William Shakespeare - King Lear (1608)

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Why bastard? wherefore base?
When my dimensions are as well compact,
My mind as generous, and my shape as true,
As honest madam's issue?

William Shakespeare
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.

William Shakespeare
Lear: Dost thou call me fool, boy?
Fool: All thy other titles thou hast given away; that thou wast born with.

William Shakespeare
That sir which serves and seeks for gain,
And follows but for form,
Will pack when it begins to rain,
And leave thee in the storm.

William Shakespeare
Ingratitude, thou marble-hearted fiend,
More hideous, when thou show'st thee in a child,
Than the sea-monster.

William Shakespeare
Goose, if I had you upon Sarum plain,
I'd drive ye cackling home to Camelot.

William Shakespeare
Talk of court news; and we'll talk with them too,
Who loses, and who wins; who's in, who's out;
And take upon 's the mystery of things,
As if we were God's spies.

William Shakespeare
The worst is not,
So long as we can say, 'This is the worst.'

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

William Shakespeare
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!

William Shakespeare
But mice and rats and such small deer Have been Tom's food for seven long year.

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

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

William Shakespeare
And my poor fool is hanged! 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!
Pray you, undo this button.

William Shakespeare
A good man's fortune may grow out at heels.

William Shakespeare
Kent: Is this the promised end?
Edgar: Or image of that horror?
Albany: Fall and cease?

William Shakespeare
I am a man
More sinn'd against than sinning.

William Shakespeare
Wisdom and goodness to the vile seem vile;
Filths savor but themselves.

William Shakespeare
What man art thou that, thus bescreened in night, So stumblest on my counsel? *Who are you? Why do you hide in the darkness and listen to my private thoughts?*

William Shakespeare
I am a very foolish, fond old man,
Fourscore and upward, not an hour more or less;
And, to deal plainly,
I fear I am not in my perfect mind.

William Shakespeare
Her voice was ever soft,
Gentle and low, an excellent thing in woman.

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

William Shakespeare
You are not worth the dust which the rude wind
Blows in your face.

William Shakespeare
Gloucester: Is't not the king?
Lear: Ay, every inch a king.

William Shakespeare
O, sir! you are old;
Nature in you stands on the very verge
Of her confine.

William Shakespeare
Who in the lusty stealth of nature take More composition and fierce quality Than doth, within a dull, stale, tired bed, Go to the creating a whole tribe of fops.

William Shakespeare
Fortune, good night, smile once more; turn thy wheel!

William Shakespeare
No, I will be the pattern of all patience; I will say nothing.

William Shakespeare
I am tied to the stake, and I must stand the course.

William Shakespeare
She that herself will sliver and disbranch
From her material sap, perforce must wither
And come to deadly use.

William Shakespeare