King Lear

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

"A man may see how this world goes with no eyes. Look with thine ears: see how yond justice rails upon yon simple thief. Hark, in thine ear: change places; and, handy-dandy, which is the justice, which is the thief?"

"There thou mightst behold the great image of authority: a dog's obeyed in office."

"Through tatter'd clothes small vices do appear; Robes and furr'd gowns hide all. Plate sin with gold, And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks; Arm it in rags, a pigmy's straw does pierce it."

"When we are born, we cry that we are come To this great stage of fools — This' a good block: — It were a delicate strategem to shoe A troop of horse with felt: I'll put 't in proof; And when I have stol'n upon these sons-in-law, Then kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill!"

"You do me wrong to take me out o' the 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."

"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."

"You must bear with me: Pray you now, forget and forgive: I am old and foolish."

"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."

"Come, let's away to prison; We two alone will sing like birds i' the cage: When thou dost ask me blessing, 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, and hear poor rogues 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: and we'll wear out, In a wall'd prison, packs and sects of great ones That ebb and flow by the moon."

"The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices Make instruments to plague us."

"The wheel is come full circle: I am here."

"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 for ever! — I know when one is dead, and when one lives; She's dead as earth."

"And my poor fool is hang'd! 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: thank you sir. Do you see this? Look on her, look, her lips, Look there, look there!"

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

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

"The weight of this sad time we must obey; Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say. The oldest hath borne most: we that are young Shall never see so much, nor live so long."

"Plain language sounds purely objective. On the one hand, it has not the accent of mere vituperation, it is thoroughly dignified; and on the other, it is not the language of a person who is mainly concerned with wangling somebody into believing something. When Mr. Jefferson wrote that one of his associates in Washington's cabinet was "a fool and a blabber," his words, taken in their context, make exactly the same impression of calm, disinterested and objective appraisal as if he had remarked that the man had black hair and brown eyes. Or again, while we are about it, let us examine the most extreme example of this sort of thing that I have so far found in English literature, which is Kent's opinion of Oswald, in King Lear:"

"Lear is a play [that] contains a great deal of veiled social criticism — but it is all uttered either by the Fool, by Edgar when he is pretending to be mad, or by Lear during his bouts of madness. In his sane moments Lear hardly ever makes an intelligent remark."