King Lear Quotations

  1. "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."
    Gloucester --> Kent
  2. "We have divided / In three our kingdom; and 'tis our fast intent / To shake all cares and business from our age."
    • Lear --> everyone
    • Message: A kingdom cannot be divided, it will not survive, asking for trouble because there will be fights over land
  3. What shall Cordelia speak? Love, / and be silent.
    • Cordelia (aside)
    • refuses to participate in the insincerity she sees in her sisters
    • informs the audience of her motives and intentions before she speaks to Lear
  4. "Nothing, my lord."
    • Cordelia --> Lear
    • Audience understands because of her aside, but Lear does not
    • Lear is completely shocked at this point. He feels humiliated and disrespected in front of the whole court.
  5. "Let it be so: thy truth then be thy dow'r!"
    • Lear --> Cordelia
    • We realize that Lear is an ego-maniac
    • Cordelia is in trouble because she cannot support herself without the support of her father.
  6. "I lov'd her most, and thought to set my rest / On her kind nursery."
    • Lear --> Kent
    • extreme self-pity
  7. "Think'st thou that duty shall have dread to speak / When power to flattery bows?"
    • Kent --> Lear
    • chastising the King in defense of Cordelia
    • extremely courageous
    • acting like Tiresias
  8. "If, on the tenth day following, / Thy banish'd trunk be found in our dominions, / The moment is thy death."
    • Lear --> Kent
    • banishing Kent
    • further demonstrates Lear's large ego
    • gets rid of those that don't feed his ego or make him happy, extremely stubborn
  9. "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?
    • Lear --> Burgundy
    • not a genuine question
    • using it to destroy Cordelia
  10. "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."
    • Cordelia --> Lear
    • saving her reputation before Lear can speak
    • she likes the King of france, and doesn't want him to reject her
  11. "Better thou / Hadst not been born than not t' have pleas'd me better."
    • Lear --> Cordelia
    • shows how unreasonable Lear is being
  12. "She is herself a dowry."
    • King of France --> Lear
    • King= man of great honor and stature
    • Shows that he values Cordelia's virtue and honesty
  13. "Not all the dukes of wat'rish Burgundy / Can buy this unpriz'd precious maid of me."
    • King of France --> Lear
    • Shows that his love for Cordelia is genuine, and not about the money
    • shooting Burgundy down for his desire of money
    • could have anyone he wanted, but he choses Cordelia because he loves her
  14. "I know you what you are."
    • Cordelia --> Goneril, Regan
    • knows her sisters are callous and treacherous
    • she sees behind their lies and words
    • Cordelia is virtuous but has strength and spirit
  15. "Such unconstant starts are we like to have from him as this of Kent's banishment."
    • Regan --> Goneril
    • Lear is no longer predictable in his old age
    • They are scheming against Lear
  16. "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?"
    • Edmund (soliloquy)
    • shows that he resents Edmund for being Glouchester's heir
    • feels discriminated against due to being a bastard
  17. "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?"
    • Edmund (soliloquy)
    • tries to legitimize bastard birth
    • argues that conception occurred in moments of passion rather than the routine of marriage
    • Conception was better than Edgar's
  18. "I hope, for my brother's justification, he wrote this but as an essay or taste of my virtue."
    • Edmund --> Gloucester
    • wants him to see the letter
    • scheming against Edgar and Gloucester
  19. "O villain, villain! his very opinion in the letter."
    • Gloucester --> Edmund
    • shows that he has been tricked
  20. "An admirable evasion of whoremaster man, to lay his goatish disposition on the charge of a star!"
    • Edmund (soliloquy)
    • criticizes the idea of fate and blaming our action on it
  21. "Some villain hath done me wrong." "That's my fear"
    • Edgar --> Edmund
    • Dramatic irony
    • Edgar has been tricked
  22. "Let me, if not by birth, have lands by wit."
    • Edmund (soliloquy)
    • chuckles over the fact that is is easy to trick virtuous people
    • If he cannot have lands because he was born illegitimately, he will get them by being clever and tricking people
  23. "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!"
    • Goneril --> Oswald
    • wants Lear to realize he no longer has power
    • She wants Lear to complain to her
  24. "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."
    • Kent (in disguise as Caius)
    • extreme level of loyalty
    • risks death to serve a man who banished him
    • conflicts with Goneril's plan
    • selfless, model of loyalty
  25. "if thou follow him, thou must needs wear my coxcomb."
    • Fool --> Lear
    • shows that the Fool thinks that Lear is a fool (should wear the fool's hat) because he gave away his only truthful daughter
    • doesn't realize the damage that's been done
  26. "thou hadst little wit in thy bald crown when thou gav'st thy golden one away."
    • Fool --> Lear
    • Gave away crown and "golden" Cordelia
  27. "I had rather be any kind o' thing than a Fool, and yet I would not be thee"
    • Fool --> Lear
    • once again pointing out that Lear is a Fool
  28. "The hedge-sparrow fed the cuckoo so long, / That it had it head bit off by it young."
    • Fool --> Lear
    • Lear raised his daughters and gave them everything, but they selfishly "bit his hand while he was feeding them"
  29. "Yet have I left a daughter."
    • Lear --> Goneril
    • He officially cuts her off
    • refers to Regan, he has completely cut of Cordelia as well
  30. "How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is / To have a thankless child!"
    Lear --> Albany
  31. "Striving to better, oft we mar what's well."
    • Albany --> Goneril
    • stop being greedy, you will loose what you already have
  32. "Thou shouldst not have been old till thou hadst been wise."
    • Fool --> Lear
    • lacks the wisdom that would protect him in his old age
    • Lear has lost his politcal and physical strength
    • weak, does not have wisdom to avoid problems that he is not strong enough to deal with
  33. "Have you heard of no likely wars toward, / 'twixt the Dukes of Cornwall and Albany?"
    • Curan --> Edmund
    • when you divide a kingdom you put it in peril
  34. "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."
    Edmund--> Edgar
  35. "Look, sir, I bleed. . . . [Edgar] Fled this way, sir, when by no means he / could— Persuade me to the murder of you lordship."
    Edmund --> Gloucester
  36. "of my land, / Loyal and natural boy, I'll work the means / To make thee capable."
    • Gloucester --> Edmund
    • He will dispossess Edgar
  37. "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."
    Cornwall --> Edmund
  38. "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."
    • Kent --> Oswald
    • Kent loves Lear, and won't stand for Oswald insulting him
  39. "a stone-cutter or a painter could not have made him so ill, though they had been but two years o' th' trade."
    Kent --> Cornwall
  40. "Fetch forth the stocks! / You stubborn ancient knave, you reverent braggart, / We'll teach you."
    Cornwall --> Kent
  41. "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."
    Kent --> Cornwall
  42. "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."
    • edgar (soliloquy)
    • He is going to pretend to be crazy to evade detection, pretend he escaped from Bedlam
  43. "Winter's not gone yet, if the wild geese fly that way."
    • Fool --> Lear
    • Lear's life is going to get worse
  44. "I would have all well betwixt you."
    Gloucester --> Lear
  45. "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."
    Regan --> Lear
  46. "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."
    Regan --> Lear
  47. "Age is unnecessary."
    Lear --> Regan
  48. "All's not offense that indiscretion finds / And dotage terms so."
    • Goneril --> Lear
    • Just because a senile man with poor judgement calls something an insult doesn't mean it is one
  49. "Return to her? And fifty men dismiss'd? / No, rather I abjure all roofs, and choose / To wage against the enmity o' th' air."
    Lear --> Goneril
  50. "Return to her? / Persuade me rather to be slave and sumpter / To this detested groom."
    Lear --> Goneril
  51. "Thy fifty yet doth double five and twenty, / And thou art twice her love."
    Lear --> Goneril
  52. "What need you five and twenty? ten? Or five? / To follow in a house where twice so many / Have a command to tend you?"
    Goneril --> Lear
  53. "What need one?"
    Regan --> Lear
  54. "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!"
    Lear --> Goneril, Regan
  55. "Shut up our doors, my lord, 'tis a wild night, / My Regan counsels well. Come out o' th' storm."
    Cornwall --> Gloucester
  56. "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."
    Kent --> Gentleman
  57. "If you shall see Cordelia,-- / As fear not but you shall,--show her this ring; / And she will tell you who your fellow is."
    • Kent --> Gentleman
    • So she will know Kent is in the kingdom
  58. "Good nuncle, in, and ask thy daughters' blessing: / here's a night pities neither wise man nor fool."
    • Fool --> Lear
    • revealing moment, very practical
    • Maslow's Hierarchy
  59. "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."
    • Kent --> Lear
    • pathetic fallacy
  60. "I am a man / More sinn'd against than sinning."
    • Lear --> Kent
    • self-pity, suffering more than he should
  61. "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."
    Fool
  62. "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."
    • Gloucester --> Edmund
    • opening up to son, thinks he will support him
    • dramatic irony, we know Edmund will betray him
  63. "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."
    Gloucester --> Edmund
  64. "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."
    • Edmund
    • demonstrates betrayal (chilling)
  65. "The body's delicate: the tempest in my mind / Doth from my senses take all feeling else / Save what beats there. Filial ingratitude!"
    • Lear --> Kent
    • Gave so much, got so litte (nature of charity)
  66. "Hast thou given all to thy two daughters? / And art thou come to this?"
    • Lear --> Edgar (Poor Tom)
    • can only see his predicament
  67. "Do poor Tom some / charity, whom the foul fiend vexes"
    Edgar (Poor Tom) --> Lear
  68. "What, have his daughters brought him to this pass? / Couldst thou save nothing? Didst thou give them all?"
    Lear --> Fool
  69. "He hath no daughters, sir."
    • Kent --> Lear
    • trying to bring him back to reality
  70. "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."
    Lear --> Edgar
  71. "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."
    Edgar --> Lear
  72. "True or false, it hath made thee earl of / Gloucester. Seek out where thy father is, that he / may be ready for our apprehension."
    Cornwall --> Edmund (Earl of Gloucester)
  73. "It shall be done; I will arraign them straight."
    Lear --> Fool
  74. "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."
    Gloucester --> Kent
  75. "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."
    • Cornwall --> Edmund
    • doesn't see how big of a villian Edmund
  76. "What mean your graces? Good my friends, consider / You are my guests: do me no foul play, friends."
    • Gloucester --> Cornwall
    • You can't violate the rules of hospitality
  77. "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."
    • First Servant --> Cornwall
    • gauging eyes is a heinous act, showing loyalty by telling him not to do it
  78. "Lest it see more, prevent it. Out, vile jelly! / Where is thy lustre now?"
    • Cornwall --> Gloucester
    • usually gruesome acts occur offstage
  79. "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."
    Cornwall --> Regan
  80. "I have no way, and therefore want no eyes; / I stumbled when I saw."
    Gloucester --> Oldman
  81. "As flies to wanton boys are we to th' gods, / They kill us for their sport."
    Gloucester --> Old Man
  82. "'Tis the time's plague, when madmen lead the blind."
    Gloucester --> Old Man
  83. "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."
    Gloucester --> Edgar (Poor Tom)
  84. "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."
    • Oswald --> Goneril
    • Him: Albany
    • You: Goneril
    • son: Edmund
  85. "I must change names at home, and give the distaff / Into my husband's hands."
    Goneril --> Edmund
  86. "O Goneril, / You are not worth the dust which the rude wind / Blows in your face."
    Albany --> Goneril
  87. "Wisdom and goodness to the vild seem vild!"
    Albany --> Goneril
  88. "Milk-liver'd man, / That bear'st a cheek for blows."
    Goneril --> Albany
  89. "Proper deformity shows not in the fiend / So horrid as in woman."
    Albany --> Goneril
  90. "O my good lord, the Duke of Cornwall's dead, / Slain by his servant, going to put out / The other eye of Gloucester."
    First Messenger --> Albany
  91. "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."
    Goneril (aside)
  92. "Gloucester, I live / To thank thee for the love thou show'dst the King, / And to revenge thine eyes."
    Albany --> First Messenger
  93. "Why the King of France is so suddenly gone back, know you no reason?"
    Kent --> Gentleman
  94. "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."
    Gentleman --> Kent
  95. "You have seen / Sunshine and rain at once; her smiles and tears / Were like a better way."
    Gentleman --> Kent
  96. "Sorrow would be a rarity most beloved, / If all could so become it."
    Gentleman --> Kent
  97. "He that helps him take all my outward worth."
    • Cordelia --> Doctor
    • she would give anything to help her dad
  98. "O dear father, / It is thy business that I go about."
    Cordelia
  99. "No blown ambition doth our arms incite, But love, dear love, and our ag'd father's right."
    Cordelia
  100. "It was great ignorance, Gloucester's eyes being out, / To let him live; where he arrives he moves / All hearts against us."
    Regan --> Oswald
  101. "My lord is dead; Edmund and I have talk'd, / And more convenient is he for my hand / Than for your lady's."
    Regan --> Oswald
  102. "If you do chance to hear of that blind traitor, / Preferment falls on him that cuts him off."
    Regan --> Oswald
  103. "Would I could meet him, madam! I should show / What party I do follow.
    Oswald --> Regan
  104. "You are now within a foot / Of th' extreme verge."
    • Edgar --> Gloucester
    • "about to commit suicide"
  105. "This world I do renounce, and in your sights / Shake patiently my great affliction off."
    Gloucester --> Edgar
  106. "Ten masts at each make not the altitude / Which thou hast perpendicularly fell. / Thy life's a miracle."
    Edgar --> Gloucester
  107. "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."
    King Lear (unhinged) --> Gloucester
  108. "I would not take this from report; it is, / And my heart breaks at it."
    Edgar (aside)
  109. "When we are born, we cry that we are come / To this great stage of fools."
    Lear --> Gloucester
  110. "You ever-gentle gods, take my breath from me, / Let not my worser spirit tempt me again / To die before you please!"
    • Gloucester --> Edgar
    • repents suicide
  111. "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!"
    Oswald (falling) --> Edgar
  112. "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."
    • Edgar --> Gloucester
    • reading from a letter to Edmund from Goneril
  113. "Better I were distract, / So should my thoughts be sever'd from my griefs, / And woes by wrong imaginations lose / The knowledge of themselves."
    Gloucester --> Edgar
  114. O thou good Kent, how shall I live and work / To match thy goodness?"
    Cordelia --> Kent
  115. "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?"
    Cordelia --> Kent
  116. "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."
    Lear --> Cordelia
  117. "You have some cause, they have not."
    • Lear --> Cordelia
    • referring to Goneril and Regan
  118. "No cause, no cause"
    Cordelia --> Lear
  119. "The arbiterment is like to be bloody."
    Gentleman --> Kent
  120. "But have you never found my brother's way / To the forfended place?"
    Regan --> Edmund
  121. "I had rather lose the battle than that sister / Should loosen him and me."
    Goneril (aside)
  122. "Wretched though I seem, / I can produce a champion that will prove / What is avouched there."
    Edgar --> Albany
  123. "To both these sisters have I sworn my love; / Each jealous of the other, as the stung / Are of the adder."
    Edmund
  124. "Which of them shall I take? / Both? one? or neither? Neither can be enjoy'd / If both remain alive."
    Edmund
  125. "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."
    Edmund
  126. "King Lear hath lost, he and his daughter ta'en."
    Edgar --> Gloucester
  127. "Men must endure / Their going hence even as their coming hither, / Ripeness is all."
    Edgar --> Gloucester
  128. "We are not the first / Who with best meaning have incurr'd the worst."
    Cordelia --> Lear
  129. "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."
    Lear --> Cordelia
  130. "Know thou this, that men / Are as the time is: to be tender-minded / Does not become a sword."
    Edmund --> First Captain
  131. "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."
    Albany --> Edmund
  132. "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."
    Edmund --> Albany
  133. "Jesters do oft prove prophets."
    Regan --> Goneril
  134. "I create thee here / My lord and master."
    Regan --> Goneril
  135. "Edmund, I arrest thee / On capital treason, and in thy attaint / This gilded serpent."
    Albany --> Edmund
  136. "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."
    Albany --> Edgar
  137. "Sick, O, sick!" "If not, I'll ne'er trust medicine."
    • Regan then Goneril
    • Goneril has poisoned Regan
  138. "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."
    • Edgar --> Edmund
    • Edgar disguised as a knight
  139. "Back do I toss these treasons to thy head."
    Edmund --> Edgar
  140. "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."
    Goneril --> Edmund, Albany
  141. "Shut your mouth, dame, / Or with this paper shall I stopple it."
    Albany --> Goneril
  142. "Say if I do, the laws are mine, not thine; / Who can arraign me for't?"
    Goneril --> Albany
  143. "What you have charg'd me with, that have I done, / And more, much more, the time will bring it out."Ed
    Edmund --> Albany
  144. "His flaw'd heart / (Alack, too weak the conflict to support!) / 'Twixt two extremes of passion, joy and grief, / Burst smilingly."
    Edgar --> Edmund (about Gloucester)
  145. "I was contracted to them both; all three / Now marry in an instant."
    Edmund
  146. "This judgment of the heavens, that makes us tremble, / Touches us not with pity."
    Albany --> Edgar, everybody
  147. "I pant for life. Some good I mean to do, / Despite of mine own nature."
    • Edmund
    • betrays everyone, and now himself
  148. "Her voice was ever soft, / Gentle, and low, an excellent thing in woman. / I kill'd the slave that was a-hanging thee."
    Lear --> Edgar, Knights
  149. "We will resign, / During the life of this old majesty, / To him our absolute power."
    Albany --> Edgar and Kent
  150. "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."
    • Lear --> Cordelia (apostrophe)
    • dies of a broken heart like Gloucester
  151. "Vex not his ghost. O, let him pass, he hates him / That would upon the rack of this tough world / Stretch him out longer."
    Kent --> Edgar
  152. Friends of my soul, you twain / Rule in this realm, and the gor'd state sustain."
    Albany --> Kent and Edgar
  153. "I have a journey, sir, shortly to go: / My master calls me, I must not say no."
    Kent --> Albany
  154. "The oldest hath borne most; we that are young / Shall never see so much, nor live so long."
    • Edgar --> Albany, Kent, Audience
    • last line in the play
    • world is so messed up, it will never be fixed. Everyone will suffer, and nothing will be the same after this catastrophe
Author
littlepetrie
ID
70540
Card Set
King Lear Quotations
Description
Mr. Burke's Most Important King Lear Quotations
Updated