Iago Himself Quotes & Sayings

We enter upon a stage which we did not design and we find ourselves part of an action that was not of our making. Each of us being a main character in his own drama plays subordinate parts in the dramas of others, and each drama constrains the others. In my drama, perhaps, I am Hamlet or Iago or at least the swineherd who may yet become a prince, but to you I am only A Gentleman or at best Second Murderer, while you are my Polonius or my Gravedigger, but your own hero. Each of our dramas exerts constraints on each other's, making the whole different from the parts, but still dramatic. — Alasdair MacIntyre

The Iago trance is a state that we've really come to accept as normal, even if we may not feel it to be natural. — Arjuna Ardagh

[Exeunt Iago and Attendants.] And, till she come, as truly as to heaven I do confess the vices of my blood, So justly to your grave ears I'll present How I did thrive in this fair lady's love, And she in mine. — William Shakespeare

I am glad I have found this napkin.
This was her first remembrance from the Moor,
My wayward husband hath a hundred times
Wooed me to steal it, but she so loves the token
For he conjured her she should ever keep it
That she reserves it evermore about her
To kiss and talk to. I'll ha' the work ta'en out,
And give't Iago. What he will do with it,
Heaven knows, not I.
I nothing, but to please his fantasy. — William Shakespeare

I've always been way more attracted to playing imposing characters than the hero. I've always been more intrigued by Iago in Shakespeare than playing Romeo. That was always boring to me. — Kevin Durand

IAGO
Can't help it? Nonsense! What we are is up to us. Our bodies are like gardens and our willpower is like the gardener. Depending on what we plant - weeds or lettuce, or one kind of herb rather than a variety, the garden will either be barren and useless, or rich and productive. If we didn't have rational minds to counterbalance our emotions and desires, our bodily urges would take over. We'd end up in ridiculous situations. Thankfully, we have reason to cool our raging lusts. In my opinion, what you call love is just an offshoot of lust. — William Shakespeare

In scenes like these, any man could be Iago. — Stephen King

A character I would love to play is Iago, from Othello. — Tim Roth

I am one, sir, that comes to tell you your daughter
and the Moor are now making the beast with two backs.(IAGO,ActI,SceneI) — William Shakespeare

Coleridge's description of Iago's actions as "motiveless malignancy" applies in some degree to all the Shakespearian villains. The adjective motiveless means, firstly, that the tangible gains, if any, are clearly not the principal motive, and, secondly, that the motive is not the desire for personal revenge upon another for a personal injury. Iago himself proffers two reasons for wishing to injure Othello and Cassio. He tells Roderigo that, in appointing Cassio to be his lieutenant, Othello has treated him unjustly, in which conversation he talks like the conventional Elizabethan malcontent. In his soliloquies with himself, he refers to his suspicion that both Othello and Cassio have made him a cuckold, and here he talks like the conventional jealous husband who desires revenge. But there are, I believe, insuperable objections to taking these reasons, as some critics have done, at their face value. — W. H. Auden

There's an Iago and a Romeo within all of us. There is that lover, and there is that sociopath. — Tom Hiddleston

She's not sensual. She doesn't want affairs. It's just cold-blooded experiment on her part and the fun of stirring people up and setting them against each other. She dabbled in that too. She's the sort of woman who's never had a row with anyone in her life
but rows always happen where she is! She makes them happen. She's kind of female Iago. She must have drama. But she doesn't want to be involved herself. She's always outside pulling strings
looking on
enjoying it! — Agatha Christie

The practical joker despises his victims, but at the same time he envies them because their desires, however childish and mistaken, are real to them, whereas he has no desire which he can call his own. His goal, to make game of others, makes his existence absolutely dependent upon theirs; when he is alone, he is a nullity. Iago's self-description, I am not what I am, is correct and the negation of the Divine I am that I am. If the word motive is given its normal meaning of a positive purpose of the self like sex, money, glory, etc., then the practical joker is without motive. Yet the professional practical joker is certainly driven, like a gambler, to his activity, but the drive is negative, a fear of lacking concrete self, of being nobody. — W. H. Auden

The most interesting characters keep us hooked. Not likeable ones! Iago, Shylock, Darth Vader - are they likeable? Do you want to invite them to dinner? — Alison Owen

Why, why is this?
Think'st thou I'ld make a lie of jealousy,
To follow still the changes of the moon
With fresh suspicions? No; to be once in doubt
Is once to be resolved: exchange me for a goat,
When I shall turn the business of my soul
To such exsufflicate and blown surmises,
Matching thy inference. 'Tis not to make me jealous
To say my wife is fair, feeds well, loves company,
Is free of speech, sings, plays and dances well;
Where virtue is, these are more virtuous:
Nor from mine own weak merits will I draw
The smallest fear or doubt of her revolt;
For she had eyes, and chose me. No, Iago;
I'll see before I doubt; when I doubt, prove;
And on the proof, there is no more but this,
Away at once with love or jealousy! — William Shakespeare

Brabantio: "You are a villain!"
Iago: "You are a senator! — William Shakespeare

The word "jealousy" is often used as if it were synonymous with envy; but I think the distinction worth preserving. Jealousy is predominantly concerned with the fear of loss of something one possesses, envy with the wish to own something another possesses. Othello suffers from the fear that he has lost Desdemona's love. Iago suffers from envy of the position held by Cassio, to which he feels entitled. — Anthony Storr

I'd like to do more Shakespeare. I'd like to do Iago in Othello. I look so benign. It would be interesting to see that black evil come out of my soul. — Kyle MacLachlan

Here upon the earth evil is such was Shakespeare's declaration in the most emphatic accent. Iago actually exists. There is also in the earth a sacred passion of deliverance a pure redeeming ardor. Cordelia exists. — Edward Dowden

'Othello' was my first Shakespearean discovery. I was obsessed with drama at school, and I studied the play for my English GCSE. Desdemona is the part that everyone wants, but Iago's wife Emilia is the one I've always been drawn to. — Michelle Dockery

Put money in thy purse. — William Shakespeare

Film is a disease. When it infects your bloodstream, it takes over as the number one hormone; it bosses the enzymes; directs the pineal gland; plays Iago to your psyche. As with heroin, the antidote to film is more film. — Frank Capra

Both Othello and Iago seem a bit cracked. If you spend 15 years being responsible for death and destruction, that sense of suppressed horror is strong. — Rory Kinnear

Shakespeare villains were extraordinary. Macbeth, Iago, Richard III ... They're so richly layered that a British actor would find it almost impossible to create a two-dimensional villain, if he's explored in his early years or continues to explore his Shakespearean heritage. You can almost not judge them, if they're played really well. — Ben Kingsley

I don't like using the word evil because it sounds as if that's all there is to be said about the person. I don't think Richard III is evil, I don't think it's helpful to say that...Iago he's not evil. Iago didn't get the job, he thinks his wife's been unfaithful to him, he doesn't like black people, he's extremely talented and very unfulfilled and he's a wonderful liar, and he's a mischeif maker and he does some dreadful, dreadful things. But that's already interesting, isn't it? Ooh, who is this guy? But if you just say "ah oh he's evil" how can you play that? I don't know how you play an evil person. — Ian McKellen

IAGO: She that was ever fair and never proud,
Had tongue at will and yet was never loud,
Never lack'd gold and yet went never gay,
Fled from her wish and yet said 'Now I may,'
She that being anger'd, her revenge being nigh,
Bade her wrong stay and her displeasure fly,
She that in wisdom never was so frail
To change the cod's head for the salmon's tail;
She that could think and ne'er disclose her mind,
See suitors following and not look behind,
She was a wight, if ever such wight were,
DESDEMONA: To do what?
IAGO: To suckle fools and chronicle small beer. — William Shakespeare

When devils will the blackest sins put on
They do suggest at first with heavenly shows — William Shakespeare

We become lovers when we see Romeo and Juliet, and Hamlet makes us students. The blood of Duncan is upon our hands, with Timon werage against the world, and when Lear wanders out upon the heath the terror of madness touches us. Ours is the white sinlessness of Desdemona, and ours, also, the sin of Iago. — Oscar Wilde

Macbeth's self-justifications were feeble - and his conscience devoured him. Yes, even Iago was a little lamb too. The imagination and the spiritual strength of Shakespeare's evildoers stopped short at a dozen corpses. Because they had no ideology. — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Oh, not tonight, good Iago," said Cassio. "I have poor and unhappy brains for drinking. I wish courtesy would invent some other custom of entertainment. — Christopher Moore

Iago shrugged his furry shoulders. As you like. Saves me the work of picking the lock with my incisor. — Catherynne M Valente

Iago, on the other hand, seems to be malice personified, a manifestation of manifold vice with no discernible vestiges of grace. — Williiam Shakespeare