King Lear: key quotation sheet (PDF)
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From the King Lear study guide.
How to use this sheet
These are the 11 quotations from the King Lear study guide, set out for revision. Part one gives each quotation with a plain-English reading and space for your own notes. Part two prints them again with a word missing from each line, so that you can test yourself.
- Read the quotation aloud twice. Sound helps memory more than staring does.
- In the note space, name one method (a device, a word choice, a feature of the verse) and the effect it has.
- Add one link: to a theme, to another moment in the text, or to a point of context.
- A day later, cover part one and complete part two from memory.
Part one: the quotations
Nothing will come of nothing. Speak again.
Lear · Act 1, Scene 1
Plain English: You will get nothing if you say nothing. Try again.
Method and effect:
Links to:
I love your Majesty
Cordelia · Act 1, Scene 1
According to my bond, no more nor less.
Plain English: I love you as a daughter should love her father, exactly that much.
Method and effect:
Links to:
Thou, Nature, art my goddess. To thy law
Edmund · Act 1, Scene 2
My services are bound.
Plain English: Nature, you are the goddess I serve. I follow your law and no other.
Method and effect:
Links to:
LEAR Who is it that can tell me who I am?
Lear and the Fool · Act 1, Scene 4
FOOL Lear’s shadow.
Plain English: Can anyone tell me who I am? Fool: You are only the shadow of Lear.
Method and effect:
Links to:
O, reason not the need! Our basest beggars
Lear · Act 2, Scene 4
Are in the poorest thing superfluous.
Plain English: Do not argue about what I need. Even the poorest beggar owns something more than bare necessity.
Method and effect:
Links to:
I am a man
Lear · Act 3, Scene 2
More sinned against than sinning.
Plain English: Others have wronged me more than I have wronged anyone.
Method and effect:
Links to:
O, I have ta’en
Lear · Act 3, Scene 4
Too little care of this. Take physic, pomp.
Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel
Plain English: I have neglected this. Let the powerful take their medicine and feel what the poor feel.
Method and effect:
Links to:
As flies to wanton boys are we to th’ gods;
Gloucester · Act 4, Scene 1
They kill us for their sport.
Plain English: The gods treat us as careless boys treat flies. They kill us for fun.
Method and effect:
Links to:
I am a very foolish fond old man,
Lear · Act 4, Scene 7
Fourscore and upward, not an hour more nor less
Plain English: I am a silly, doting old man, eighty and more, not an hour more or less.
Method and effect:
Links to:
Thou ’lt come no more,
Lear · Act 5, Scene 3
Never, never, never, never, never.
Plain English: You will never come back. Never.
Method and effect:
Links to:
The weight of this sad time we must obey,
Edgar · Act 5, Scene 3
Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.
Plain English: We must bear this grief and say what we truly feel, not what is expected.
Method and effect:
Links to:
Part two: test yourself
Fill each gap from memory, then check against part one. Mark the ones you missed and come back to them tomorrow.
will come of nothing. Speak again.
Lear · Act 1, Scene 1
I love your
Cordelia · Act 1, Scene 1
to my bond, no more nor less.
Thou, Nature, art my . To thy law
Edmund · Act 1, Scene 2
My are bound.
LEAR Who is it that can tell me who I am?
Lear and the Fool · Act 1, Scene 4
FOOL shadow.
O, reason not the need! Our basest
Lear · Act 2, Scene 4
Are in the poorest thing .
I am a man
Lear · Act 3, Scene 2
More sinned than sinning.
O, I have
Lear · Act 3, Scene 4
Too care of this. Take physic, pomp.
Expose thyself to feel what feel
As flies to boys are we to th’ gods;
Gloucester · Act 4, Scene 1
They kill us for sport.
I am a very fond old man,
Lear · Act 4, Scene 7
and upward, not an hour more nor less
Thou ’lt come no more,
Lear · Act 5, Scene 3
, never, never, never, never.
The of this sad time we must obey,
Edgar · Act 5, Scene 3
what we feel, not what we ought to say.
Next steps
Turn three of these quotations into full paragraphs with the essay planner, and check your method against the close reading toolkit. For a small daily dose of the language, Daily Bard shows one passage each morning with a plain-English reading on the back of the leaf.
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