Shakespeare on Recognizing Ego Depletion in Ourselves and Others

Duke of Cornwall       Peace, sirrah!

                                    You beastly knave, know you no reverence?

Earl of Kent                Yes, sir, but anger hath a privilege.

(King Lear, Act 2, Scene 2, Lines 1135-1138)

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Fiery? the fiery Duke? Tell the hot Duke that-

No, but not yet! May be he is not well.

Infirmity doth still neglect all office

Whereto our health is bound. We are not ourselves

When nature, being oppress'd, commands the mind

To suffer with the body. I'll forbear;

And am fallen out with my more headier will,

To take the indispos'd and sickly fit

For the sound man.

(King Lear, Act 2, Scene 4, Lines 1381-1389)

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Give me your pardon, sir. I have done you wrong;

But pardon't, as you are a gentleman.

This presence knows,

And you must needs have heard, how I am punish'd

With sore distraction. What I have done

That might your nature, honour, and exception

Roughly awake, I here proclaim was madness.

Was't Hamlet wrong'd Laertes? Never Hamlet.

If Hamlet from himself be taken away,

And when he's not himself does wrong Laertes,

Then Hamlet does it not, Hamlet denies it.

Who does it, then? His madness. If't be so,

Hamlet is of the faction that is wrong'd;

His madness is poor Hamlet's enemy.

(Hamlet, Act 5, Scene 2, Lines 3863-3876)