Today we enjoy one of the all time great Shakespearean insults–Kent from King Lear lays into Oswald. But more than just one of the all time great take-downs, this doesn’t end with just a diatribe. It escalates into an exchange, until finally Kent beats the living daylights out of Oswald. I recommend using this today in a professional office setting.
Oswald
What dost thou know me for?
Kent
A knave; a rascal; an eater of broken meats; a
base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three-suited,
hundred-pound, filthy, worsted-stocking knave; a
lily-livered, action-taking knave, a whoreson,
glass-gazing, super-serviceable finical rogue;
one-trunk-inheriting slave; one that wouldst be a
bawd, in way of good service, and art nothing but
the composition of a knave, beggar, coward, pandar,
and the son and heir of a mongrel bitch: one whom I
will beat into clamorous whining, if thou deniest
the least syllable of thy addition.
Oswald
Why, what a monstrous fellow art thou, thus to rail
on one that is neither known of thee nor knows thee!
Kent
What a brazen-faced varlet art thou, to deny thou
knowest me! Is it two days ago since I tripped up
thy heels, and beat thee before the king? Draw, you
rogue: for, though it be night, yet the moon
shines; I’ll make a sop o’ the moonshine of you:
draw, you whoreson cullionly barber-monger, draw.
Drawing his sword
Oswald
Away! I have nothing to do with thee.
Kent
Draw, you rascal: you come with letters against the
king; and take vanity the puppet’s part against the
royalty of her father: draw, you rogue, or I’ll so
carbonado your shanks: draw, you rascal; come your ways.
Oswald
Help, ho! murder! help!
Kent
Strike, you slave; stand, rogue, stand; you neat
slave, strike.
Beating him
–From King Lear, Act II, Scene ii
Art is My Religion 
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