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
He hath not eat paper, as it were; he hath not drunk ink; his intellect is not replenished; he is only an animal, only sensible in the duller parts. (Shakespeare, Love's Labor's Lost, IV)
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote suggests that lacking education or intellectual nourishment makes one less than fully human, reducing them to mere animalistic instincts.
In this quote from Shakespeare's 'Love's Labor's Lost', the speaker criticizes someone for their lack of intellectual growth and knowledge, implying that without engaging with literature and ideas, a person cannot reach their full potential. The metaphor of not having 'eaten paper' or 'drunk ink' represents a failure to consume knowledge and thus to develop intellectually. This line reflects the belief that one's humanity is tied to one's intelligence and capacity for abstract thought.
Themes
EducationIntellectKnowledgeWisdomHumanity
In practice
Example use cases
Using this quote in a discussion about the importance of education in personal development.
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
We do not progress from error to truth, but from truth to truth
Swami VivekanandaRead
Sometimes a tree tells you more than can be read in books.
Carl JungRead
And may at last my weary age Find out the peaceful hermitage, The hairy gown and mossy cell, Where I may sit and rightly spell Of every star that heaven doth shew, And every herb that sips the dew, Till old experience to attain To something like prophetic strain.
John MiltonRead
The constant reprimands made me hyperconscious of my own performance, and so instead of getting rid of self, I had become embedded in the egoism I was supposed to transcend. Now I was beginning to understand that a silence that is not clamorous with vexation and worried self-regard can become part of the texture of your mind, can seep into you, moment by moment, and gradually change you.
Karen ArmstrongRead
Be as beneficent as the sun or the sea, but if your rights as a rational being are trenched on, die on the first inch of your territory.
Ralph Waldo EmersonRead
O Divine Providence, I ask not for more riches but more wisdom with which to make wiser use of the riches you gave me at birth, consisting in the power to control and direct my own mind to whatever ends I might desire.
Napoleon HillRead