Here is a selection of well-known quotes from Shakespeare's Henry V, including part of the famous St Crispin's Day Speech.

Joshua Richards as Fluellen, Jim Hooper as Erpingham, Alex Hassell as Henry V and Dale Mathurin as Bates in Henry V.
The company in Gregory Doran's Henry V, 2015
Photo by Keith Pattison © RSC Browse and license our images

O, for a muse of fire, that would ascend
The brightest heaven of invention,
A kingdom for a stage, princes to act
And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!
(Chorus, Prologue)

Can this cockpit hold
The vasty fields of France? or may we cram
Within this wooden O, the very casques
That did affright the air at Agincourt? 
(Chorus, Prologue)

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more,
Or close the wall up with our English dead.
(King Henry, Act 3 Scene 1)

The game's afoot:
Follow your spirit, and upon this charge
Cry ‘God for Harry, England, and Saint George!’
(King Henry, Act 3 Scene 1)

Men of few words are the best men.
(Boy, Act 3 Scene 2)

That’s a valiant flea that dare eat his breakfast on the lip of a lion.
(Orleans, Act 3 Scene 7)

I think the king is but a man, as I am: the violet smells to him as it doth to me. 
(King Henry, Act 4 Scene 1)

Every subject’s duty is the king’s, but every subject’s soul is his own.
(King Henry, Act 4 Scene 1)

This story shall the good man teach his son,
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother.
(King Henry, Act 4 Scene 3)

There is occasions and causes why and wherefore in all things.
(Fluellen, Act 5 Scene 1)

A good heart, Kate, is the sun and the moon— or rather the sun and not the moon, for it shines bright and never changes, but keeps his course truly. If thou would have such a one, take me: and take me, take a soldier: take a soldier, take a king.
(King Henry, Act 5 Scene 2)

Dear Kate, you and I cannot be confined within the weak list of a country's fashion: we are the makers of manners, Kate.
(King Henry, Act 5 Scene 2)

 

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