Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down

... villainy is never at a stop ... crimes lead to crimes, and at last terminate in ruin.

-- Samuel Johnson, General Observation on King Lear, 1765

What wretches feel when they give all

 

Fortune, that arrant whore, Ne’er turns the key to th’ poor.

-- William Shakespeare, King Lear, Act 2, Scene 4

The impossibility of extremity: The worst is not

Who is't can say I'm at the worst?

I'm worse than e'er I was,

And worse I may be yet: The worst is not,

So long as I can say, this is the worst.

-- William Shakespeare, King Lear, Act 4, Scene 1

And then there is the plague of leadership

'Tis the time's plague, when madmen lead the blind.

-- William Shakespeare, King Lear, Act 4, Scene 1

Fie, foh and fumme, we mark the birth of an Englishman

Childe Rowland to the darke Tower came, His word was still, fie, foh, and fumme, I smell the blood of a Brittish man.

-- Edgar in William Shakespeare's King Lear, Act III, Scene IV

Sharper than a serpent's tooth it is, to have a thankless child

Shakespearean schadenfreude

When we our betters see bearing our woes,

We scarcely think our miseries our foes.

Who alone suffers, suffers most i' th' mind,

Leaving free things and happy shows behind.

But then the mind much sufferance doth o'erskip

When grief hath mates and bearing fellowship.

How light and portable my pain seems now

When that which makes me bend makes the king bow.

-- William Shakespeare, King Lear, Act 3, Scene 6

We unburdened crawl toward death

Meantime we shall express our darker purpose.
Give me the map there. Know that we have divided
In three our kingdom: and 'tis our fast intent
To shake all cares and business from our age;
Conferring them on younger strengths, while we
Unburthen'd crawl toward death.

-- William Shakespeare, King Lear, Act I, Scene 1

On Shakespeare's When we are born, we cry . . .

 

When we are born, we cry, that we are come to this great stage of fools.

 

And when we die, we whimper, that we played our part too well.

"B" Bawls

 

When we are born, we cry, that we are come

To this great stage of fools.

-- William Shakespeare