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
Commit the oldest sins the newest kind of ways.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote suggests that people continue to engage in age-old immoral behaviors but adapt them to modern contexts.
William Shakespeare's quote reflects on the timeless nature of human flaws and transgressions. Despite changes in society and advancements in culture, the core sins and moral failings of humanity persist, often resurfacing in new and innovative forms. This observation highlights the idea that while the methods and contexts may evolve, the underlying issues of human behavior remain constant throughout history.
Themes
SinsMoralityHuman NatureChangeBehavior
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about morality in contemporary society, one might use this quote to illustrate how old ethical dilemmas reappear with new technologies.
More from William Shakespeare
All quotes βLove 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
We are intelligent beings: intelligent beings cannot have been formed by a crude, blind, insensible being: there is certainly some difference between the ideas of Newton and the dung of a mule. Newton's intelligence, therefore, came from another intelligence
VoltaireRead
The United Nations organization has proclaimed 1979 as the Year of the Child. Are the children to receive the arms race from us as a necessary inheritance?
Pope John Paul IiRead
Enlightenment is: absolute cooperation with the inevitable.
Anthony De MelloRead
Once you fully apprehend the vacuity of a life without struggle, you are equipped with the basic means of salvation.
Tennessee WilliamsRead
Death is not an event in life: we do not live to experience death. If we take eternity to mean not infinite temporal duration but timelessness, then eternal life belongs to those who live in the present.
Ludwig WittgensteinRead
It is an unfortunate human failing that a full pocketbook often groans more loudly than an empty stomach.
Franklin D. RooseveltRead