Quotes About Identity

I am a bastard, too. I love bastards! I am bastard begot, bastard instructed, bastard in mind, bastard in valor, in everything illegitimate.

I talk of you: Why did you wish me milder? would you have me False to my nature? Rather say I play The man I am.

Reputation, reputation, reputation! Oh, I have lost my reputation! I have lost the immortal part of myself, and what remains is bestial.

Frailty, thy name is woman!

O, grief hath changed me since you saw me last, And careful hours with Time's deformed hand Have written strange defeatures in my face. But tell me yet, dost thou not know my voice?

I am not what I am..

Alas, poor country, almost afraid to know itself! It cannot be called our mother, but our grave.

O, that he were here to write me down an ass! But, masters, remember, that I am an ass; though it be not written down, yet forget not that I am an ass.

He hath disgrac'd me and hind'red me half a million; laugh'd at my losses, mock'd at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends, heated my enemies. And what's his reason? I am a Jew.

What man art thou that, thus bescreened in night, So stumblest on my counsel? *Who are you? Why do you hide in the darkness and listen to my private thoughts?*

Be as thou wast wont to be. See as thou wast wont to see.

Why did you wish me milder? would you have me False to my nature? Rather say I play The man I am.

Am I in earth, in heaven, or in hell? Sleeping or waking, mad or well-advised? Known unto these, and to myself disguised? I'll say as they say, and persever so, And in this mist at all adventures go.

we know what we are, but know not what we may be.

Nay! Faith, let me not play a woman! I have a beard coming!

What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet

Thou of thyself thy sweet self dost deceive.

William Shakespeare

Which can say more than this rich praise, that you alone are you?

Fear not, Cesario, take thy fortunes up. Be that thou know'st thou art and then thou art as great as that thou fear'st.

God made him, and therefore let him pass for a man. In truth, I know it is a sin to be a mocker, but he! why, he hath a horse better than the Neapolitan's, a better bad habit of frowning than the Count Palentine; he is every man in no man. If a throstle sing, he falls straight a-cap'ring. He will fence with his own shadow. If I should marry him, I should marry twenty husbands.

Thou art the thing itself: unaccommodated man is no more but such a poor bare, forked animal as thou art.

Homo is a common name to all men.

For when my outward action doth demonstrate The native act and figure of my heart In complement extern 'tis not long after But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve For daws to peck at I am not what I am.