KING LEAR - Themes – QUOTATIONS

Theme Character Act/Scen Quotation

e
Justice/Injustice Edg about Gl V.3.170 “The dark and vicious place where thee he got / cost him
his eyes.”
Justice/Injustice Edmund I.2.3 “plague of custom” (societal rules)
Justice/Injustice King Lear III.4.35 “That thou mayst shake the superflux to them, / And
show the heaves more just.”
Justice/Injustice Albany V.3.302 “All friends shall taste / The wages of their virtue, and all
foes / The cup of their deservings.”
Nature Cordelia IV.4.16 (to restore Lear, she calls on the) “unpublished virtues of
the earth”
Nature KL about C V.3.304 “Why should a dog, a horse, a rat have life, / And thou no
breath at all?”
Nature Edmund I.2.1-2 “Thou, Nature, art my goddess; to thy law / My services
are bound.”
Nature King Lear III.2.1/8 “Blow, winds, and crak your cheeks! Rage! Blow! … Crack
Nature’s moulds, all germens spill at once”
The ignorance King Lear III.4.29-36 “Poor naked wretches… O! I have ta’en / Too little care of
of man this.”
The ignorance Fool about KL I.5.41 “Thou should’st not have been old till thou hadst been
of man wise”
The ignorance Gentleman III.1.10 “{Lear} strives in his little world of man t out-storm / The
of man to-and-fro-conflicting wind and rain”
Betrayal vs KL about C I.1.232 “Better thou had not been than not t’ have pleased me
Loyalty better”
Betrayal vs Kent V.3.321-2 “I have a journey, sir, shortly to go;
Loyalty My master calls me, I must not say no”
Betrayal vs Cordelia to I;1.279 “Time shall unfold what plighted cunning hides”
Loyalty Gon + Reg
Vision King Lear IV.6.148 “A man may see how this world goes with no eyes”
Vision Gloucester IV.1.46 “’Tis the times’ plague, when madmen lead the blind”
Vision King Lear III.2.1-2 “Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow! You
cataracts and hurricanoes, spout”
Vision King Lear IV.1.19 “I stumbled when I saw.”
Irrationality Kent on KL I.1.145 “hideous rashness”
Irrationality King Lear III.2.58 “I am a man / More sinned against than sinning.”
Irrationality
Gender King Lear I.4.275 “Suspend they purpose, if thou didst intend / To make this
creature fertile! Into her womb convey sterility!”
Gender King Lear I.4.279 “And from her derogate body never spring / A babe to
-280 honour her!”
Gender Albany to Reg IV.2.66-68 “Thou art a fiend, / A woman’s shape doth shield thee”
“Marry, your manhood – mew!”
Madness King Lear I.5.43 “O let me not be mad, not mad, sweet heaven!”
Madness King Lear III.4.21-22 “O! that way madness lies; let me shun that; No more of
that.”
Madness King Lear III.2.68 “My wits begin to turn”
Age vs Youth King Lear I.1.112 “Here I disclaim all my paternal care”
Age vs Youth Edmund I.2.20 “Edmund the base / Shall top th’legitimate”
Age vs Youth King Lear I.4.288 “How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is / To have a
thankless child!”
Age vs Youth Edgar V.3.325 “The oldest hath borne most: we that are young / Shall
never see so much, nor live so long”
Age vs Youth Regan to KL II.4.144- “O, Sir! You are old;
146 Nature in you stands on the very verge / Of her confine”
Age vs Youth Edmund III.3.25 “The younger rises when the old doth fall.”
The Gods Gloucester IV.1.36 “As flies to wanton boys, are we to th’Gods;
They kill us for their sport”
The Gods King Lear V.3.23 (to part C + KL it will take) “a brand from heaven”
The Gods Edgar V.3.168 “The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices / Make
instruments to plague us”
The Gods King Lear II.4.188 “Heavens / If you do love old men… Make it your cause;
send down and take my part!”
Nothing C/KL/C/KL I.1.86-90 Nothing, my lord.
Nothing?
Nothing.
Nothing will come of nothing: speak again.”
Nothing Edgar V.3.323-4 “The weight of this sad time we must obey; / Speak what
we feel, not what we ought to say.”
Nothing Fool to KL I.4.191 “I am better than thou art now; I am a Fool, thou art
nothing”
Nothing Edgar II.3.3 “Edgar I nothing am.”
Suffering King Lear IV.6.183 “When we are born we cry that we are come / To this
great stage of fools”
Suffering King Lear III.4.6-9 Thou think'st 'tis much that this contentious storm /
Invades us to the skin: so 'tis to thee; / But where the
greater malady is fix'd, / The lesser is scarce felt.”
Suffering King Lear V.3.257 “Howl, howl, howl! O! you are men of stones”
Suffering Kent V.3.312/4 “Vex not his ghost: O! Let him pass; he hates him / That
would upon the rack of this tough world / Stretch him out
longer”
Power Gloucester IV.!.70 “So distribution should undo excess, / And each man have
enough”
Power Kent V.3.316 “The wonder is he hath endured so long. / He but usurped
his life”
Power King Lear II.4.265/6 “Allow not nature more than nature needs, / Man’s life is
cheap as beast’s”
Power King Lear III.4.109 “unaccommodated man is no more but such a poor, bare,
forked animal as thou art”

KING LEAR – Characters – QUOTATIONS

Character Speaker Act/Scene Quotation

King Lear KL about G I.4.267 “wrenched my frame of nature / From the fixed place”
King Lear Gl about KL IV.6.135 “O ruined piece of nature!”
King Lear King Lear III.4.12-13 “this tempest in my mind / Doth from my senses take all
feeling else”
King Lear Fool about KL I.4.146-8 Dost thou call me fool, boy? / All thy other titles thou
 hat given away, that thou wast born with”
King Lear King Lear III.2.20 “here I stand, your slave, / A poor, infirm, weak and
despised old man”
Goneril KL about G II.4.129 “Sharp-tooth’d unkindness”
Goneril G to Alb V.3.156 “the laws are mine, not thine”
Goneril + Edmund V.3.228 “I was contracted to them both: all three
Regan Now marry in an instant”
Goneril + Gloucester III.7.54-56 “Thy cruel nails pluck our his poor old eyes; Nor thy
Regan fierce sister in his anointed flesh / Rash boarish fangs”
Regan Gentleman V.3.226 “and her sister / By her is poisoned”
Regan Reagn to Glo II.1.118-126 “good old friend” “noble Gloucester” IRONY
Cordelia KL about C I.1.118/212 “my sometime daughter”…“A wretch whom nature is
ashamed”
Cordelia KL about C I.1.214 (she is his) “best object”
Cordelia Cordelia I.1.76-7 “I am sure my love’s more ponderous than my tongue”
Gloucester Gloucester IV.6.135 “This great world / Shall so wear out to naught”
Gloucester Gloucester V.3.194 “but his flaw'd heart, / Alack, too weak the conflict to
support! /'Twixt two extremes of passion, joy and grief,
/Burst smilingly.”
Gloucester Gloucester II.1.89 “O! Madam, my old heart is cracked, it’s cracked”
Edmund Edmund V.3.237 (last line) “Yet Edmund was beloved”
Edmund Edmund I.2.23 “Now, gods, stand up for bastards!”
Edmund Edgar V.3.34 “Thou art a traitor, / Flase to thy gods, thy brother, and
thy father”
Edmund Edg/Edm V.3.170/17 “The Gods are just” “The wheel is come full circle”
4
Edgar Edg to Glo IV.1.80 “Give me thy arm: Poor Tom shall lead thee.”
Edgar Edgar II.2.6-10 “I will preserve myself; and am bethought / To take the
basest and most poorest shape / That ever penury, in
contempt of man, / Brought near to beast”
Edgar Edgar V.3.187 “Into a madman’s rags, t’assume a semblance”
Fool Fool III.2.94 “This prophecy Merlin shall make; for I live before his
time”
Fool Gentleman III.1.16 (who is with Lear) “None but the Fool, who labours to
out-jest / His heart-strook injuries”
Fool Fool III.2.14 “Here’s a night pities neither wise men nor Fools.”
Fool Fool I.4.110 “Truth’s a dog must to kennel; he must be whipped
out”
Kent Kent V.3.312 (Lear’s death) “Break, heart; I prithee break!”
Kent Cornwall II.2.96 “An honest mind and plain, he must speak the truth”
Kent Kent V.3.266/28 “O my good master” “Your servant Kent”
2
Albany Albany V.3.232 (Deaths of G/R) “This judgement of the heaves, that
makes us tremble, / Touches us not with pity”
Albany Goneril I.4.341 “this milky gentleness”
Cornwall G about Corn II.4.28 “You know the fiery quality of the Duke”
Cornwall Corn to Edm III.5.24 “and thou shalt find a dearer father in my love”
Cornwall Messenger IV.2.71-2 “Slain by his servant, going to put out / The other eye of
Gloucester”
Oswald King Lear I.4.79-80 “you whore-son dog! You slave! You cur!”