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
The hind that would be mated by the lion _x000D_ _x000D_ Must die for love.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote suggests that love often requires sacrifice and sometimes even leads to one's demise.
In this quote, Shakespeare conveys the idea that those who seek to unite with someone as powerful and consuming as a lion must be prepared to face great risks, including the ultimate sacrifice of their own life. It reflects the intense nature of love and the lengths to which individuals will go to attain it, emphasizing the duality of love as both alluring and perilous.
Themes
LoveSacrificeRiskPassionUnion
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be shared at a wedding to emphasize the depth of love and commitment involved.
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Absence doth sharpen love, presence strengthens it; the one brings fuel, the other blows it till it burns clear.
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Lord, Lord, how this world is given to lying!
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Give it an understanding, but no tongue.
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Similar quotes
But if in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure, then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love's threshing-floor, into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.
Khalil GibranRead
Once I knew the depth where no hope was and darkness lay on the face of all things. Then love came and set my soul free. Once I fretted and beat myself against the wall that shut me in. My life was without a past or future, and death a consummation devoutly to be wished. But a little word from the fingers of another fell into my hands that clutched at emptiness, and my heart leaped up with the rapture of living. I do not know the meaning of the darkness, but I have learned the overcoming of it.
Helen KellerRead
Never pretend to a love which you do not actually feel, for love is not ours to command.
Alan WattsRead
Sometimes I have the strangest feeling about you. Especially when you are near me as you are now. It feels as though I had a string tied here under my left rib where my heart is, tightly knotted to you in a similar fashion. And when you go to Ireland, with all that distance between us, I am afraid that this cord will be snapped, and I shall bleed inwardly.
Charlotte BronteRead
The knowledge that she would never be loved in return acted upon her ideas as a tide acts upon cliffs.
Thornton WilderRead
It could all be so simple, but you'd rather make it hard, loving you is like a battle, and we both end up with scars
Lauryn HillRead