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
The very definition of the real becomes: that of which it is possible to give an equivalent reproduction. The real is not only what can be reproduced, but that which is always already reproduced. The hyper real.
Jean BaudrillardRead
The most serious dangers for American freedom and the American way of life do not come from without.
Ludwig Von MisesRead
Mind is repetitive, mind always moves in circles. Mind is a mechanism: you feed it with knowledge, it repeats the same knowledge, it goes on chewing the same knowledge again and again. No-mind is clarity, purity, innocence. No-mind is the real way to live, the real way to know, the real way to be.
RajneeshRead
Autobiography, if there really is such a thing, is like asking a rabbit to tell us what he looks like hopping through the grasses of the field. How would he know? If we want to hear about the field on the other hand, no one is in a better circumstance to tell us-so long as we keep in mind that we are missing all those things the rabbit was in no position to observe.
Arthur GoldenRead
However things may seem, no evil thing is success and no good thing is failure.
Henry Wadsworth LongfellowRead
Dreams are where we visit the many lands and landscapes of human possibility and discover the one where we feel at home. The great religious leaders were all dreamers.
Jonathan SacksRead