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
When lenity and cruelty play for a kingdom, the gentler gamester is the soonest winner
Interpretation
What this quote means
Gentleness and kindness often lead to victory over harshness and cruelty.
In this quote, Shakespeare suggests that when mercy and cruelty compete for dominance, it is the compassionate and kind-hearted individual who ultimately prevails. This reflects a deeper understanding of human nature and power dynamics, emphasizing that kindness and gentleness can achieve success where brutality fails.
Themes
KindnessGentlenessVictoryCrueltyPower
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be shared during discussions on conflict resolution.
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
When the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person, or in the same body of magistrates, there can be no liberty; because apprehensions may arise, lest the same monarch or senate should enact tyrannical laws, to execute them in a tyrannical manner.
MontesquieuRead
Distance lends enchantment to the view.
Mark TwainRead
When it is understood that one loses joy and happiness in the attempt to possess them, the essence of natural farming will be realized. The ultimate goal of farming is not the growing of crops, but the cultivation and perfection of human beings.
Masanobu FukuokaRead
A society is always eager to cover misdeeds with a cloak of forgetfulness, but no society can fully repress an ugly past when the ravages persist into the present. America owes a debt of justice which it has only begun to pay.
Martin Luther King, Jr.Read
Philanthropic and religious bodies do not commonly make their executive officers out of saints.
Ralph Waldo EmersonRead
The bones and flesh and legal statistics are the garments worn by the personality, not the other way around.
Robert M. PirsigRead