In The Merchant of Venice, what key quotes show the setting?

I think Act I scene i is key in establishing both the
setting but also many key themes that dominate the play and are used by Shakespeare as
major plot devices. Of course, the very title, The Merchant of
Venice, reveals the setting to us. Venice at the time the play was set was an
incredibly important port, where ships belonging to merchants would sail off to gain
luxuries from the New World and return, making perilous journeys, bringing wealth or
ruin to their owners. This is established in this very first scene of the play, when
Antonio describes himself as being in a very melancholic mood. His two friends, Salerio
and Solanio suggest that his mind is perhaps focussed on his ships that have just left
Venice:

Your
mind is tossing on the ocean,

There where your argosies
with portly sail,

Like signors and rich burghers on teh
flood,

Or as it were the pageants of the
sea,

Do overpeer the petty
traffickers

That curtsy to them, do them
reverence

As they fly by them with their woven
wings.

We are thus introduced
to a make or break world, with incredible risks but also incredible opportunities. It is
important to note how Shakespeare weaves the setting into the plot - it is the report
that Antonio's ships have been destroyed that puts him in such a perilous position with
his pledge to Shylock, but also the news of the safe return of one of his ships
resurrects him and gives him back his wealth and standing.