Literary Quotes

William Shakespeare

King Lear:

• Have more than thou showest,
  Speak less than thou knowest,
  Lend less than thou owest,
  Ride more than thou goest,
  Learn more than thou trowest,
  Set less than thou throwest;
  Leave thy drink and thy whore,
  And keep in-a-door,
  And thou shall have more
  Than two tens to a score. 
  (The Fool)
• The hedge sparrow fed the cuckoo so long,
  That it had it head bit off by it young.
  (The Fool)
• Fortune, good-night: smile once more; turn thy wheel!
  (Kent)
• 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.
  But I will tarry; the fool will stay,
  And let the wise man fly:
  The knave turns fool that runs away;
  The fool, no knave, perdy.
  (The Fool)
• Our basest beggars
  Are in the poorest thing superfluous:
  Allow not nature more than nature needs,
  Man's life is cheap as beast's.
  (Lear)
• You see me here, you gods, a poor old man,
  As full of grief as age; wretched in both!
  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!
  (Lear)
• The art of our necessities is strange,
  And can make vile things precious.
  (Lear) 
• He that has and a little tiny wit,
  With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
  Must make content with his fortunes fit,
  Though the rain it raineth every day.
  (The Fool)
• He's mad, that trusts in the tameness of a wolf, a horse's health, a boy's love, or a whore's oath.
  (The Fool)
• As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods, —
  They kill us for their sport.
  (Gloucester)
• You are not worth the dust which the rude wind
  Blows in your face.
  (Albany)
• Wisdom and goodness to the vile seem vile:
  Filths savour but themselves.
  (Albany)
• 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!
  (Lear)
• 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.