A Man for All Seasons

Robert Bolt

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Important Quotations Explained

1. My Master Thomas More would give anything to anyone. Some say that’s good and some say that’s bad, but I say he can’t help it—and that’s bad . . . because some day someone’s going to ask him for something that he wants to keep; and he’ll be out of practice.
           (Act One, scene one)


2. Well . . . I believe, when statesmen forsake their own private conscience for the sake of their public duties . . . they lead their country by a short route to chaos.
           (Act One, scene two)


3. (Quietly) I neither could nor would rule my King.
(Pleasantly) But there’s a little . . . little, area . . . where I must rule myself. It’s very little—less to him than a tennis court.
           (Act One, scene seven)


4. And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you—where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? (He leaves him) This country’s planted thick with laws from coast to coast—man’s laws, not God’s—and if you cut them down—and you’re just the man to do it—d’you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then?
           (Act One, scene seven)


5. All right, so he’s down on his luck! I’m sorry. I don’t mind saying that: I’m sorry! Bad luck! If I’d any good luck to spare he could have some. I wish we could all have good luck, all the time! I wish we had wings! I wish rainwater was beer! But it isn’t! . . . And what with not having wings but walking-on two flat feet; and good luck and bad luck being just exactly even stevens; and rain being water—don’t you complicate the job by putting things in me for me to miss!
            (Act Two, scene two)


6. Better a live rat than a dead lion
           (Act Two, scene seven)


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