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
Soft pity enters an iron gate.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote suggests that gentleness or compassion can penetrate even the strongest barriers.
In this quote, Shakespeare implies that soft emotions, such as pity, have the power to transcend formidable obstacles symbolized by the 'iron gate.' This reflects the idea that emotional strength, compassion, and understanding can overcome hard-heartedness or rigidity, fostering connection and healing even in the most challenging circumstances.
Themes
PityCompassionStrengthBarriersEmotions
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about the importance of empathy in leadership.
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
However much we talk of the inexorable laws governing the life of individuals and of societies, we remain at the bottom convinced that in human affairs everything in more or less fortuitous. We do not even believe in the inevitability of our own death. Hence the difficulty of deciphering the present, of detecting the seeds of things to come as they germinate before our eyes. We are not attuned to seeing the inevitable.
Eric HofferRead
One day/_x000D_ One day I waited for myself/_x000D_ I said to myself Guillaume it's time you came/_x000D_ So I could know just who I am/_x000D_ I who know others.
Guillaume ApollinaireRead
There are men so philosophical that they can see humor in their own toothaches. But there has never lived a man so philosophical that he could see the toothache in his own humor.
H. L. MenckenRead
The alienation of man thus appeared as the fundamental evil of capitalist society.
Karl MarxRead
He who would trade liberty for some temporary security, deserves neither liberty nor security.
Benjamin FranklinRead
If the history of resistance to Darwinian thinking is a good measure, we can expect that long into the future, long after every triumph of human thought has been matched or surpassed by 'mere machines,' there will still be thinkers who insist that the human mind works in mysterious ways that no science can comprehend.
Daniel DennettRead