Do you not see how necessary a world of pains and troubles is to school an intelligence and make it a soul?
John KeatsRead
To feel forever its soft fall and swell, Awake for ever in a sweet unrest, Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath, And so live ever-or else swoon in death.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote expresses a yearning for eternal love and the intense emotions that accompany it.
In this quote, John Keats reflects on the powerful nature of love and desire, suggesting that the experience of being in love is both a sweet and restless existence. The desire to always feel the soft embrace of a beloved's presence and breath captures the essence of passionate love, implying that to live without it feels akin to death.
Themes
LoveEternityPassionEmotionsYearning
In practice
Example use cases
In a wedding speech, one could reference this quote to highlight the depth of love shared between partners.
More from John Keats
All quotes βAre there not thousands in the world who love their fellows even to the death, who feel the giant agony of the world, and more, like slaves to poor humanity, labor for mortal good?
John KeatsRead
Ask yourself my love whether you are not very cruel to have so entrammelled me, so destroyed my freedom. Will you confess this in the Letter you must write immediately, and do all you can to console me in it β make it rich as a draught of poppies to intoxicate me βwrite the softest words and kiss them that I may at least touch my lips where yours have been. For myself I know not how to express my devotion to so fair a form: I want a brighter word than bright, a fairer word than fair.
John KeatsRead
Faded the flower and all its budded charms,Faded the sight of beauty from my eyes,Faded the shape of beauty from my arms,Faded the voice, warmth, whiteness, paradise!Vanishd unseasonably
John KeatsRead
I think we may class the lawyer in the natural history of monsters.
John KeatsRead
...I leaped headlong into the Sea, and thereby have become more acquainted with the Soundings, the quicksands, and the rocks, than if I had stayed upon the green shore, and piped a silly pipe, and took tea and comfortable advice.
John KeatsRead
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