Genuine, and locatable to the line: it is spoken by Prospero in The Tempest, Act 5, Scene 1, replying to the spirit Ariel — “Do I take part. The rarer action is / In virtue than in vengeance.” The play was first printed in the 1623 First Folio, where it appears in original spelling as “the rarer Action is / In vertue, then in vengeance.”
“The rarer action is in virtue than in vengeance” The rarer action is / In virtue than in vengeance. — Prospero, in William Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act 5, Scene 1. First printed in the 1623 First Folio. Verbatim: “Though with their high wrongs I am struck to th' quick, yet with my nobler reason 'gainst my fury do I take part. The rarer action is in virtue than in vengeance.”
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Evoking the world of William Shakespeare — English playwright & poet. Theme: "The rarer action is in virtue than in vengeance". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.
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Provenance
The source
Work
The Tempest
Location
Act 5, Scene 1 — Prospero, answering Ariel
Written
Probably 1610–1611; a performance is recorded on 1 November 1611 by the King’s Men before James I at Whitehall Palace
First printed
1623, in Mr. William Shakespeare’s Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies (the First Folio)
ARIEL Mine would, sir, were I human. PROSPERO And mine shall. Hast thou, which art but air, a touch, a feeling Of their afflictions, and shall not myself, One of their kind, that relish all as sharply Passion as they, be kindlier moved than thou art? Though with their high wrongs I am struck to th’ quick, Yet with my nobler reason ’gainst my fury Do I take part. The rarer action is In virtue than in vengeance. They being penitent, The sole drift of my purpose doth extend Not a frown further.
The Tempest, Act 5, Scene 1
Modern-spelling text as printed by the Folger Shakespeare Library. The 1623 First Folio reads “the rarer Action is / In vertue, then in vengeance” — then being the period spelling of than.
c. 1610–1611 — the play is written. Wikipedia’s article on the play records that it was “probably written in 1610–1611,” and that “a record exists of a performance of The Tempest on 1 November 1611 by the King’s Men before James I and the English royal court at Whitehall Palace ↗.”
1623 — first printing. The Folger Shakespeare Library ↗ states that The Tempest “was printed for the first time in the 1623 First Folio, and that text serves as the source for all subsequent editions.” The facsimile prints Prospero’s words as “the rarer Action is / In vertue, then in vengeance.”
Modern editions keep it intact. The Folger text, MIT’s online Shakespeare and a Project Gutenberg edition drawn from the 1863 Cambridge Shakespeare all carry the same two lines; Wikiquote ↗ lists them under Prospero, Act V, scene i.
Online, it flattens. Quotation sites reduce the verse to a single sentence and drop the play — Goodreads ↗ names no work at all, and AZQuotes points to a page in a 1989 Barnes & Noble complete-works volume instead of the scene.
✓Public domain
The Tempest was first printed in the 1623 First Folio, per the Folger Shakespeare Library ↗ — more than three centuries before the 1931 US copyright threshold, so the play and this line are firmly in the public domain. A specific modern edition’s editorial apparatus (notes, glosses, line numbering) can still carry its own copyright, even though Shakespeare’s words do not.
Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.
Fact-check
What gets lost in quotation
The attribution to Shakespeare is correct — unusually so for a line this widely posted. What goes wrong is downstream: the play, the speaker and the verse all fall away, and the sentence starts circulating as a free-floating maxim.
~
SpeakerShakespeare, speaking in his own voice Character, not author
The words are Prospero’s, spoken to Ariel at a specific hinge in the plot — he is renouncing a revenge he has spent five acts engineering, and he says so in the same breath: “Though with their high wrongs I am struck to th’ quick.” Quoted alone it reads as settled wisdom; in the scene ↗ it is a decision being made.
✕
Missing sourceGoodreads No work named
The Goodreads entry ↗ gives the one-line form credited simply to “— William Shakespeare,” naming no play at all, under the site’s own notice that quotes are community-added and not verified.
✕
Missing sourceAZQuotes Anthology page, not the play
AZQuotes ↗ cites it to “Cross, William Shakespeare (1989). ‘William Shakespeare: The Complete Works’, p.1156, Barnes & Noble Publishing” — a page number in a modern omnibus rather than the act and scene that would let a reader check it.
Prospero has spent the whole play building toward revenge — the storm, the shipwreck, the enemies herded around the island are all his doing. Then Ariel, a spirit who cannot actually feel anything, tells him that if Ariel were human he would pity the captives. Prospero’s answer is the turn the play has been waiting for: if a creature made of air can be moved, so can he.
The famous sentence is not a proverb Shakespeare set down as advice; it is a man talking himself out of a grudge in real time, mid-sentence. He admits the wrongs still strike him “to th’ quick” — the mercy is a choice made against feeling, not instead of it, which is exactly why the line has outlived the play it sits in.
In vertue, then in vengeance.
What the 1623 First Folio actually prints
The First Folio facsimile reads: “Doe I take part: the rarer Action is / In vertue, then in vengeance: they, being penitent, / The sole drift of my purpose doth extend / Not a frowne further.” The then is not a different word — it is the ordinary early-modern spelling of than, and modern editions print it that way.
One other thing modern quotation loses: it is two lines of blank verse, not one sentence. The break falls after “is,” so the weight lands on the opening of the next line — “In virtue.”
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Filed under
More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.
Shakespeare wrote The Tempest late in his working life — probably in 1610–1611, with a performance recorded before James I at Whitehall Palace on 1 November 1611. The play was never printed in his lifetime; it survives because it was placed first in the 1623 collected edition of his plays, Mr. William Shakespeare’s Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies. That volume is the only reason this line exists at all.
For writers & researchers
Cite this
Primary source
Shakespeare, William. The Tempest, act 5, scene 1. First printed in Mr. William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies (London, 1623). Modern text quoted from The Tempest, act 5, scene 1, The Folger Shakespeare, Folger Shakespeare Library, https://www.folger.edu/explore/shakespeares-works/the-tempest/read/5/1/.
This verification page
Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘The rarer action is in virtue than in vengeance’?” Last verified 4 Aug 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/the-rarer-action-is-in-virtue-than-in-vengeance/