King Lear Quotes

"Nothing will come of nothing."

"I want that glib and oily art
To speak and purpose not."

"Yet he hath ever but slenderly known himself."

"Thou, Nature, art my goddess."

"These late eclipses in the sun and moon portend no good to us."

"As if we were villains on necessity; fools by heavenly compulsion."

"Old fools are babes again."

"Thou hast pared thy wit o' both sides and left nothing in the middle."

"My old heart is cracked; it's cracked."

"I will preserve myself, and am bethought
To take the basest and most poorest shape
That ever penury in contempt of man
Brought near to beast."

"O sir, you are old.
Nature I you stands on the very verge
Of his confine."

"O, reason not the need! Our basest beggars
Are in the poorest thing superfluous.
Allow not nature more than nature needs,
Man's life is cheap as beast's."

"Here's a night pities neither wise men nor fools."

"The art of our necessities is strange
And can make vile things precious."

"Poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are,
That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm,
How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides,
Your looped and windowed raggedness defend you
From seasons such as these? O I have taken
Too little care of this."

"Child Rowland to the dark tower came
His word was still 'Fie, foh, and fum,
I smell the blood of a British man."

"All the power of his wits have given way to his impatience."

"Out, vile jelly!"

"The worst is not
So long as we can say 'This is the worst.'"

"The nature which contemns its origin
Cannot be bordered certain in itself."

"How fearful
And dizzy tis to cast one's eyes so low!
[…]
I'll look no more
Lest my brain turn and the deficient sight
Topple down headlong."

"Gloucester: Oh let me kiss that hand!
Lear: Let me wipe it first; it smells of mortality."

"No, no, no, no. Come, let's away to prison.
We two alone will sing like birds in the cage."

"Howl, howl, howl! O, you are men of stones!
Had I your tongues and eyes, I'd use them so
That heaven's vault should crack. She's gone forever."

"No, no, no life?
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."