Daily Inspiration Quote by William Shakespeare

Weaponized virtue is Shakespeare's favorite kind of stage prop: it looks holy in the hand, then turns out to be a knife. "The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose" (from The Merchant of Venice) lands because it collapses the comforting idea that truth protects itself. Even the most revered text, Shakespeare suggests, becomes pliable once it's put to work by someone with an agenda.

The line is spoken by Antonio, and the context matters: he's watching Shylock quote the Bible to justify usury and harsh dealing. In a play obsessed with contracts, bonds, and the fine print, Scripture becomes another legal document to be cherry-picked, another authority to be summoned as a courtroom witness. Shakespeare isn't taking a side on theology so much as exposing a human habit: we don't reach for moral language when we're lost; we reach for it when we want to win.

The intent is blunt, almost cynical, but the subtext is sharper. Antonio frames Shylock's appeal to Scripture as diabolical, a move that flatters Antonio's own righteousness even as it dodges the uncomfortable fact that Christians in the play also manipulate law and mercy for convenience. The jab is aimed at hypocrisy, yes, but it also indicts interpretation itself: meaning isn't only in the text; it's in the motive of the citer.

That's why the line still stings. It anticipates modern bad-faith quoting - proof-texting, soundbites, "context-free" morality - and it warns that eloquence and authority are not evidence of goodness.