Folger Shakespeare Library
  
       
Stage and Screen Education and Inspiration The American Identity

THE AMERICAN IDENTITY

 

Favorite Shakespeare Lines

Favorite Shakespeare Lines
Walter Mondale, Vice President of the United States, 1977 to 1981; United States Senator from Minnesota, 1964 to 1977

WALTER MONDALE: I'm Walter Mondale and I was Vice President of the United States from 1977 to 1981. I've got one from Polonius's advice to Laertes, famous line, just a couple of lines there I'd like to use, if I could:

Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel.

And then,

This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.

And then, a line out of Henry V that I use a lot, speaking of good people:

A good leg will fall, a straight back will stoop, a black beard will turn white, a curled pate will grow bald, a fair face will wither, a full eye will wax hollow, but a good heart... 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.