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
Love is familiar. Love is a devil. There is no evil angel but Love." -
Interpretation
What this quote means
Love is a complex and often contradictory emotion that can bring both joy and suffering.
This quote by William Shakespeare reflects the multifaceted nature of love, depicting it as something that can feel both comforting and painful. The phrase suggests that love is not purely good or evil, but rather a mix of both, embodying familiar feelings while also carrying the potential for heartache, akin to a devil nestled within its angelic nature.
Themes
LoveEmotionComplexityRelationshipDuality
In practice
Example use cases
During a wedding toast, one could use this quote to express the dual nature of love.
More from William Shakespeare
All quotes βLove bears it out even to the edge of doom.
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Good company, good wine, good welcome, can make good people.
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Absence doth sharpen love, presence strengthens it; the one brings fuel, the other blows it till it burns clear.
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Lord, Lord, how this world is given to lying!
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Give it an understanding, but no tongue.
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We need to learn to love ourselves first, in all our glory and our imperfections. If we cannot love ourselves, we cannot fully open to our ability to love others or our potential to create
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This time is difficult. Wait for me. We will live it out vividly. Give me your small hand: we will rise and suffer, we will feel, we will rejoice. We are once more the pair who lived in bristling places, in harsh nests in the rock. This time is difficult. Wait for me with a basket, with a shovel, with your shoes and your clothes. Now we need each other, not only for the carnations' sake, not only to look for honey β we need our hands to wash with, to make fire.
Pablo NerudaRead
When you go, if you go, And I should want to die, there's nothing I'd be saved by more than the time you fell asleep in my arms in a trust so gentle I let the darkening room drink up the evening, till rest, or the new rain lightly roused you awake. I asked if you heard the rain in your dream and half dreaming still you only said, I love you.
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Sometimes I think God loves the ones who most desperately ache and are most desperately lost - his or her wildest, most messed-up children - the way you'd ache and love a screwed-up rebel daughter in juvenile hall.
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Why, darling, I don't live at all when I'm not with you.
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There is only one sin - lack of love. Be brave, be capable of loving, even if love seems a terrible and treacherous thing. Find joy in love. Find joy in victory. Follow the dictates of your heart.
Paulo CoelhoRead