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
That thou art blamed shall not be thy defect,_x000D_ _x000D_ For slander's mark was ever yet the fair;_x000D_ _x000D_ The ornament of beauty is suspect,_x000D_ _x000D_ A crow that flies in heaven's sweetest air.
Interpretation
It suggests that being blamed by others does not diminish one's worth or beauty.
In this quote, Shakespeare conveys the idea that external judgments or slander do not diminish a person's intrinsic beauty or value. The metaphor of a crow flying in the heavens suggests that even in the presence of beauty, there may be elements of doubt or suspicion, but this should not affect the individual’s self-worth or essence.
In practice
In a discussion about the nature of beauty and society's judgments, one could quote this to emphasize self-acceptance.
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).
Love bears it out even to the edge of doom.
Good company, good wine, good welcome, can make good people.
Absence doth sharpen love, presence strengthens it; the one brings fuel, the other blows it till it burns clear.
Lord, Lord, how this world is given to lying!
Give it an understanding, but no tongue.
The natural mind is ever prone to reason, when we ought to believe; to be at work, when we ought to be quiet; to go our own way, when we ought steadily to walk on in God's ways, however trying to nature.
The merest accident of microgeography had meant that the first man to hear the voice of Om, and who gave Om his view of humans, was a shepherd and not a goatherd. They have quite different ways of looking at the world, and the whole of history might have been different. For sheep are stupid, and have to be driven. But goats are intelligent, and need to be led.
Philosophers have not kept up with modern developments in science. Particularly physics.
There is no worse sickness for the soul, o you who are proud, than this pretense of perfection.
Very few people really care about freedom, about liberty, about the truth, very few. Very few people have guts, the kind of guts on which a real democracy has to depend. Without people with that sort of guts a free society dies or cannot be born.
We are descended from a people whose government was founded on liberty; our glorious forefathers of Great Britain made liberty the foundation of everything. That country is become a great, mighty, and splendid nation; not because their government is strong and energetic, but, sir, because liberty is its direct end and foundation.
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