As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends, / I must not look to have; but, in their stead, / Curses, not loud but deep, mouth-honour, breath, / Which the poor heart would fain deny, and dare not" (5.3.25-28).
William ShakespeareRead
O, call back yesterday, bid time return
Interpretation
This quote expresses a longing to return to the past and undo the events that have occurred.
In this quote from Shakespeare, the speaker yearns for the ability to go back in time and revisit moments that have passed, indicating a deep desire to correct mistakes or relive cherished experiences. It reflects the human condition of nostalgia and the wish to change the course of events that have led to current circumstances, highlighting the tension between time and human agency.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of learning from our past mistakes.
As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends, / I must not look to have; but, in their stead, / Curses, not loud but deep, mouth-honour, breath, / Which the poor heart would fain deny, and dare not" (5.3.25-28).
Love bears it out even to the edge of doom.
Good company, good wine, good welcome, can make good people.
Absence doth sharpen love, presence strengthens it; the one brings fuel, the other blows it till it burns clear.
Lord, Lord, how this world is given to lying!
Give it an understanding, but no tongue.
People couldn't become truly holy, he said, unless they also had the opportunity to be definitively wicked.
Better not be at all than not be noble.
...she moved about in a mental cloud of many-coloured idealities, which eclipsed all sinister contingencies by its brightness.
Philosophers should consider the fact that the greatest happiness principle can easily be made an excuse for a benevolent dictatorship. We should replace it by a more modest and more realistic principle - the principle that the fight against avoidable misery should be a recognized aim of public policy, while the increase of happiness should be left, in the main, to private initiative.
Nothing can prevent us from another day and night, and the myth of perpetual flight.
Whoever conquers a free town and does not demolish it commits a great error and may expect to be ruined himself.
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