See the minutes, how they run,
How many make the hour full complete;
How many hours bring about the day;
How many days will finish up the year;
How many years a mortal man may live.
Ay, that incestuous, that adulterate beast, With witchcraft of his wit, with traitorous gifts- O wicked wit and gifts, that have the power So to seduce!
For it falls out That what we have we prize not to the worth Whiles we enjoy it, but being lacked and lost, Why, then we rack the value, then we find The virtue that possession would not show us While it was ours.
Let none presume To wear an undeserved dignity. O that estates, degrees, and offices Were not derived corruptly, and that clear honour Were purchased by the merit of the wearer!
It is to be all made of fantasy, All made of passion and all made of wishes, All adoration, duty, and observance, All humbleness, all patience and impatience, All purity, all trial, all observance
Gratiano speaks an infinite deal of nothing, more than any man in all Venice. His reasons are as two grains of wheat hid in two bushels of chaff: you shall seek all day ere you find them, and when you have them, they are not worth the search.