Here's a comprehensive list of some of the most important quotes from this

iconic Shakesperean tragic play.

1. "When we are born, we cry that we are come to this great stage of fools."

-King Lear, Act 4, Scene 4.

2. "As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods. They kill us for their sport."

-King Lear, Act 4, Scene 1.

3. "Nothing will come of nothing: speak again."

-King Lear, Act 4, Scene 1.

4. "The prince of darkness is a gentleman!"

-Edgar, Act 3, Scene 4.

5. "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."

-Edmund, Act 1, Scene 2

6. "I cannot heave my heart into my mouth. I love your majesty according to my
bond; no more no less."

-Cordelia, Act 1, Scene 1

7. "Thou shouldst not have been old till thou hadst been wise."

-Fool, Act 1 Scene 5

8. "How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is To have a thankless child!"

-King Lear, Act 1, Scene 4

-Edgar, Act 5, Scene 3

10. "I am a man more sinned against than sinning."

-King Lear, Act 3, Scene 2

11. “O, let me kiss that hand!

King Lear: Let me wipe it first; it smells of mortality.”

-Act 4, Scene 6

12. "A knave; a rascal; an eater of broken meats; a base, proud, shallow, beggarly,
three-suited, hundred-pound, filthy, worsted-stocking knave; a lily-livered, action-
taking knave, a whoreson, glass-gazing, super-serviceable finical rogue; one-trunk-
inheriting slave; one that wouldst be a bawd, in way of good service, and art
nothing but the composition of a knave, beggar, coward, pandar"

-Kent, Act 2, Scene 2

13. " My love's more ponderous than my tongue"

-Cordelia, Act I Scene I

14. " Now, our joy, Although our last and least "

-King Lear, Act I Scene I

15. "Thy dow'rless daughter, king, thrown to my chance, Is queen of us, of ours,
and our fair France."

-The King Of France, Act 1, Scene 1

16. "The art of our necessities is strange, That can make vile things precious.
Come, your hovel.'

-King Lear, Act I Scene I

-Edgar, Act 4, Scene 1

18. "Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! Rage! Blow! You cataracts and
hurricanoes, spout Till you have drenched our steeples, drowned the cocks! You
sulfurous 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 molds, all germens spill at once That make ingrateful
man!"

-King Lear, Act 3, Scene 2

19. "No, no, no, no! 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."

-King Lear, Act 5, Scene 3

20. "Thou art a boil, a plague sore, an embossed carbuncle in my corrupted blood."

-King Lear, Act 2, Scene 4

21. "O, that way madness lies; let me shun that."

-King Lear, Act 2, Scene 4

22. "Time shall unfold what plighted cunning hides. Who cover faults, at last
shame them derides."

-Cordelia, Act 1, Scene 1

23. "Truth's a dog must to kennel; he must be whipped out, when Lady the brach
may stand by the fire and stink."
-The Fool, Act 1, Scene 4

24. "How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child!"

-King Lear, Act 1, Scene 4

25. "O, reason not the need! our basest beggars are in the poorest thing superfluous.
Allow not nature more than nature needs, man's life's as cheap as beast's."

-King Lear, Act 2, Scene 4

26. "Poor naked wretches, whereso'er you are, That bide the pelting of this pitiless
storm, How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides, Your loop'd and window'd
raggedness, defend you From seasons such as these? O, I have ta'en Too little care
of this! Take physic, pomp; Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel"

-King Lear, Act 3, Scene 4

27. "Proper deformity shows not in the fiend so horrid as in woman."

-Albany, Act 4, Scene 2

28. "I have full cause of weeping; but this heart Shall break into a hundred
thousand flaws, Or ere I'll weep. O Fool, I shall go mad!"

-King Lear, Act 2, Scene 4

29. "Return to her, and fifty men dismiss'd? No, rather I abjure all roofs, and
choose to wage against the enmity o' th' air, to be a comrade with the wolf and owl,
— Necessity's sharp pinch!"

-King Lear, Act 2, Scene 4

30. "Ingratitude, thou marble-hearted fiend, More hideous when thou show'st thee
in a child than the sea-monster!"

-King Lear, Act 1, Scene 4

31. "I tax not you, you elements, with unkindness; I never gave you kingdom, call'd
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."
-King Lear, Act 3, Scene 2

32. "Who is it that can tell me who I am?"

-King Lear, Act 1, Scene 1

My heart into my mouth. I love your majesty

According to my bond; no more nor less.

34. 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? Why bastard? wherefore base?

Legitimate Edgar, I must have your land.

Our father’s love is to the bastard Edmund

As to the legitimate. Fine word—“legitimate”!

Well, my legitimate, if this letter speed,

And my invention thrive, Edmund the base

Shall top the legitimate. I grow; I prosper.

Now, gods, stand up for bastards!

35. O, reason not the need! Our basest beggars

Are in the poorest thing superfluous.

Allow not nature more than nature needs,

Man’s life’s as cheap as beast’s . . .

You heavens, give me that patience, patience I need!

…
If it be you that stir these daughters’ hearts

Against their father, fool me not so much

To bear it tamely; touch me with noble anger,

And let not women’s weapons, water-drops,

Stain my man’s cheeks! No, you unnatural hags,

No, I’ll not weep.

I have full cause of weeping, but this heart

Shall break into a hundred thousand flaws,

Or ere I’ll weep. O fool, I shall go mad!

36. Howl, 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!

I know when one is dead, and when one lives;

She’s dead as earth.

For example:

1-“Nothing will come of nothing.” – (Act I, Scene I) Explain this quotation by answering
the questions below:

Speaker:

Speaking To:

Context:

Analysis:

Sample Answer:

Speaker: King Lear

Speaking To: Cordelia

Context: King Lear asks his daughters for love in exchange for part ownership of the
kingdom and informs Cordelia that she must confess in order to recieve this.
Analysis: The significance of this quotation shows King Lear’s impulsive character and
relates to the theme of blind and sight. King Lear is unable to fully understand the
meaning behind Cordelia’s confession and thinks of it as slander. This supports the
theme of blindness and sight as Lear is blind to the fact that her response was genuinely
thoughtful. By unable to see the significance of her message it will lead Lear to make
impulsive decisions and think wrongly of his daughter.