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How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child!
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“How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child!”

William Shakespeare

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Source
King Lear
Date
c. 1606
Local voice
Fictional character · King Lear
Meaning

Meaning of “How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is…”

The image captures the particular hurt of care being answered by ingratitude within a close family bond.

Source context

Where does it come from?

King Lear, Act I, Scene IV, reviewed against the scan-backed First Folio facsimile. Lear's serpent's-tooth line occurs inside his curse against Goneril after the reduction of his retinue; it is angry dramatic speech, not a neutral rule about children or family relationships.

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Speaker context

Why the local voice matters

Lear speaks in King Lear, Act 1, Scene 4.

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Themes

Ideas connected with this quotation

FamilyGratitudeHappinessHealingJoyPositive Quotes About a Constructive OutlookRelationshipShortChildrenHurtParentingWords of Wisdom: Practical & Philosophical Counsel
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Source identified
We've got Father and Mother, and each other.
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“We've got Father and Mother, and each other.”

Louisa May Alcott · Little Women · 1868
Voice: Fictional character · Beth March
Meaning & context

Beth answers material lack by naming the relationships the sisters still possess, turning family presence into a concrete reason for gratitude rather than denying hardship.

Source details

Little Women, Chapter 1, “Playing Pilgrims,” Project Gutenberg #514. Beth March answers her sisters’ complaints about poverty with “We’ve got Father and Mother, and each other,” naming family relationships as what remains available to them. This is Beth’s fictional dialogue inside the opening domestic scene.

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Best of all the harvest are the happy children in the home to-night.
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“Best of all the harvest are the happy children in the home to-night.”

Louisa May Alcott · Little Men · 1871
Voice: Narrator voice · Narrator
Meaning & context

The household’s most valuable outcome is not material production but the children growing within it; family care is pictured as a harvest measured in human flourishing.

Source details

Little Men; the closing harvest imagery turns the children gathered at home into the household’s most important yield and source of gratitude.

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If ever two were one, then surely we.
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“If ever two were one, then surely we.”

Anne Bradstreet · To My Dear and Loving Husband · 1678
Meaning & context

Bradstreet opens with a compact assertion of marital unity, setting up a poem that measures the value of mutual love against material wealth and even mortality.

Source details

“To My Dear and Loving Husband,” posthumously published in the 1678 second edition of Several Poems; represented by Representative Poetry Online. The poem is a Puritan-era personal love lyric with explicitly religious closing language.

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It must be beautiful to have a mother!
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“It must be beautiful to have a mother!”

Louisa May Alcott · Eight Cousins; Or, The Aunt-Hill · 1875
Voice: Fictional character · Rose Campbell
Meaning & context

The brief exclamation treats maternal care as something precious precisely because the speaker recognizes what it would mean to have that relationship available.

Source details

Eight Cousins; Or, The Aunt-Hill, Chapter 17, Project Gutenberg #38567. Spoken during a conversation about parents and confidences; the emotional force comes from imagined or absent maternal care.

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