Well done sister Suffragette!*

NORA: [...] There is another task I must undertake first. I must try and educate myself - you are not the man to help me in that. I must do that for myself. And that is why I am going to leave you now.

HEL: [springing up]. What do you say?

NORA: I must stand quite alone if I am to understand myself and everything about me. It is for that reason that I cannot remain with you any longer.

[...]

HEL: It's shocking. This is how you would neglect your most sacred duties.

NORA: What do you consider my most sacred duties?

HEL: Do I need to tell you that? Are they not your duties to your husband and your children?

NORA: I have other duties just as sacred.

HEL: That you have not. What duties could those be?

NORA: Duties to myself.

HEL: Before all else you are a wife and a mother.

NORA: I don't believe in that any longer. I believe that before all else I am a reasonable human being just as you are - or, at all events, that I must try and become one. I know quite well, Torvald, that most people would think you right and that views of that kind are to be found in books; but I can no longer content myself with what most people say or with what is found in books. I must think over things for myself and get to understand them.

A doll's house

*Mary Poppins BSO

Salomé

THE CAPPADOCIAN: In my country there are no gods left. The Romans have driven them out. There are some who say that they have hidden themselves in the mountains, but I do not believe it. Three nights I have been on the mountains seeking them everywhere. I did not find them. And at last I called them by their names, and they did not come. I think they are dead.

Salomé, Oscar Wilde

Much ado about nothing

Benedick: Lady Beatrice, have you wept all this while?

Beatrice: Yea, and I will weep a while longer.

Benedick: I will not desire that.

Beatrice: You have no reason, I do it freely.

Benedick: Surely I do believe your fair cousin is wronged.

Beatrice: Ah, how much might the man deserve of me that would right her!

Benedick: Is there any way to show such friendship?

Beatrice: A very even way, but no such friend.

Benedick: May a man do it?

Beatrice: It is a man's office, but not yours.

Benedick: I do love nothing in the world so well as you - is not that strange?

Beatrice: As strange as the thing I know not. It were as possible for me to say I loved nothing so well as you, but believe me not; and yet I lie not; I confess nothing, nor I deny nothing. I am sorry for my cousin.

Benedick: By my sword, Beatrice, thou lovest me.

Beatrice: Do not swear and eat it.

Benedick: I will swear by it that you love me, and I will make him eat it that says I love not you.

Beatrice: Will you not eat your word?

Benedick: With no sauce that can be devised to it. I protest I love thee.

Beatrice: Why then, God forgive me!

Benedick: What offence, sweet Beatrice?

Beatrice: You have stayed me in a happy hour, I was about to protest I love you.

Benedick: And do it with all thy heart.

Beatrice: I love you with so much of my heart that none is left to protest.

The importance of being Earnest - Muffins!

Jack: How you can sit there, calmly eating muffins when we are in this horrible trouble, I can’t make out. You seem to me to be perfectly heartless.
Algernon: Well, I can’t eat muffins in an agitated manner. The butter would probably get on my cuffs. One should always eat muffins quite calmly. It is the only way to eat them.
Jack: I say it’s perfectly heartless your eating muffins at all, under the circumstances.
Algernon: When I am in trouble, eating is the only thing that consoles me. Indeed, when I am in really great trouble, as anyone who knows me intimately will tell you, I refuse everything except food and drink. At the present moment I am eating muffins because I am unhappy. Besides, I am particularly fond of muffins. (rising)
Jack (rising): Well, that is no reason why you should eat them all in that greedy way. (takes muffins from Algernon)
Algernon (offering tea-cake): I wish you would have tea-cake instead. I don’t like tea-cake.
Jack: Good heavens! I suppose a man may eat his own muffins in his own garden.
Algernon: But you have just said it was perfectly heartless to eat muffins.
Jack: I said it was perfectly heartless of you, under the circumstances. That is a very different thing.
Algernon: That may be. But the muffins are the same. (he seizes the muffin-dish from Jack)

Much ado about nothing - Benedick's soliloquy

Benedick: I do much wonder that one man, seeing how much another man is a fool when he dedicates his behaviours to love, will, after he hath laughed at such shallow follies in others, become the argument of his own scorn by falling in love: and such a man in Claudio. I have known when there was no music with him but the drum and the fife, and now had he rather hear the tabor and the pipe. I have known when he would have walked ten mile afoot to see a good armour, and now will he lie ten nights away carving the fashion of a new doublet. He was wont to speak plain and to the purpose, like an honest man and a soldier, and now is he turned to orthography - his words are a very fantastical banquet, just so many strange dishes. May I be so converted and see with these eyes? I cannot tell; I think not. I will not be sworn but love may transform me to an oyster, but I'll take my oath on it, till he have made an oyster of me, he shall never make me such a fool. One woman is fair, yet I am well; another is wise, yet I am well; another virtuous, yet I am well; but till all graces be in one woman, one woman shall not come in my grace. Rich she shall be, that's certain; wise, or I'll none; virtuous, or I'll never cheapen her; fair, or I'll never look on her; mild, or come not near me; noble, or not I for an angel; of good discourse, an excellent musician, and her hair shall be... of what colour it please God!

Much ado about nothing - Husbands and beards

Since we brought up Emma Thompson, were bound to (at least) mention Much ado about nothing, one of the most wonderful and adorable movies/plays I've ever seen... (long live Shakespeare!)

Beatrice: (...) Lord, I could not endure a husband with a beard on his face! I had rather lie in the woollen.
Leonato: You may light on a husband that hath no beard.
Beatrice: What should I do with him? Dress him in my apparel and make him my waiting-gentlewoman? He that hath a beard is more than a youth, he that hath no beard is less than a man; and he that is more than a youth is not for me, and he than is less than a man I am not for him: therefore I will even take sixpence in earnest of the beardward and lead his apes into hell.
Leonato: Well then, go you into hell?
Beatrice: No, but to the gate, and there will the Devil meet me like an old cuckold with horns on his head, and say, " Get you to the heaven, Beatrice, get you to the heaven, here's no place for you maids." So deliver I up my apes, and away to Saint Peter, for the heavens; he shows me where the bachelors sit, and there live we as merry as the day is long.