Do you not see how necessary a world of pains and troubles is to school an intelligence and make it a soul?
John KeatsRead
Ask yourself my love whether you are not very cruel to have so entrammelled me, so destroyed my freedom. Will you confess this in the Letter you must write immediately, and do all you can to console me in it — make it rich as a draught of poppies to intoxicate me —write the softest words and kiss them that I may at least touch my lips where yours have been. For myself I know not how to express my devotion to so fair a form: I want a brighter word than bright, a fairer word than fair.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote expresses a deep longing for love and a plea for understanding in a romantic relationship.
In this quote, John Keats articulates the turmoil of his emotions as he struggles with the constraints of love that seem to entrap him, all while yearning for a connection that is both profound and liberating. He requests his beloved to acknowledge the pain they both experience and to write words that can soothe and intoxicate him, revealing the intensity of his devotion and the desire for a more beautiful expression of affection.
Themes
LoveFreedomDevotionExpressionLonging
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be shared in a romantic letter to express feelings of longing.
More from John Keats
All quotes →Are there not thousands in the world who love their fellows even to the death, who feel the giant agony of the world, and more, like slaves to poor humanity, labor for mortal good?
John KeatsRead
Faded the flower and all its budded charms,Faded the sight of beauty from my eyes,Faded the shape of beauty from my arms,Faded the voice, warmth, whiteness, paradise!Vanishd unseasonably
John KeatsRead
I think we may class the lawyer in the natural history of monsters.
John KeatsRead
...I leaped headlong into the Sea, and thereby have become more acquainted with the Soundings, the quicksands, and the rocks, than if I had stayed upon the green shore, and piped a silly pipe, and took tea and comfortable advice.
John KeatsRead
You are always new, the last of your kisses was ever the sweetest.
John KeatsRead
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I am convinced that love is the most durable power in the world. It is not an expression of impractical idealism, but of practical realism. Far from being the pious injunction of a Utopian dreamer, love is an absolute necessity for the survival of our civilization. To return hate for hate does nothing but intensify the existence of evil in the universe. Someone must have sense enough and religion enough to cut off the chain of hate and evil, and this can only be done through love.
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He who desires to see the living God face-to-face should not seek him in the empty, firmament of his mind, but in human love.
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Oh, they loved dearly: their souls kissed, they kissed with their eyes, they were both but one single kiss.
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I will love you forever, he thought. I am lying, he thought, and this time he was right
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