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
I were better to be eaten to death with a rust than to be scoured to nothing with perpetual motion.
Interpretation
It's better to be consumed by an inevitable fate than to be endlessly worn down by constant pressure.
In this quote, Shakespeare conveys the idea that a steady, unrelenting struggle can be more damaging than succumbing to an unavoidable end. The metaphor of being eaten by rust suggests that, while a slow demise is frustrating, being caught in a cycle of ceaseless activity can lead to complete depletion of one's essence or worth.
In practice
This quote could resonate in a speech about work-life balance during a corporate event.
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.
Childlike surrender and trust, I believe, is the defining spirit of authentic discipleship.
Everything that is,casts a shadow
Perhaps you have noticed that even in the very lightest breeze you can hear the voice of the cottonwood tree; this we understand is its prayer to the Great Spirit, for not only men, but all things and all beings pray to Him continually in differing ways.
The mystic cords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the angels of our nature.
I always adhered to the idea that God is time, or at least that His spirit is.
A thousand people drowned in floods in China are news: a solitary child drowned in a pond is tragedy.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.