LUCIO: Thou concludest like the sanctimonious pirate, that went to sea with the Ten Commandments, but scraped one out of the table.
Measure for Measure, I, ii
LUCIO: Why, how now, Claudio! whence comes this restraint?
CLAUDIO: From too much liberty, my Lucio,
liberty:
As surfeit is the father of much fast,
So every scope by the immoderate use
Turns to restraint. Our natures do pursue,
Like rats that ravin down their proper bane,
A thirsty evil; and when we drink we die.
Measure for Measure, I, ii
DUKE: We have strict statutes and most biting
laws.
The needful bits and curbs to headstrong weeds.
Measure for Measure, I, iii
DUKE: Hence shall we see, if power change purpose, what our seemers be.
Measure for Measure, I, iii
LUCIO: Our doubts are traitors
And make us lose the good we oft might win
By fearing to attempt.
Measure for Measure, I, iv
ISABELLA: O, it is excellent
To have a giant's strength; but it is tyrannous
To use it like a giant.
Measure for Measure, II, ii
CLAUDIO: The miserable have no other medicine but only hope.
Measure for Measure, III, i
DUKE: Thou hast nor youth nor age,
But, as it were, an after-dinner's sleep,
Dreaming on both; for all thy blessed youth
Becomes as aged, and doth beg the alms
Of palsied eld; and when thou art old and rich,
Thou hast neither heat, affection, limb, nor beauty,
To make thy riches pleasant. What's yet in this
That bears the name of life? Yet in this life
Lie hid moe thousand deaths: yet death we fear,
That makes these odds all even.
Measure for Measure, III, i
DUKE: There, at the moated grange, resides this dejected Mariana.
Measure for Measure, III, i
DUKE: No might nor greatness in
mortality
Can censure 'scape; back-wounding calumny
The whitest virtue strikes.
Measure for Measure, III, ii
DUKE: There is scarce truth enough alive to make societies secure; but security enough to make fellowships accurst: much upon this riddle runs the wisdom of the world.
Measure for Measure, III, ii
DUKE: This news is old enough, yet it is every day's news.
Measure for Measure, III, ii
DUKE: Shame to him whose cruel striking
Kills for faults of his own liking.
Measure for Measure, III, ii
DUKE: O, what may man within him hide,
Though angel on the outward side!
Measure for Measure, III, ii
DUKE: Craft against vice I must apply.
Measure for Measure, III, ii
DUKE: Put not yourself into amazement how these things should be: all difficulties are but easy when they are known.
Measure for Measure, IV, ii
POMPEY: Pray, Master Barnardine, awake till you are executed, and sleep afterwards.
Measure for Measure, IV, iii
DUKE: O, your desert speaks loud; and I should
wrong it,
To lock it in the wards of covert bosom,
When it deserves, with characters of brass,
A forted residence 'gainst the tooth of time
And razure of oblivion.
Measure for Measure, V, i
DUKE: Laws for all faults,
But faults so countenanced, that the strong statutes
Stand like the forfeits in a barber's shop,
As much in mock as mark.
Measure for Measure, V, i
LEAR: Know that we have divided
In three our kingdom: and 'tis our fast intent
To shake all cares and business from our age;
Conferring them on younger strengths while we
Unburthen'd crawl toward death.
King Lear, I, i
LEAR: Strive to be interess'd; what can you
say to draw
A third more opulent than your sisters? Speak.
CORDELIA: Nothing, my lord.
KING LEAR: Nothing?
CORDELIA: Nothing.
KING LEAR: Nothing will come of nothing: speak again.
King Lear, I, i
LEAR: Come not between the dragon and his wrath.
King Lear, I, i
FRANCE: Fairest Cordelia, that art most rich,
being poor;
Most choice, forsaken; and most loved, despised!
Thee and thy virtues here I seize upon:
Be it lawful I take up what's cast away.
King Lear, I, i
REGAN: 'Tis the infirmity of his age: yet he
hath ever
but slenderly known himself.
King Lear, I, i
EDMUND: Thou, nature, art my goddess.
King Lear, I, ii
EDMUND: 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?
King Lear, I, ii
EDMUND: Now, gods, stand up for bastards!
King Lear, I, ii
GLOUCESTER: We have seen the best of our time: machinations, hollowness, treachery, and all ruinous disorders, follow us disquietly to our graves.
King Lear, I, ii
EDMUND: 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.
King Lear, I, ii
KENT: I do profess to be no less than I seem; to serve him truly that will put me in trust: to love him that is honest; to converse with him that is wise, and says little; to fear judgment; to fight when I cannot choose; and to eat no fish.
King Lear, I, iv
LEAR: Dost thou know me, fellow?
KENT: No, sir; but you have that in your countenance which I would fain call master.
LEAR: What's that?
KENT: Authority.
King Lear, I, iv
FOOL: Truth's a dog must to kennel.
King Lear, I, iv
FOOL: Have more than thou showest,
Speak less than thou knowest,
Lend less than thou owest,
Ride more than thou goest.
King Lear, I, iv
LEAR: Dost thou call me fool, boy?
FOOL: All thy other titles thou hast given away; that thou wast born with.
King Lear, I, iv
FOOL: Thou wast a pretty fellow when thou hadst no need to care for her frowning; now thou art an O without a figure. I am better than thou art now; I am a fool, thou art nothing.
King Lear, I, iv
LEAR: Ingratitude, thou marble-hearted
fiend,
More hideous when thou show'st thee in a child
Than the sea-monster!
King Lear, I, iv
LEAR: How sharper than a serpent's tooth it
is
To have a thankless child!
King Lear, I, iv
FOOL: The reason why the seven stars are no more than seven is a pretty reason.
LEAR: Because they are not eight?
FOOL: Yes, indeed: thou wouldst make a good fool.
King Lear, I, v
KENT: Thou whoreson zed! thou unnecessary letter!
King Lear, II, ii
EDGAR: My face I'll grime with filth;
Blanket my loins: elf all my hair in knots;
And with presented nakedness out-face
The winds and persecutions of the sky.
King Lear, II, iii
FOOL: Fortune, that arrant whore,
Ne'er turns the key to the poor.
King Lear, II, iv
FOOL: Let go thy hold when a great wheel runs down a hill, lest it break thy neck with following it: but the great one that goes up the hill, let him draw thee after.
King Lear, II, iv
FOOL: When a wise man gives thee better counsel, give me mine again: I would have none but knaves follow it, since a fool gives it.
King Lear, II, iv
LEAR: Vengeance! plague! death! confusion!
King Lear, II, iv
GONERIL: All's not offence that indiscretion
finds
And dotage terms so.
King Lear, II, iv
LEAR: You see me here, you gods, a poor old
man,
As full of grief as age; wretched in both.
King Lear, II, iv
REGAN: O, sir, to wilful men,
The injuries that they themselves procure
Must be their schoolmasters.
King Lear, II, iv
LEAR: Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!
King Lear, III, ii
LEAR: And thou, all-shaking thunder,
Strike flat the thick rotundity o' the world!
King Lear, III, ii
LEAR: I tax not you, you elements, with
unkindness;
I never gave you kingdom, call'd you children,
You owe me no subscription.
King Lear, III, ii
LEAR: No, I will be the pattern of all
patience;
I will say nothing.
King Lear, III, ii
LEAR: I am a man more sinn'd against than sinning.
King Lear, III, ii
LEAR: My wits begin to turn.
King Lear, III, ii
LEAR: The art of our necessities is
strange,
And can make vile things precious.
King Lear, III, ii
FOOL: This prophecy Merlin shall make, for I live before his time.
King Lear, III, ii
LEAR: But where the greater malady is
fix'd,
The lesser is scarce felt.
King Lear, III, iv
LEAR: O, that way madness lies.
King Lear, III, iv
LEAR: 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?
King Lear, III, iv
LEAR: O, I have ta'en
Too little care of this! Take physic, pomp;
Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel.
King Lear, III, iv
EDGAR: False of heart, light of ear, bloody of hand; hog in sloth, fox in stealth, wolf in greediness, dog in madness, lion in prey.
King Lear, III, iv
LEAR: Is man no more than this? Consider him well.
King Lear, III, iv
EDGAR: The prince of darkness is a gentleman.
King Lear, III, iv
EDGAR: Child Rowland to the dark tower came.
King Lear, III, iv
EDGAR: Purr the cat is gray.
King Lear, III, vi
EDGAR: Who alone suffers suffers most i' the
mind,
Leaving free things and happy shows behind:
But then the mind much sufferance doth o'er skip,
When grief hath mates, and bearing fellowship.
King Lear, III, vi
GLOUCESTER: I am tied to the stake, and I must stand the course.
King Lear, III, vii
EDGAR: The lamentable change is from the
best;
The worst returns to laughter.
King Lear, IV, i
EDGAR: World, world, O world!
But that thy strange mutations make us hate thee,
Life would not yield to age.
King Lear, IV, i
GLOUCESTER: Full oft 'tis seen,
Our means secure us, and our mere defects
Prove our commodities.
King Lear, IV, i
EDGAR: The worst is not, so long as we can say "This is the worst."
King Lear, IV, i
GLOUCESTER: As flies to wanton boys, are we to
the gods.
They kill us for their sport.
King Lear, IV, i
GLOUCESTER: 'Tis the time's plague, when madmen lead the blind.
King Lear, IV, i
ALBANY: Wisdom and goodness to the vile seem
vile:
Filths savour but themselves.
King Lear, IV, ii