King Lear Quotes

King Lear is one of the most famous plays by William Shakespeare, based on a legendary king (Leir). The plot has influenced various other novels, including A Thousand Acres, by Jane Smiley. Take a look at these quotes from King Lear, one of the greatest tragedies in English literature:

• "Meantime we shall express our darker purpose."
  - William Shakespeare, King Lear, 1.1.36
  
  
• "Although the last, not least."
  - William Shakespeare, King Lear, 1.1.85
  
  
• "Nothing will come of nothing: speak again."
  - William Shakespeare, King Lear, 1.1.92
  
  
• "Come not between the dragon and his wrath."
  - William Shakespeare, King Lear, 1.1.124
  
  
• "Mend your speech a little,
  Lest it may mar your fortunes."
  - William Shakespeare, King Lear, 1.1.97
  
  
• "I want that glib and oily art
  To speak and purpose not; since what I well intend,
  I'll do't before I speak."
  - William Shakespeare, King Lear, 1.1.227
  
  
• "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."
  - William Shakespeare, King Lear, 1.1.230
  
  
• "Love is not love
  When it is mingled with regards that stand
  Aloof from the entire point."
  - William Shakespeare, King Lear, 1.1.241
  
  
• "Fairest Cordelia, that art most rich, being poor;
  Most choice, forsaken; and most loved, despised!"
  - William Shakespeare, King Lear, 1.1.253
  
  
• "Time shall unfold what plaited cunning hides."
  - William Shakespeare, King Lear, 1.1.302
  
  
• "I grow, I prosper;
  Now, gods, stand up for bastards!"
  - William Shakespeare, King Lear, 1.2.21
  
  
• "This is the excellent foppery of the world, that,
  when we are sick in fortune,--often the surfeit
  of our own behavior,--we make guilty of our
  disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars: as
  if we were villains by necessity; fools by
  heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and
  treachers, by spherical predominance; drunkards,
  liars, and adulterers, by an enforced obedience of
  planetary influence; and all that we are evil in,
  by a divine thrusting on: an admirable evasion
  of whoremaster man, to lay his goatish
  disposition to the charge of a star!"
  - William Shakespeare, King Lear, 1.2.132
  
  
• "Pat he comes, like the catastrophe of the old comedy; my cue is villanous melancholy, with a sigh like Tom o' Bedlam."
  - William Shakespeare, King Lear, 1.2.150
  
  
• "Have more than thou showest,
  Speak less than thou knowest,
  Lend less than thou owest."
  - William Shakespeare, King Lear, 1.4.132
  
  
• "Who is it that can tell me who I am?"
  - William Shakespeare, King Lear, 1.4.230
  
  
• "Ingratitude, thou marble-hearted fiend,
  More hideous, when thou show'st thee in a child,
  Than the sea-monster."
  - William Shakespeare, King Lear, 1.4.283
  
  
• "How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is
  To have a thankless child!"
  - William Shakespeare, King Lear, 1.4.312
  
  
• "Striving to better, oft we mar what's well."
  - William Shakespeare, King Lear, 1.4.346
  
  
• "O! let me not be mad, not mad, sweet heaven;
  Keep me in temper; I would not be mad!"
  - William Shakespeare, King Lear, 1.5.51
  
  
• "Down, thou climbing sorrow!
  Thy element's below."
  - William Shakespeare, King Lear, 2.4.57
  
  
• "O, sir! you are old;
  Nature in you stands on the very verge
  Of her confine."
  - William Shakespeare, King Lear, 2.4.148
  
  
• "Necessity's sharp pinch!"
  - William Shakespeare, King Lear, 2.4.231
  
  
• "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."
  - William Shakespeare, King Lear, 2.4.264
  
  
• "You see me here, you gods, a poor old man,
  As full of grief as age; wretched in both!"
  - William Shakespeare, King Lear, 2.4.274
  
  
• "Let not women's weapons, water-drops,
  Stain my man's cheeks!"
  - William Shakespeare, King Lear, 2.4.277
  
  
• "Contending with the fretful elements;
  Bids the wind blow the earth into the sea,
  Or swell the curled waters 'bove the main,
  That things might change or cease."
  - William Shakespeare, King Lear, 3.1.4
  
  
• "Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!
  You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout
  Till you have drenched our steeples, drowned the cocks!
  You sulphurous and thought-executing fires,
  Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts,
  Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder,
  Strike flat the thick rotundity o' the world!
  Crack nature's moulds, all germens spill at once
  That make ingrateful man!"
  - William Shakespeare, King Lear, 3.2.1
  
  
• "Rumble thy bellyful! Spit, fire! Spout, rain!
  Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire, are my daughters:
  I tax not you, you elements, with unkindness;
  I never gave you kingdom, called you children,
  You owe me no subscription: then, let fall
  Your horrible pleasure; here I stand, your slave,
  A poor, infirm, weak, and despised old man."
  - William Shakespeare, King Lear, 3.2.14
  
  
• "No, I will be the pattern of all patience; I will say nothing."
  - William Shakespeare, King Lear, 3.2.37
  
  
• "Marry, here's grace and a cod-piece; that's a wise man and a fool."
  - William Shakespeare, King Lear, 3.2.40
  
  
• "Things that love night
  Love not such nights as these."
  - William Shakespeare, King Lear, 3.2.42
  
  
• "Close pent-up guilts,
  Rive your concealing continents, and cry
  These dreadful summoners grace. I am a man
  More sinned against than sinning."
  - William Shakespeare, King Lear, 3.2.57
  
  
• "The art of our necessities is strange,
  That can make vile things precious."
  - William Shakespeare, King Lear, 3.2.70
  
  
• "He that has a little tiny wit,
  With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
  Must make content with his fortunes fit,
  Though the rain it raineth every day."
  - William Shakespeare, King Lear, 3.2.74
  
  
• "When the mind's free,
  The body's delicate."
  - William Shakespeare, King Lear, 3.4.11
  
  
• "Oh, that way madness lies; let me shun that."
  - William Shakespeare, King Lear, 3.4.21
  
  
• "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?"
  - William Shakespeare, King Lear, 3.4.28