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
I will not be sworn but love may transform me to an oyster
Interpretation
Love has the power to change and shape us into something different than we are.
This quote from Shakespeare suggests that love possesses the transformative power to alter our very nature, in this case comparing it to becoming an oyster, which signifies a change that may not be fully understood. It highlights the notion that love can lead us to adopt new characteristics, emotions, and experiences, culminating in profound personal growth or transformation.
In practice
Sharing this quote during a wedding speech to emphasize the transforming power of love.
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).
Love bears it out even to the edge of doom.
Good company, good wine, good welcome, can make good people.
Absence doth sharpen love, presence strengthens it; the one brings fuel, the other blows it till it burns clear.
Lord, Lord, how this world is given to lying!
Give it an understanding, but no tongue.
'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.
We are People who need to love, because Love is the soul's life, Love is simply creation's greatest joy.
Eternal Trinity... mystery deep as the sea, You could give me no greater gift than the gift of Yourself. For You are a fire ever burning and never consumed, which itself consumes all the selfish love that fills my being.
June Jordan, who died of cancer in 2002, was a brilliant, fierce, radical, and frequently furious poet. We were friends for thirty years. Not once in that time did she step back from what was transpiring politically and morally in the world. She spoke up, and led her students, whom she adored, to do the same.
It had to teach her to think of love as a state of grace: not the means to anything but the alpha and omega, an end it itself.
The man who partakes in the breaking of the bread dares to build his house on the very core of love. He becomes, as it were, Godlike, but regardless of the strength he derives from it, his free will remains. We are always free to disown this immense grace, to abuse it. The Greatest Love may be betrayed. Fed on the Living Bread, we nevertheless conceal a part of ourselves which longs for swine's food.
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