"King Lear" by William Shakespeare, Act 4

The lamentable change is from the best;
The worst returns to laughter. Welcome, then,
Thou unsubstantial air that I embrace.

As flies to wanton boys are we to th’ gods;
They kill us for their sport.

A father, and a gracious agèd man,
Whose reverence even the head-lugged bear would lick,
Most barbarous, most degenerate, have you madded.

Milk-livered man,
That bear’st a cheek for blows, a head for wrongs;
Who hast not in thy brows an eye discerning
Thine honor from thy suffering; that not know’st
Fools do those villains pity who are punished
Ere they have done their mischief.

Our foster nurse of nature is repose,
The which he lacks.

No blown ambition doth our arms incite,
But love, dear love, and our aged father’s right.

Madam, with much ado.
Your sister is the better soldier.

It was great ignorance, Gloucester’s eyes being out,
To let him live. Where he arrives he moves
All hearts against us. Edmund, I think, is gone,
In pity of his misery, to dispatch
His nighted life; moreover to descry
The strength o’ th’ enemy.

O you mighty gods! [He kneels.]
This world I do renounce, and in your sights
Shake patiently my great affliction off.

Hadst thou been aught but gossamer, feathers, air,
So many fathom down precipitating,
Thou ’dst shivered like an egg; but thou dost breathe,
Hast heavy substance, bleed’st not, speak’st, art sound.

Give me an ounce of civet, good apothecary; sweeten my imagination.

O ruined piece of nature! This great world
Shall so wear out to naught.

When we are born, we cry that we are come
To this great stage of fools.—This’ a good block.
It were a delicate stratagem to shoe
A troop of horse with felt. I’ll put ’t in proof,
And when I have stol’n upon these son-in-laws,
Then kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill!

O, untimely death! Death!

Be by, good madam, when we do awake him.
I doubt not of his temperance.