"How, nothing will come of nothing."
When Lear asks his daughters to tell him how much they love him, Cordelia tells him she has nothing to say. This quotation is Lear's response, in which he implies to Cordelia that she will receive no part of her inheritance if she remains quiet. However, this quotation also addresses one of the major motifs in the play – nothingness. Eventually, Lear himself is stripped of his kingdom and left with "nothing," and in the end, the play nihilistically questions whether "nothingness" is the natural state of the world.
"As much as child e’er loved, or father found, / A love that makes breath poor and speech unable, / Beyond all manner of so much I love you."
When Lear asks his daughters to compete for his affections, this is Goneril's response to his request. She explains that her love for her father renders her incapable of speech. Goneril is, however, delivering a speech to her father at the same time, therefore indicating that she is disingenuous in her praise.
"He hath ever but slenderly known himself."
In a moment of wisdom, Regan describes what will turn out to be Lear's fatal flaw: he has yet to realize who he truly is. Thinking himself still a powerful king rather than an aged man, Lear's decision to disinherit Cordelia spurs his downfall. Ironically, it is this very fall that helps Lear gain the self-knowledge he desperately needs, though not before the tragic end of the play.
"What shall Cordelia speak? Love, and be silent."
In this aside, Cordelia expresses her confusion over being asked to describe her love for Lear. Instead, Cordelia suggests that love is something that can necessarily be put into words (indeed, her sisters prove through their own speeches that love is often obscured by language of flattery). Instead, Cordelia chooses to remain silent precisely as a dramatization of her loyalty to Lear, who wrongly interprets her silence as indignation.
"I love your majesty / According to my bond, no more nor less."
This quotation is Cordelia's response to Lear's solicitation of affection from his three daughters. Lear is offended by the statement because Cordelia does not over-exaggerate her love for her father as her two sisters do. Her use of the word "bond" signifies her relationship to Lear both as his daughter and as his subject, highlighting her own self-knowledge and reverence for her father's position despite Lear's perception that she is being withholding.
"Why brand they us / With base? With baseness? Bastardy? Base, base?"
Here, Edmund questions why he has been so "branded" with his status as Gloucester's bastard. While Edmund is a clear antagonist in King Lear, this moment offers insight into his behavior, as he is clearly preoccupied with his lower status thrust upon him by a society that devalues and debases illegitimate children.
"O dear father, / It is thy business that I go about."
Cordelia returns to England after being exiled by her father, but in this quotation she explains that she has not returned for vengeance. Instead, Cordelia expresses her continued loyalty to Lear, which at this point in the play he is finally starting to recognize. Furthermore, this quotation mirrors Christ's words in the Bible when he says, "I must go about my father's business" (Luke 2:49). By associating Cordelia with Christ, the play emphasizes her own innocence while also foreshadowing her death.
"I am a very foolish, fond old man, / Fourscore and upward, not an hour more nor less; / And to deal plainly, / I fear I am not in my perfect mind."
Toward the end of the play, as Lear descends into madness, he ironically develops clarity about his position. In the beginning of the play, Lear is blinded by his power as a king, which ultimately catalyzes his own downfall. However, in this quotation, Lear is able to speak clearly and accurately about who he is – an aging, powerless man who has partially lost his grip on reality.
"As flies to wanton boys are we to th’ gods / They kill us for their sport."
In this quotation, Gloucester argues that cruelty is simply a fact of life. After being brutally blinded, Gloucester has come to see the world as nothing but bleak, and life as nothing but doom. Gloucester here raises one of the central questions of King Lear – whether life on earth has any inherent meaning or value at all.
"No, no, no life! / Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life, / and thou no breath at all? Thou'lt come no more, / never, never, never, never, never!"
Lear is devastated by the death of his youngest daughter Cordelia at the end of the play. In this quotation, he asks why other animals still possess life when Cordelia is dead. The repetition of the word "never" also dramatizes the extent of Lear's loss: so destroyed by the news of his daughter's death, Lear loses his sense of language and foreshadows the finality of his own death to follow.
