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
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep; To sleep, perchance to dream—For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause, there's the respect, That makes calamity of so long life
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote reflects on death and the uncertainties that come with it, questioning the fear and respect we have towards life and mortality.
In this profound contemplation by Shakespeare, the speaker ponders the nature of death, comparing it to a deep sleep filled with dreams, or perhaps dreaming of what lies beyond life. It encapsulates the tension between the fear of the unknown in dying and the burdens of enduring life, suggesting that the thoughts and mysteries of death can often give us pause and cause us to reconsider our suffering and the value of existence.
Themes
DeathDreamsLifeMortalityExistence
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about the meaning of life during a philosophy class.
More from William Shakespeare
All quotes →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
Isn't it the sweetest mockery to mock our enemies?
SophoclesRead
I cannot discover that anyone knows enough to say definitely what is and what is not possible.
Henry FordRead
Female heterosexuality is not a biological drive or an individual women's erotic attraction or attachment to another human animal which happens to be male. Female heterosexuality is a set of social institutions and practices... Those definitions... are about the oppression and exploitation of women by men.
Marilyn FryeRead
The laws of physics that we regard_x000D_ as 'sacred,' as immutable, are anything_x000D_ but.
John Archibald WheelerRead
In 1492, the natives discovered they were indians, discovered they lived in America, discovered they were naked, discovered that the Sin existed, discovered they owed allegiance to a King and Kingdom from another world and a God from another sky, and that this God had invented the guilty and the dress, and had sent to be burnt alive who worships the Sun the Moon the Earth and the Rain that wets it.
Eduardo GaleanoRead
We can ignore even pleasure. But pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world....No doubt pain as God's megaphone is a terrible instrument; it may lead to final and unrepented rebellion. But it gives the only opportunity the bad man can have for amendment. it removes the veil; it plants the flag of truth within the fortress of the rebel soul.
C. S. LewisRead