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Nerissa

By my troth, Nerissa, my little body is aweary of this great world

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Portia
By my troth, Nerissa, my little body is aweary
of this great world.
Nerissa
You would be, sweet madam, if your miseries
were in the same abundance as your good fortunes
are. And yet, for aught I see, they are as sick that
surfeit with too much as they that starve with
nothing.

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Thus hath the candle singed the moth

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Portia
Thus hath the candle singed the moth
O, these deliberate fools, when they do choose,
They have the wisdom by their wit to lose.
Nerissa
The ancient saying is no heresy:
Hanging and wiving goes by destiny.
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Source:
Act 2
Scene 9
Line 85

Source Type:

Spoken by:
,

Come on, Nerissa, I have work in hand

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Portia
Come on, Nerissa, I have work in hand
That you yet know not of. We’ll see our husbands
Before they think of us.
Nerissa
Shall they see us?
Portia
They shall, Nerissa, but in such a habit
That they shall think we are accomplishèd
With that we lack.
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Source:
Act 3
Scene 4
Line 59

Source Type:

Spoken by:
,

That light we see is burning in my hall

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Portia
That light we see is burning in my hall.
How far that little candle throws his beams!
So shines a good deed in a naughty world.   100
Nerissa
When the moon shone we did not see the candle.
Portia
So doth the greater glory dim the less.
A substitute shines brightly as a king
Until a king be by,
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Source:
Act 5
Scene 1
Line 98

Source Type:

Spoken by:
,

Nothing is good, I see, without respect

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Portia
Nothing is good, I see, without respect.
Methinks it sounds much sweeter than by day.
Nerissa
Silence bestows that virtue on it, madam.
Portia
The crow doth sing as sweetly as the lark
When neither is attended, and I think
The nightingale, if she should sing by day
When every goose is cackling,
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Act 5
Scene 1
Line 108

Source Type:

Spoken by:
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