King Lear Quotations

"Though this knave came something saucily to the world before he was sent for, yet was his mother fair, there was good sport at his making, and the whoreson must be acknowledg'd."

"We have divided / In three our kingdom; and 'tis our fast intent / To shake all cares and business from our age."

What shall Cordelia speak? Love, / and be silent.

"Nothing, my lord."

"Let it be so: thy truth then be thy dow'r!"

"I lov'd her most, and thought to set my rest / On her kind nursery."

"Think'st thou that duty shall have dread to speak / When power to flattery bows?"

"If, on the tenth day following, / Thy banish'd trunk be found in our dominions, / The moment is thy death."

"Will you, with those infirmities she owes, / Unfriended, new adopted to our hate, / Dow'r'd with our curse, and stranger'd with our oath, / Take her, or leave her?

"It is no vicious blot, murther, or foulness, / No unchaste action, or dishonored step, / That hath depriv'd me of your grace and favor, / But even for want of that for which I am richer— / A still-soliciting eye, and such a tongue / That I am glad I have not, though not to have it / Hath lost me in your liking."

"Better thou / Hadst not been born than not t' have pleas'd me better."

"She is herself a dowry."

"Not all the dukes of wat'rish Burgundy / Can buy this unpriz'd precious maid of me."

"I know you what you are."

"Such unconstant starts are we like to have from him as this of Kent's banishment."

"Thou, Nature, art my goddess, to thy law / My services are bound. / Wherefore should I / Stand in the plague of custom, and permit / The curiosity of nations to deprive me, / For that I am some twelve or fourteen moonshines / Lag of a brother?"

"Why brand they us / With base? with baseness? bastardy? base, base? / Who, in the lusty stealth of nature, take / More composition, and fierce quality, / Than doth within a dull, stale, tired bed / Go to th' creating a whole tribe of fops, / Got 'tween asleep and wake?"

"I hope, for my brother's justification, he wrote this but as an essay or taste of my virtue."

"O villain, villain! his very opinion in the letter."

"An admirable evasion of whoremaster man, to lay his goatish disposition on the charge of a star!"

"Some villain hath done me wrong." "That's my fear"

"Let me, if not by birth, have lands by wit."

"Put on what weary negligence you please, / You and your fellows; I'd have it come to question. / If he distaste it, let him to my sister, / Whose mind and mine I know in that are one, / Not to be overrul'd. Idle old man, / That still would manage those authorities / That he hath given away!"

"Now, banish'd Kent, / If thou canst serve where thou dost stand condemn'd, / So may it come, thy master, whom thou lov'st, / Shall find thee full of labors."

"if thou follow him, thou must needs wear my coxcomb."

"thou hadst little wit in thy bald crown when thou gav'st thy golden one away."

"I had rather be any kind o' thing than a Fool, and yet I would not be thee"

"The hedge-sparrow fed the cuckoo so long, / That it had it head bit off by it young."

"Yet have I left a daughter."

"How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is / To have a thankless child!"

"Striving to better, oft we mar what's well."

"Thou shouldst not have been old till thou hadst been wise."

"Have you heard of no likely wars toward, / 'twixt the Dukes of Cornwall and Albany?"

"Pardon me: / In cunning I must draw my sword upon you. / Draw, seem to defend yourself; now quit you well.— / Yield! Come before my father. Light ho, here!— / Fly, brother."

"Look, sir, I bleed. . . . [Edgar] Fled this way, sir, when by no means he / could— Persuade me to the murder of you lordship."

"of my land, / Loyal and natural boy, I'll work the means / To make thee capable."

"For you, Edmund, / Whose virtue and obedience doth this instant / So much commend itself, you shall be ours. / Natures of such deep trust we shall much need; / You we first seize on."

"A knave, a rascal, an eater of broken meats; a base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three- suited, hundred-pound, filthy worsted-stocking knave; a lily-liver'd, action-taking, whoreson, glass-gazing, superserviceable, finical rogue; one-trunk-inheriting slave."

"a stone-cutter or a painter could not have made him so ill, though they had been but two years o' th' trade."

"Fetch forth the stocks! / You stubborn ancient knave, you reverent braggart, / We'll teach you."

"Sir, I am too old to learn. / Call not your stocks for me, I serve the King, / On whose employment I was sent to you."

"My face I'll grime with filth, / Blanket my loins, elf all my hairs in knots, / And with presented nakedness outface / The winds and persecutions of the sky. / The country gives me proof and president / Of Bedlam beggars, who, with roaring voices, / Strike in their numb'd and mortified arms / Pins, wooden pricks, nails, sprigs of rosemary; / And with this horrible object, from low farms, / Poor pelting villages, sheep-cotes, and mills, / Sometimes with lunatic bans, sometime with prayers, / Enforce their charity."

"Winter's not gone yet, if the wild geese fly that way."

"I would have all well betwixt you."

"I cannot think my sister in the least / Would fail her obligation. If, sir, perchance / She have restrain'd the riots of your followers, / 'Tis on such ground and to such wholesome end / As clears her from all blame."

"O, sir, you are old, / Nature in you stands on the very verge / Of his confine. You should be rul'd and led / By some discretion that discerns your state / Better than you yourself. Therefore I pray you / That to our sister you do make return. / Say you have wrong'd her."

"Age is unnecessary."

"All's not offense that indiscretion finds / And dotage terms so."

"Return to her? And fifty men dismiss'd? / No, rather I abjure all roofs, and choose / To wage against the enmity o' th' air."

"Return to her? / Persuade me rather to be slave and sumpter / To this detested groom."

"Thy fifty yet doth double five and twenty, / And thou art twice her love."

"What need you five and twenty? ten? Or five? / To follow in a house where twice so many / Have a command to tend you?"

"What need one?"

"you unnatural hags, / I will have such revenges on you both / That all the world shall—I will do such things— / What they are yet I know not, but they shall be / The terrors of the earth!"

"Shut up our doors, my lord, 'tis a wild night, / My Regan counsels well. Come out o' th' storm."

"But, true it is, from France there comes a power / Into this scatter'd kingdom; who already, / Wise in our negligence, have secret feet / In some of our best ports, and are at point / To show their open banner."

"If you shall see Cordelia,-- / As fear not but you shall,--show her this ring; / And she will tell you who your fellow is."

"Good nuncle, in, and ask thy daughters' blessing: / here's a night pities neither wise man nor fool."

"things that love night / Love not such nights as these; the wrathful skies / Gallow the very wanderers of the dark, / And make them keep their caves: since I was man, / Such sheets of fire, such bursts of horrid thunder, / Such groans of roaring wind and rain, I never / Remember to have heard."

"I am a man / More sinn'd against than sinning."

"When priests are more in word than matter; / When brewers mar their malt with water; / When nobles are their tailors' tutors; / No heretics burn'd, but wenches' suitors; / Then shall the realm of Albion / Come to great confusion. / When every case in law is right; / No squire in debt, nor no poor knight; / When slanders do not live in tongues; / Nor cutpurses come not to throngs; / When usurers tell their gold i' the field, / And bawds and whores do churches build; / Then comes the time, who lives to see't, / That going shall be us’d with feet. / This prophecy Merlin shall make, for I live before his time."

"When I desire their leave that I might / pity him, they took from me the use of mine own / house; charged me, on pain of their perpetual / displeasure, neither to speak of him, entreat for / him, nor any way sustain him."

"I have received a letter this night; 'tis dangerous to be / spoken; I have locked the letter in my closet: / these injuries the king now bears will be revenged / home; there's part of a power already footed: we / must incline to the king. I will seek him, and / privily relieve him: go you and maintain talk with / the duke, that my charity be not of him perceived: / if he ask for me. I am ill, and gone to bed. / Though I die for it, as no less is threatened me, / the king my old master must be relieved."

"This courtesy, forbid thee, shall the duke / Instantly know; and of that letter too: / This seems a fair deserving, and must draw me / That which my father loses; no less than all: / The younger rises when the old doth fall."

"The body's delicate: the tempest in my mind / Doth from my senses take all feeling else / Save what beats there. Filial ingratitude!"

"Hast thou given all to thy two daughters? / And art thou come to this?"

"Do poor Tom some / charity, whom the foul fiend vexes"

"What, have his daughters brought him to this pass? / Couldst thou save nothing? Didst thou give them all?"

"He hath no daughters, sir."

"Death, traitor! nothing could have subdued nature / To such a lowness but his unkind daughters. / Is it the fashion, that discarded fathers / Should have thus little mercy on their flesh? / Judicious punishment! 'twas this flesh begot / Those pelican daughters."

"wine loved I deeply, dice dearly: and in woman / out-paramoured the Turk: false of heart, light of / ear, bloody of hand; hog in sloth, fox in stealth, / wolf in greediness, dog in madness, lion in prey."

"True or false, it hath made thee earl of / Gloucester. Seek out where thy father is, that he / may be ready for our apprehension."

"It shall be done; I will arraign them straight."

"Good friend, I prithee, take him in thy arms; / I have o'erheard a plot of death upon him: / There is a litter ready; lay him in 't, / And drive towards Dover, friend, where thou shalt meet / Both welcome and protection."

"Leave him to my displeasure. Edmund, keep you our / sister company: the revenges we are bound to take / upon your traitorous father are not fit for your beholding."

"What mean your graces? Good my friends, consider / You are my guests: do me no foul play, friends."

"Hold your hand, my lord: / I have served you ever since I was a child; / But better service have I never done you / Than now to bid you hold."

"Lest it see more, prevent it. Out, vile jelly! / Where is thy lustre now?"

"I have received a hurt: follow me, lady. / Turn out that eyeless villain; throw this slave / Upon the dunghill. Regan, I bleed apace: / Untimely comes this hurt: give me your arm."

"I have no way, and therefore want no eyes; / I stumbled when I saw."

"As flies to wanton boys are we to th' gods, / They kill us for their sport."

"'Tis the time's plague, when madmen lead the blind."

"There is a cliff, whose high and bending head / Looks fearfully in the confined deep. / Bring me but to the very brim of it, / And I'll repair the misery thou dost bear / With something rich about me. From that place / I shall no leading need."

"I told him of the army that was landed; / He smil'd at it. I told him you were coming; / His answer was, "The worse." Of Gloucester's treachery, / And of the loyal service of his son, / When I inform'd him, then he call'd me sot, / And told me I had turn'd the wrong side out. / What most he should dislike seems pleasant to him; / What like, offensive."

"I must change names at home, and give the distaff / Into my husband's hands."

"O Goneril, / You are not worth the dust which the rude wind / Blows in your face."

"Wisdom and goodness to the vild seem vild!"

"Milk-liver'd man, / That bear'st a cheek for blows."

"Proper deformity shows not in the fiend / So horrid as in woman."

"O my good lord, the Duke of Cornwall's dead, / Slain by his servant, going to put out / The other eye of Gloucester."

"One way I like this well, / But being widow, and my Gloucester with her, / May all the building in my fancy pluck / Upon my hateful life."

"Gloucester, I live / To thank thee for the love thou show'dst the King, / And to revenge thine eyes."

"Why the King of France is so suddenly gone back, know you no reason?"

"Something he left imperfect in the state, which since his coming forth is thought of, which imports to the kingdom so much fear and danger that his personal return was most requir'd and necessary."

"You have seen / Sunshine and rain at once; her smiles and tears / Were like a better way."

"Sorrow would be a rarity most beloved, / If all could so become it."

"He that helps him take all my outward worth."

"O dear father, / It is thy business that I go about."

"No blown ambition doth our arms incite, But love, dear love, and our ag'd father's right."

"It was great ignorance, Gloucester's eyes being out, / To let him live; where he arrives he moves / All hearts against us."

"My lord is dead; Edmund and I have talk'd, / And more convenient is he for my hand / Than for your lady's."

"If you do chance to hear of that blind traitor, / Preferment falls on him that cuts him off."

"Would I could meet him, madam! I should show / What party I do follow.

"You are now within a foot / Of th' extreme verge."

"This world I do renounce, and in your sights / Shake patiently my great affliction off."

"Ten masts at each make not the altitude / Which thou hast perpendicularly fell. / Thy life's a miracle."

"Let copulation thrive; for Gloucester's bastard son / Was kinder to his father than my daughters / Got 'tween the lawful sheets. / To't, luxury, pell-mell, for I lack soldiers."

"I would not take this from report; it is, / And my heart breaks at it."

"When we are born, we cry that we are come / To this great stage of fools."

"You ever-gentle gods, take my breath from me, / Let not my worser spirit tempt me again / To die before you please!"

"Slave, thou hast slain me. Villain, take my purse: / If ever thou wilt thrive, bury my body, / And give the letters which thou find'st about me / To Edmund Earl of Gloucester; seek him out / Upon the English party. O untimely death!"

"if he return the conqueror; then am I the prisoner, and his bed my jail; from the loath'd warmth whereof deliver me, and supply the place for your labor."

"Better I were distract, / So should my thoughts be sever'd from my griefs, / And woes by wrong imaginations lose / The knowledge of themselves."

O thou good Kent, how shall I live and work / To match thy goodness?"

"Mine enemy's dog, / Though he had bit me, should have stood that night / Against my fire, and wast thou fain, poor father, / To hovel thee with swine and rogues forlorn / In short and musty straw?"

"You do me wrong to take me out o' th' grave: / Thou art a soul in bliss, but I am bound / Upon a wheel of fire, that mine own tears / Do scald like molten lead."

"You have some cause, they have not."

"No cause, no cause"

"The arbiterment is like to be bloody."

"But have you never found my brother's way / To the forfended place?"

"I had rather lose the battle than that sister / Should loosen him and me."

"Wretched though I seem, / I can produce a champion that will prove / What is avouched there."

"To both these sisters have I sworn my love; / Each jealous of the other, as the stung / Are of the adder."

"Which of them shall I take? / Both? one? or neither? Neither can be enjoy'd / If both remain alive."

"As for the mercy / Which he intends to Lear and to Cordelia, / The battle done, and they within our power, / Shall never see his pardon; for my state / Stands on me to defend, not to debate."

"King Lear hath lost, he and his daughter ta'en."

"Men must endure / Their going hence even as their coming hither, / Ripeness is all."

"We are not the first / Who with best meaning have incurr'd the worst."

"I'll kneel down / And ask of thee forgiveness. So we'll live, / And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh / At gilded butterflies."

"Know thou this, that men / Are as the time is: to be tender-minded / Does not become a sword."

"You have the captives / Who were the opposites of this day's strife; / I do require them of you, so to use them / As we shall find their merits and our safety / May equally determine."

"At this time / We sweat and bleed: the friend hath lost his friend, / And the best quarrels, in the heat, are curs'd / By those that feel their sharpness. / The question of Cordelia and her father / Requires a fitter place."

"Jesters do oft prove prophets."

"I create thee here / My lord and master."

"Edmund, I arrest thee / On capital treason, and in thy attaint / This gilded serpent."

"If none appear to prove upon thy person / Thy heinous, manifest, and many treasons, / There is my pledge. I'll make it on thy heart."

"Sick, O, sick!" "If not, I'll ne'er trust medicine."

"Thou art a traitor; / False to thy gods, thy brother, and thy father, / Conspirant 'gainst this high illustrious prince, / And from th' extremest upward of thy head / To the descent and dust below thy foot, / A most toad-spotted traitor."

"Back do I toss these treasons to thy head."

"This is practice, Gloucester. / By th' law of war thou wast not bound to answer / An unknown opposite. Thou art not vanquish'd, / But cozen'd and beguil'd."

"Shut your mouth, dame, / Or with this paper shall I stopple it."

"Say if I do, the laws are mine, not thine; / Who can arraign me for't?"

"What you have charg'd me with, that have I done, / And more, much more, the time will bring it out."Ed

"His flaw'd heart / (Alack, too weak the conflict to support!) / 'Twixt two extremes of passion, joy and grief, / Burst smilingly."

"I was contracted to them both; all three / Now marry in an instant."

"This judgment of the heavens, that makes us tremble, / Touches us not with pity."

"I pant for life. Some good I mean to do, / Despite of mine own nature."

"Her voice was ever soft, / Gentle, and low, an excellent thing in woman. / I kill'd the slave that was a-hanging thee."

"We will resign, / During the life of this old majesty, / To him our absolute power."

"Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life, / And thou no breath at all? Thou'lt come no more, / Never, never, never, never, never."

"Vex not his ghost. O, let him pass, he hates him / That would upon the rack of this tough world / Stretch him out longer."

Friends of my soul, you twain / Rule in this realm, and the gor'd state sustain."

"I have a journey, sir, shortly to go: / My master calls me, I must not say no."

"The oldest hath borne most; we that are young / Shall never see so much, nor live so long."