QuoteProject
If you wish me to weep, you yourself must first feel grief.
Horace
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

To cause someone to empathize with your sorrow, you must first be vulnerable with your own feelings.

This quote by Horace emphasizes the importance of mutual emotional experience in relationships. It suggests that genuine empathy and understanding can only occur when both parties are open about their feelings, particularly regarding sorrow. It highlights that one cannot expect another to share in their grief unless they have first experienced or expressed their own emotions authentically.

Themes

GriefEmpathyRelationshipsFeelingsUnderstanding

In practice

Example use cases

In a discussion about emotional support, one might use this quote to highlight the importance of sharing feelings.

More from Horace

Only a stomach that rarely feels hungry scorns common things.
HoraceRead
Now is the time for drinking; now the time to beat the earth with unfettered foot.
HoraceRead
Carpe diem! Rejoice while you are alive; enjoy the day; live life to the fullest; make the most of what you have. It is later than you think.
HoraceRead
It is of no consequence of what parents a man is born, as long as he be a man of merit.
HoraceRead
It is not the rich man you should properly call happy, _x000D_ but him who knows how to use with wisdom the blessings of the gods, _x000D_ to endure hard poverty, and who fears dishonor worse than death, _x000D_ and is not afraid to die for cherished friends or fatherland.
HoraceRead
Few cross the river of time and are able to reach non-being. Most of them run up and down only on this side of the river. But those who when they know the law follow the path of the law, they shall reach the other shore and go beyond the realm of death.
HoraceRead

Similar quotes

I think a compliment ought always to precede a complaint, where one is possible, because it softens resentment and insures for the complaint a courteous and gentle reception.
Mark TwainRead
Since no man ever can, or could, live by himself and for himself alone, the destinies of thousands of other people were bound to be affected, some remotely, but some very directly and near-at-hand, by my own choices and decisions and desires, as my own life would also be formed and modified according to theirs.
Thomas MertonRead
An argument would have begun to steam and boil and sputter - and you know how arguments end. Even if I had convinced him that he was wrong, his pride would have made it difficult for him to back down and give in.
Dale CarnegieRead
I'm the only one in my family who is deaf, and there are still conversations that go around me that I miss out on. And I ask what's going on, and I have to ask to be included. But I'm not going to be sad about it. I don't live in sad isolation. It's just a situation I'm used to.
Marlee MatlinRead
Men impose deception on women and punish them for being deceived, force them down to the lowest level and punish them for falling so low, bind them in marriage and then chastise them with menial service for life, or insults, or blows.
Nawal El SaadawiRead
Kindness and good nature unite men more effectually and with greater strength than any agreements whatsoever, since thereby the engagements of men's hearts become stronger than the bond and obligation of words.
Thomas MoreRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.