Don't Judge a Book by it's Cover

In the play Much Ado About Nothing, William Sahkespeare shows us some of the stereo types of his time in the character Dogberry. Dogberry is precieved as a "stupid" character because he is obviously of the lower class. This is shown when Dogberry misunderstands the word tedious and unknowingly makes a fool of himself when he says "but truly, for mine own part, if I were as tedious as a king, I could find it in my heart to bestow it all of your worship" (III.5.17-19). Here Shakespeare is showing us that the lower class is uneducated by making this character the seemingly comic relief of the play so we can laugh at his mistakes. Leonato does what any upper class citizen would've done and forgets about the nonsense that Dogberry spoke.
Later in the play however, we discover that had Leonato taken the time to understand Dogberry, he would have stopped Don John's evil plan before it even started. If Leonato had listened he would have discovered that Hero wasn't cheating on Claudio and in fact loved him very much. Shakespeare is presenting us with a challenge to his ealier stereo type by telling us that sometimes it's worth it to take the time to understand those that we view as infierior. Shakespear is telling us that we shouldn't always judge a book by its cover because sometimes what doesn't seem so good on the outside can turn out to be what we've wanted all along.