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
God has given you one face, and you make yourself another.
Interpretation
What this quote means
We are responsible for the persona we project to the world, as opposed to our true selves.
This quote from Shakespeare suggests that while God creates our physical appearance, it is our choices and actions that shape our identity and how we are perceived by others. It emphasizes the idea that individuals often wear masks or create facades to fit into societal expectations or to hide their true selves, which reflects on the nature of authenticity and self-perception.
Themes
IdentityAuthenticitySelf-PerceptionFacadeMask
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about societal pressure, this quote can illustrate how people often feel the need to conform.
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
The soul in its nature loves God and longs to be at one with Him in the noble love of a daughter for a noble father; but coming to human birth and lured by the courtships of this sphere, she takes up with another love, a mortal, leaves her father and falls.
PlotinusRead
What troubles me most about my lovely country is that its children are seldom taught that American freedom will vanish, if, when they grow up, and in the exercise of their duties as citizens, they insist that our courts and policemen and prisons be guided by divine or natural law.
Kurt VonnegutRead
Men have no right to what is not reasonable, and to what is not for their benefit.
Edmund BurkeRead
When people ask me where my roots are, I look down at my feet, and I see the roots of my soul grasping the earth. They are here... in the Southwest... I still live in New Mexico.
Rudolfo AnayaRead
One moment several things are possible, the next moment only one happens, and the rest don't exist. Except that other worlds have sprung into being, on which the did happen.
Philip PullmanRead
The snow in the mountains was melting and Bunny had been dead for several weeks before we came to understand the gravity of our situation.
Donna TarttRead