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
If it will feed nothing else, it will feed my revenge.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Revenge can be a powerful motivator, even if it offers no other benefits.
This quote from Shakespeare reflects the deep emotional drive that revenge can instill in an individual. It suggests that the desire for vengeance can sustain a person, even when there are no positive outcomes associated with it. The intensity of this feeling overshadows other aspects of life, highlighting how powerful human emotions can shape motivations and actions.
Themes
RevengeMotivationEmotionHuman Nature
In practice
Example use cases
During a speech on the consequences of actions, one might invoke this quote to illustrate the darker side of human desires.
More from William Shakespeare
All quotes βLove bears it out even to the edge of doom.
William ShakespeareRead
Good company, good wine, good welcome, can make good people.
William ShakespeareRead
Absence doth sharpen love, presence strengthens it; the one brings fuel, the other blows it till it burns clear.
William ShakespeareRead
Lord, Lord, how this world is given to lying!
William ShakespeareRead
Give it an understanding, but no tongue.
William ShakespeareRead
Similar quotes
We never look at just one thing; we are always looking at the relation between things and ourselves.
John BergerRead
Deep within every man there lies the dread of being alone in the world, forgotten by God, overlooked among the tremendous household of millions and millions.
Soren KierkegaardRead
A miracle is not the breaking of physical laws, but rather represents laws which are incomprehensible to us.
G. I. GurdjieffRead
Even though we have lost yardsticks by which to measure, and rules under which to subsume the particular, a being whose essence is a beginning may have enough of origin within himself to understand without preconceived categories and to judge without the set of customary rules which is morality.
Hannah ArendtRead
No reference is truly direct β every reference depends on some kind of coding scheme. It's just a question of how implicit it is.
Douglas HofstadterRead
The river itself has no beginning or end. In its beginning, it is not yet the river; in the end it is no longer the river. What we call the headwaters is only a selection from among the innumerable sources which flow together to compose it. At what point in its course does the Mississippi become what the Mississippi means?
T. S. EliotRead