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Shakespeare on the Seven Deadly Sins
Part 3: Shakespeare on Pride and Greed
 More of this Feature
• Part 1: Introduction to the Sins 
• Part 2: Shakespeare on Lust 
• Part 4: Shakespeare on Envy and Gluttony 
• Part 5: Shakespeare on Anger and Sloth 
 
  Related Resources
• Sinful Treasure: Sonnet 75
• The Shakespeare Quote of the Day
 
 Elsewhere on the Web
• Summa Theologica
• The Seven Deadly Sins of Bible Study
 
 

PRIDE

I can see his pride
Peep through each part of him.
Henry VIII 1.1.68-9, Abergavenny to Buckingham

My pride fell with my fortunes.
As you like It 1.2.242, Rosalind to Orlando

So proud that Bolingbroke was on his back!
That jade hath eat bread from my royal hand;
This hand hath made him proud with clapping him.
Would he not stumble? would he not fall down,
Since pride must have a fall, and break the neck
Of that proud man that did usurp his back?
Richard II 5.5.86-91, Richard

You sign your place and calling, in full seeming,
With meekness and humility; but your heart
Is cramm'd with arrogancy, spleen, and pride.
Henry VIII 2.4.118-20

I will not jump with common spirits,
And rank me with the barbarous multitudes.
The Merchant of Venice 2.9.31-2, Prince of Aragon

Being so great, I have no need to beg.
Richard II 4.1.309, Richard to Bolingbroke

He that is proud eats up himself: pride is
his own glass, his own trumpet, his own chronicle.
Troilus and Cressida 2.3.152-4, Agamemnon to Ajax

I do hate a proud man as I do hate the engendering of toads.
Troilus and Cressida 2.3.156, Ajax

Pride went before, ambition follows him.
2 Henry VI 1.1.179 Salisbury to Warwick

The man's undone forever; for if Hector break not his
neck i' the combat, he'll break't himself in
vain-glory.
Troilus and Cressida 3.3.271-3, Thersites to Achilles

Things small as nothing, for requset's sake only,
He makes important; possessed he is with greatness.
Troilus and Cressida 2.3.170-1, Ulysses to Ajax

why, he'll answer nobody: he professes not
answering; speaking is for beggars, he
wears his tongue in's arms.
Troilus and Cressida 3.3.280-1, Thersites to Achilles

GREED

A man can no more separate age and covetousness than a'
can part young limbs and lechery.
2 Henry IV 1.2.226-7, Falstaff

Marry, sir, lullaby to your bounty till I come
again. I go, sir; but I would not have you to think
that my desire of having is the sin of covetousness:
but, as you say, sir, let your bounty take a nap, I
will awake it anon.
Twelfth Night 5.1.42-6, Clown to Duke Orsino

With this there grows
In my most ill-composed affection such
A stanchless avarice that, were I king,
I should cut off the nobles for their lands,
Desire his jewels and this other's house:
And my more-having would be as a sauce
To make me hunger more; that I should forge
Quarrels unjust against the good and loyal,
Destroying them for wealth.
Macbeth 4.3.91-99, Malcolm to Macduff in an attempt to prove Macduff's loyalty to Scotland

If I were covetous, ambitious or perverse,
As he will have me, how am I so poor?
1 Henry VI 3.1.30-1, Bishop of Winchester to Gloucester

Thy ambition,
Thou scarlet sin, robb'd this bewailing land.
Henry VIII 3.2.306-7, Surrey

I grant him bloody,
Luxurious, avaricious, false, deceitful,
Sudden, malicious, smacking of every sin
That has a name.
Macbeth 4.3.70-3, Malcolm speaking to Macduff about Macbeth

Thou are not for the fashion of these times,
Where none will sweat but for promotion
As You Like It 2.3.61-2, Orlando to Adam

See, sons, what things you are,
How quickly nature falls into revolt
When gold becomes her object.
2 Henry IV 4.5.64-6, Henry to Gloucester and Clarence

Wilt thou be lord of the whole world?
Antony and Cleopatra 2.7.65, Menas to Pompey

Third Fisherman: Master, I marvel how the fishes live in the sea.
First Fisherman: Why, as men do a-land; the great ones eat up the little ones.
Pericles 2.1.69-70

Lowliness is young ambition's ladder,
Whereto the climber-upward turns his face;
But when he once attains the upmost round.
He then unto the ladder turns his back,
Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees
By which he did ascend.
Julius Caesar 2.1.23-7, Brutus

Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself
And falls on the other.
Macbeth 1.7.28-9, Macbeth

To have what we would have, we speak not what we mean.
Measure for Measure 2.4.118, Isabella to Angelo

So that in venturing ill we leave to be
The things we are for that which we expect;
And this ambitious foul infirmity,
In having much, torments us with defect
Of that we have: so then we do neglect
The thing we have; and, all for want of wit,
Make something nothing by augmenting it.
The Rape of Lucrece 148-4

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