Poets are being pursued by the philosophers today, out of the poverty of philosophy. God damn it, you might think a man had no business to be writing, to be a poet unless some philosophic stinker gave him permission.
William Carlos WilliamsRead
What power has love but forgiveness? In other words by its intervention what has been done can be undone. What good is it otherwise?
Interpretation
What this quote means
Love is empowered by the ability to forgive, allowing for the rectification of past wrongs.
This quote suggests that true love is not just about affection but also about the capacity to forgive. It proposes that without forgiveness, love loses its transformative power; it emphasizes that love can heal and restore what has been damaged, making it essential for meaningful relationships.
Themes
LoveForgivenessPowerRelationshipsHealing
In practice
Example use cases
This quote could be shared during a wedding ceremony to highlight the importance of forgiveness in marriage.
More from William Carlos Williams
All quotes →For the beginning is assuredly the end- since we know nothing, pure and simple, beyond our own complexities.
William Carlos WilliamsRead
It was the love of love, the love of swallows up all else, a grateful love, a love of natural, of people, of animals, a love ingengering gentleness and goodness that moved meand that I saw in you
William Carlos WilliamsRead
O frost bitten blossoms, That are unfolding your wings From out the envious black branches. Bloom quickly and make much of the sunshine. The twigs conspire against you! Hear hem! They hold you from behind.
William Carlos WilliamsRead
No opinion can be trusted; even the facts may be nothing but a printer's error.
William Carlos WilliamsRead
It is almost impossible to state what one in fact believes, because it is almost impossible to hold a belief and to define it at the same time.
William Carlos WilliamsRead
Similar quotes
If I had no duties, and no reference to futurity, I would spend my life in driving briskly in a post-chaise with a pretty woman.
Samuel JohnsonRead
I want you to try and remember what it was like to have been very young. And particularly the days when you were first in love; when you were like a person sleepwalking, and you didn’t quite see the street you were in, and didn’t quite hear everything that was said to you. You’re just a little bit crazy. Will you remember that, please?
Thornton WilderRead
It hurts to love. It's like giving yourself to be flayed and knowing that at any moment the other person may just walk off with your skin.
Susan SontagRead
With her Florentino Ariza learned what he had already experienced many times without realizing it: that one can be in love with several people at the same time, feel the same sorrow with each, and not betray any of them. Alone in the midst of the crowd on the pier, he said to himself in a flash of anger: 'My heart has more rooms than a whorehouse.
Gabriel Garcia MarquezRead
A kiss that is never tasted, is forever and ever wasted.
Billie HolidayRead
To the ego, loving and wanting are the same, whereas true love has no wanting in it, no desire to possess or for your partner to change.
Eckhart TolleRead