Silence in love betrays more woe - Than words though ne'er so witty; A beggar that is dumb, you know, may challenge double pity.
Interpretation
Unexpressed feelings in love can cause deeper pain than articulate words, and silence can evoke greater sympathy than the most clever speech.
This quote by Walter Raleigh suggests that in matters of love, silence can often convey a more profound sense of sorrow and longing than spoken words. The idea that a mute beggar can evoke more compassion highlights the impact of unvoiced emotions, indicating that what remains unsaid can often resonate more deeply than the most eloquent expressions, revealing inner turmoil and unexpressed desires.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech about the complexities of unexpressed feelings in romantic relationships.
Passions are liken'd best to floods and streams:_x000D_ _x000D_ The shallow murmur, but the deep are dumb;_x000D_ _x000D_ So, when affection yields discourse, it seems_x000D_ _x000D_ The bottom is but shallow whence they come._x000D_ _x000D_ They that are rich in words, in words discover
Even such isTime, which takes in trust Our youth, our joys, and all we have, And pays us but with age and dust, Who in the dark and silent grave When we have wandered all our ways Shuts up the story of our days, And from which earth, and grave, and dust The Lord shall raise me up, I trust.
If she undervalues me, _x000D_ _x000D_ What care I how fair she be?
If all the world and love were young,_x000D_ _x000D_ And truth in every shepherd's tongue,_x000D_ _x000D_ These pretty pleasures might me move_x000D_ _x000D_ To live with thee, and be thy love.
It is the nature of men having escaped one extreme, which by force they were constrained long to endure, to run headlong into the other extreme, forgetting that virtue doth always consist in the mean.
No one is wise or safe, but they that are honest.
And when one of them meets the other half, the actual half of himself, whether he be a lover of youth or a lover of another sort, the pair are lost in an amazement of love and friendship and intimacy and one will not be out of the other's sight, as I may say, even for a moment.
The journey from teaching about love to allowing myself to be loved proved much longer than I realised.
Richard wondered how the marquis managed to make being pushed around in a wheelchair look like a romantic and swashbuckling thing to do.
Of all the bright cruel lies they tell you, the cruelest is the one called love.
You can never love anyone to your own detriment. That is not love, that is possession, control, fear, or a combination of them all.
Thus weary of the world, away she hies, And yokes her silver doves; by whose swift aid Their mistress mounted through the empty skies In her light chariot quickly is convey'd; Holding their course to Paphos, where their queen Means to immure herself and not be seen.
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