QuoteProject
Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back _x000D_ _x000D_ Wherein he puts alms for oblivion, _x000D_ _x000D_ A great-sized monster of ingratitudes: _x000D_ _x000D_ Those scraps are good deeds past, which are devour'd _x000D_ _x000D_ As fast as they are made, forgot as soon as done.
William Shakespeare
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

Time allows good deeds to be forgotten quickly, making gratitude seem scarce.

In this quote, Shakespeare reflects on the nature of time and memory, suggesting that our good deeds often fade into oblivion as quickly as they are performed. The metaphor of time having a 'wallet' implies that it stores our acts of kindness, but they are consumed by forgetfulness just as easily, leading to a feeling of ingratitude in both the giver and the receiver.

Themes

TimeOblivionIngratitudeGood DeedsMemory

In practice

Example use cases

In a speech about the importance of kindness, one might say, 'As Shakespeare suggests, time can make our good deeds forgotten, so let us cherish and remember each other's kindness.'

More from William Shakespeare

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
Love 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

There would be no society if living together depended upon understanding each other.
Eric HofferRead
It is not man who is the enemy of the human species. It is the irrational; it is the spiritual when it is divorced from the material; from the lesson in one beating heart or one bleeding vein.
Anne RiceRead
The purpose of the Constitution is to restrict the majority's ability to harm a minority.
James MadisonRead
As the eldest son of an Alabama sharecropper family, I was constantly troubled by a collage of North American southern behaviors and notions in reference to the inhumanity of people. There were questions that I did not know how to ask but could, in my young, unsophisticated way, articulate a series of answers.
John Henrik ClarkeRead
And why is it, thought Lara, that my fate is to see everything and take it all so much to heart?
Boris PasternakRead
Behind every man now alive stand thirty ghosts, for that is the ratio by which the dead outnumber the living.
Arthur C. ClarkeRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.