matter should be made the ground.
Christopher Marlowe
#40. Forbid me not to weep; he was my father;
And, had you lov'd him half so well as I,
You could not bear his death thus patiently.
Christopher Marlowe
#41. A greater subject fitteth Faustus' wit: Bid Economy10 farewell, and11 Galen come, Seeing, Ubi desinit philosophus, ibi incipit medicus: Be a physician, Faustus; heap up gold, And be eterniz'd for some wondrous cure: Summum bonum medicinae sanitas, The end of physic is our body's health.
Christopher Marlowe
#43. What virtue is it that is born with us?
Much less can honor be ascribed thereto,
Honor is purchased by the deeds we do.
Believe me, Hero, honor is not won,
Until some honorable deed be done.
----From "Hero and Leander, Sestiad I
Christopher Marlowe
#46. If we say that we have no sin,
We deceive ourselves, and there's no truth in us.
Why then belike we must sin,
And so consequently die.
Ay, we must die an everlasting death.
Christopher Marlowe
#47. It is a comfort to the miserable to have comrades in misfortune, but it is a poor comfort after all.
Christopher Marlowe
#48. Nay, could their numbers countervail the stars,
Or ever-drizzling drops of April showers,
Or wither'd leaves that autumn shaketh down,
Yet would the Soldan by his conquering power
So scatter and consume them in his rage,
That not a man should live to rue their fall.
Christopher Marlowe
#51. Where both deliberate, the love is slight; Who ever lov'd, that lov'd not at first sight?
Christopher Marlowe
#52. BARABAS: Things past recovery
Are hardly cur'd with exclamations.
Be silent, daughter; sufferance breeds ease,
And time may yield us an occasion,
Which on the sudden cannot serve the turn.
Christopher Marlowe
#54. My men like satyrs grazing on the lawns, / Shall with their goat-feet dance an antic hay.
Christopher Marlowe
#55. But what are kings, when regiment is gone,
But perfect shadows in a sunshine day?
- Edward II, 5.1
Christopher Marlowe
#57. BALDOCK: To die, sweet Spenser, therefore live we all;
Spenser, all live to die, and rise to fall.
Christopher Marlowe
#58. Time doth run with calm and silent foot,
Shortening my days and thread of vital life.
Christopher Marlowe
#60. Mephistopheles: Why, this is hell, nor am I out of it.
Think'st thou that I, who saw the face of God
And tasted the eternal joys of heaven,
Am not tormented with ten thousand hells
In being deprived of everlasting bliss?
Christopher Marlowe
#62. Till swollen with cunning, of a self-conceit,
His waxen wings did mount above his reach,
And, melting, Heavens conspir'd his overthrow.
Christopher Marlowe
#63. The general welcomes Tamburlaine receiv'd, When he arrived last upon the 1 stage, Have made our poet pen his Second Part, Where Death cuts off the progress of his pomp, And murderous Fates throw all his triumphs 2 down. But what became of fair
Christopher Marlowe
#65. Faustus: Stay, Mephistopheles, and tell me, what good will
my soul do thy lord?
Mephistopheles: Enlarge his kingdom.
Faustus: Is that the reason he tempts us thus?
Mephistopheles: Solamen miseris socios habuisse doloris.
(It is a comfort to the wretched to have companions in misery)
Christopher Marlowe
#66. BARABAS: Why, I esteem the injury far less,
To take the lives of miserable men
Than be the causers of their misery.
Christopher Marlowe
#69. The sight of London to my exiled eyes
Is as Elysium to a new-come soul.
Christopher Marlowe
#73. Had I as many souls as there be stars, I'd give them all for Mephistopheles!
Christopher Marlowe
#74. We control fifty percent of a relationship. We influence one hundred percent of it.
Christopher Marlowe
#75. O soul, be changed into little waterdrops, / And fall into the ocean, ne'er be found!
Christopher Marlowe
#76. Heaven, envious of our joys, is waxen pale;
And when we whisper, then the stars fall down
To be partakers of our honey talk.
(Dido, Queen of Carthage 4.4.52-54)
Christopher Marlowe
#77. Bell, book, and candle, candle book and bell, forward and backward, to curse Faustus to hell.
Anon you shall hear a hog grunt,a calf bleat, and an ass bray,
Because it is Saint Peter's holy day
Christopher Marlowe
#78. FAUSTUS: Bell, book and candle, candle, book and bell,
Forward and backward, to curse Faustus to hell.
Christopher Marlowe
#79. FAUSTUS. [Stabbing his arm.] Lo, Mephistophilis, for love of thee,
I cut mine arm, and with my proper blood
Assure my soul to be great Lucifer's,
Chief lord and regent of perpetual night!
Christopher Marlowe
#80. As in plain terms (yet cunningly) he crav'd it; / Love always makes those eloquent that have it (II.71-2).
Christopher Marlowe
#81. You stars that reigned at my nativity, whose influence hath allotted death and hell.
Christopher Marlowe
#82. While money doesn't buy love, it puts you in a great bargaining position.
Christopher Marlowe
#83. The God Thou servest is thine own appetite, wherein is fixed the love of Beelzebub. To Him I'll build an altar and a church, and offer lukewarm blood of new-born babes.
Christopher Marlowe
#85. Unhappy Persia, that in former age
Hast been the seat of mighty Conquerors,
That in their prowesse and their policies, Have triumph over Africa.
Christopher Marlowe
#87. Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscribed
In one self place, for where we are is hell,
And where hell is must we ever be.
Christopher Marlowe
#88. Fornication: but that was in another country; And besides, the wench is dead.
Christopher Marlowe
#89. All beasts are happy,
For, when they die,
Their souls are soon dissolv'd in elements;
But mine must live still to be plagu'd in hell.
Curs'd be the parents that engender'd me!
No, Faustus, curse thyself, curse Lucifer
That hath depriv'd thee of the joys of heaven.
Christopher Marlowe
#96. Was this the face that launched a thousand ships/And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?
Christopher Marlowe
#98. Who hateth me but for my happiness? Or who is honored now but for his wealth? Rather had I, a Jew, be hated thus, Than pitied in a Christian poverty.
Christopher Marlowe
#99. Love always makes those eloquent that have it.
---From "Hero and Leander, Sestiad II
Christopher Marlowe
Famous Authors
Popular Topics
Scroll to Top
