Love's Labour's Lost Quotes

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From women's eyes this doctrine I derive: They sparkle still the right Promethean fire; They are the books, the arts, the academes, That show, contain and nourish all the world.
William Shakespeare (Love's Labour's Lost)
Love is a familiar. Love is a devil. There is no evil angel but love.
William Shakespeare (Love's Labour's Lost)
Beauty is bought by judgement of the eye.
William Shakespeare (Love's Labour's Lost)
It is said that mourning, by its gradual labour, slowly erases pain; I could not, I cannot believe this; because for me, Time eliminates the emotion of loss (I do not weep), that is all. For the rest, everything has remained motionless. For what I have lost is not a Figure (the Mother), but a being; and not a being, but a quality (a soul): not the indispensable, but the irreplaceable.
Roland Barthes (Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography)
Love is familiar. Love is a devil. There is no evil angel but Love." -
William Shakespeare (Love's Labour's Lost)
A jest's prosperity lies in the ear Of him that hears it, never in the tongue Of him that makes it.
William Shakespeare (Love's Labour's Lost)
He hath not eat paper, as it were; he hath not drunk ink; his intellect is not replenished; he is only an animal, only sensible in the duller parts. (Shakespeare, Love's Labor's Lost, IV)
William Shakespeare (Love's Labour's Lost)
Never durst a poet touch a pen to write Until his ink was tempered with love's sighs.
William Shakespeare (Love's Labour's Lost)
They have been at a great feast of languages, and stolen the scraps.
William Shakespeare (Love's Labour's Lost)
And when I look around the apartment where I now am,—when I see Charlotte’s apparel lying before me, and Albert’s writings, and all those articles of furniture which are so familiar to me, even to the very inkstand which I am using,—when I think what I am to this family—everything. My friends esteem me; I often contribute to their happiness, and my heart seems as if it could not beat without them; and yet—if I were to die, if I were to be summoned from the midst of this circle, would they feel—or how long would they feel—the void which my loss would make in their existence? How long! Yes, such is the frailty of man, that even there, where he has the greatest consciousness of his own being, where he makes the strongest and most forcible impression, even in the memory, in the heart of his beloved, there also he must perish,—vanish,—and that quickly. I could tear open my bosom with vexation to think how little we are capable of influencing the feelings of each other. No one can communicate to me those sensations of love, joy, rapture, and delight which I do not naturally possess; and though my heart may glow with the most lively affection, I cannot make the happiness of one in whom the same warmth is not inherent. Sometimes I don’t understand how another can love her, is allowed to love her, since I love her so completely myself, so intensely, so fully, grasp nothing, know nothing, have nothing but her! I possess so much, but my love for her absorbs it all. I possess so much, but without her I have nothing. One hundred times have I been on the point of embracing her. Heavens! what a torment it is to see so much loveliness passing and repassing before us, and yet not dare to lay hold of it! And laying hold is the most natural of human instincts. Do not children touch everything they see? And I! Witness, Heaven, how often I lie down in my bed with a wish, and even a hope, that I may never awaken again! And in the morning, when I open my eyes, I behold the sun once more, and am wretched. If I were whimsical, I might blame the weather, or an acquaintance, or some personal disappointment, for my discontented mind; and then this insupportable load of trouble would not rest entirely upon myself. But, alas! I feel it too sadly; I am alone the cause of my own woe, am I not? Truly, my own bosom contains the source of all my pleasure. Am I not the same being who once enjoyed an excess of happiness, who at every step saw paradise open before him, and whose heart was ever expanded towards the whole world? And this heart is now dead; no sentiment can revive it. My eyes are dry; and my senses, no more refreshed by the influence of soft tears, wither and consume my brain. I suffer much, for I have lost the only charm of life: that active, sacred power which created worlds around me,—it is no more. When I look from my window at the distant hills, and behold the morning sun breaking through the mists, and illuminating the country around, which is still wrapped in silence, whilst the soft stream winds gently through the willows, which have shed their leaves; when glorious Nature displays all her beauties before me, and her wondrous prospects are ineffectual to extract one tear of joy from my withered heart,—I feel that in such a moment I stand like a reprobate before heaven, hardened, insensible, and unmoved. Oftentimes do I then bend my knee to the earth, and implore God for the blessing of tears, as the desponding labourer in some scorching climate prays for the dews of heaven to moisten his parched corn.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (The Sorrows of Young Werther)
Come on then, I will swear to study so To know the thing I am forbid to know - Berowne
William Shakespeare (Love's Labour's Lost)
This wimpled, whining, purblind, wayward boy, this Senior Junior, giant dwarf...Cupid.
William Shakespeare (Love's Labour's Lost)
The words of Mercury are harsh after the songs of Apollo. You that; we this way.
William Shakespeare
Let us once lose our oaths to find ourselves, Or else we lose ourselves to keep our oaths
William Shakespeare (Love's Labour's Lost)
What time o' day? ROSALINE: The hour that fools should ask.
William Shakespeare (Love's Labour's Lost)
O, they have lived long on the alms-basket of words. I marvel thy master hath not eaten thee for a word; for thou art not so long by the head as honorificabilitudinitatibus: thou art easier swallowed than a flap-dragon.
William Shakespeare (Love's Labour's Lost)
We cannot know what time will do to us with its fine, indistinguishable layers upon layers, we cannot know what it might make of us. It advances stealthily, day by day and hour by hour and step by poisoned step, never drawing attention to its surreptitious labours, so respectful and considerate that it never once gives us a sudden prod or a nasty fright. Every morning, it turns up with its soothing, invariable face and tells us exactly the opposite of what is actually happening: that everything is fine and nothing has changed, that everything is just as it was yesterday--the balance of power--that nothing has been gained and nothing lost, that our face is the same, as is our hair and our shape, that the person who hated us continues to hate us and the person who loved us continues to love us.
Javier Marías (Los enamoramientos)
When icicles hang by the wall, And Dick the shepherd blows his nail, And Tom bears logs into the hall, And milk comes frozen home in pail, When blood is nipp'd, and ways be foul, Then nightly sings the staring owl, To-whit! To-who!—a merry note, While greasy Joan doth keel the pot. When all aloud the wind doe blow, And coughing drowns the parson's saw, And birds sit brooding in the snow, And Marian's nose looks red and raw, When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl, Then nightly sings the staring owl, To-whit! To-who!—a merry note, While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.
William Shakespeare (Love's Labour's Lost)
I praise God for you, sir: your reasons at dinner have been sharp and sententious; pleasant without scurrility, witty without affection, audacious without impudency, learned without opinion, and strange without heresy.
William Shakespeare (Love's Labour's Lost)
But love, first learnèd in a lady's eyes, Lives not alone immurèd in the brain, But, with the motion of all elements, Courses as swift as thought in every power, And gives to every power a double power, Above their functions and their offices. It adds a precious seeing to the eye; A lover's eyes will gaze an eagle blind; A lover's ears will hear the lowest sound, When the suspicious head of theft is stopped: Love's feeling is more soft and sensible Than are the tender horns of cockled snails: Love's tongue proves dainty Baccus gross in taste. For valour, is not love a Hercules, Still climbing trees in the Hesperides? Subtle as Sphinx; as sweet and musical As bright Apollo's lute, strung with his hair; And when Love speaks, the voice of all the gods Makes heaven drowsy with the harmony. Never durst poet touch a pen to write Until his ink were tempered with Love's sighs.
William Shakespeare (Love's Labour's Lost)
Welcome the sour cup of prosperity! Affliction may one day smile again, and till then, Sit thee down, sorrow!
William Shakespeare (Love's Labour's Lost)
Yet swear not, lest ye be forsworn again.
William Shakespeare (Love's Labour's Lost)
Rebuke me not for that, which you provoke :
William Shakespeare (Love's Labour's Lost)
Love is a familiar. Love is a devil. There is no evil angel but Love. —William Shakespeare, Love’s Labour’s Lost
Cassandra Clare (City of Fallen Angels (The Mortal Instruments, #4))
An I had but one penny in the world, thou shouldst have it to buy gingerbread.
William Shakespeare (Love's Labour's Lost)
There pass the careless people That call their souls their own: Here by the road I loiter, How idle and alone. Ah, past the plunge of plummet, In seas I cannot sound, My heart and soul and senses, World without end, are drowned. His folly has not fellow Beneath the blue of day That gives to man or woman His heart and soul away. There flowers no balm to sain him From east of earth to west That's lost for everlasting The heart out of his breast. Here by the labouring highway With empty hands I stroll: Sea-deep, till doomsday morning, Lie lost my heart and soul.
A.E. Housman (A Shropshire Lad)
Adieu, valour: rust, rapier: be still, drum, for your manager is in love: yea, he loveth. Assist me, some extemporal god of rhyme, for I am sure I shall turn sonnet. Devise, wit: write, pen, for I am for whole volumes in folio.
William Shakespeare (Love's Labour's Lost)
Sir, he hath not fed of the dainties that are bred in a book; He hath not eat paper, as it were; he hath not drunk ink; his intellect is not replenished; he is only an animal, only sensible in the duller parts... (Act IV, Scene II)
William Shakespeare (Love's Labour's Lost)
To move wild laughter in the throat of death?— It cannot be, it is impossible. Mirth cannot move a soul in agony. Why, that’s the way to choke a gibing spirit, Whose influence is begot of that loose grace Which shallow laughing hearers give to fools. A jest’s prosperity lies in the ear Of him that hears it, never in the tongue Of him that makes it. Then if sickly ears, Deafed with the clamours of their own dear groans, Will hear your idle scorns, continue then, And I will have you and that fault withal. But if they will not, throw away that spirit, And I shall find you empty of that fault, Right joyful of your reformation
William Shakespeare (Love's Labour's Lost)
To a Child Dancing in the Wind Dance there upon the shore; What need have you to care For wind or water’s roar? And tumble out your hair That the salt drops have wet; Being young you have not known The fool’s triumph, nor yet Love lost as soon as won, Nor the best labourer dead And all the sheaves to bind. What need have you to dread The monstrous crying of wind? Has no one said those daring Kind eyes should be more learn’d? Or warned you how despairing The moths are when they are burned, I could have warned you, but you are young, So we speak a different tongue. O you will take whatever’s offered And dream that all the world’s a friend, Suffer as your mother suffered, Be as broken in the end. But I am old and you are young, And I speak a barbarous tongue.
W.B. Yeats (Responsibilities and other poems)
Remember always thine end, and how the time which is lost returneth not. Without care and diligence thou shalt never get virtue. If thou beginnest to grow cold, it shall begin to go ill with thee, but if thou givest thyself unto zeal thou shalt find much peace, and shalt find thy labour the lighter because of the grace of God and the love of virtue.
Thomas à Kempis (Christian Devotionals - The Imitation of Christ, Confessions, Jesus The Christ, The Book of Ruth and How To Become Like Christ (Five Unabridged Classics with Annotations, Images and Audio Links))
Taffeta phrases, silken terms precise, three-piled hyperboles, spruce affection, figures pedantical--these summer flies have blown me full of maggot ostentation.
William Shakespeare (Love's Labour's Lost)
Adam the while Waiting desirous her return, had wove Of choicest flowers a garland, to adorn Her tresses, and her rural labours crown As reapers oft are wont their harvest queen
John Milton (Paradise Lost)
You, that way: we, this way.
William Shakespeare (Love's Labour's Lost)
Love is a devil: there is no evil angel but love.
William Shakespeare (Love's Labour's Lost)
АРМАДО Ще получиш тежко възмездие, бъди уверен! КРАТУН Тогава ще съм по-добре от слугите ви, защото те получават леко възнаграждение.
Валери Петров (Love's Labour's Lost)
Любовта — какъв добър дух! Любовта — какъв подъл дявол! Да, любовта е единственият зъл ангел, известен в природата!
Валери Петров (Love's Labour's Lost)
Повярвайте, мадам, опасен той е, защото е, без сам да го съзнава, тъй умен, че би минал и без хубост, тъй хубав, че би минал и без ум!…
Валери Петров (Love's Labour's Lost)
Ill to example ill Would from my forehead wipe a perjured note, For none offend where all alike do dote.
William Shakespeare (Love's Labour's Lost)
The songs celebrates the order of the nature. When the scene is nice, the emotion are nasty, when the scene is nasty, the emotion are nice.
W.H. Auden (Lectures on Shakespeare (W.H. Auden: Critical Editions))
АРМАДО: Не съм силен в смятането — наука за кръчмари! КОМАРЧЕТО: А вие сте благородник и картоиграч! АРМАДО: Да! И едното, и другото! Това са двете качества, които придават блясък на един съвършен мъж!
Валери Петров (Love's Labour's Lost)
So study evermore is overshot. While it doth study to have what it would, It doth forget to do the thing it should; And when it hath the thing it hunteth most, ’Tis won as towns with fire—so won, so lost.
William Shakespeare (Love's Labour's Lost)
What is the end of study? let me know. Why, that to know, which else we should not know. Things hid and barr'd, you mean, from common sense? Ay, that is study's godlike recompense. Come on, then; I will swear to study so, To know the thing I am forbid to know: As thus,--to study where I well may dine, When I to feast expressly am forbid; Or study where to meet some mistress fine, When mistresses from common sense are hid; Or, having sworn too hard a keeping oath, Study to break it and not break my troth. If study's gain be thus and this be so, Study knows that which yet it doth not know: -- ACT I, SCENE 1, Loves Labour's Lost
William Shakespeare (Love's Labour's Lost)
Вината пак в науката се крие. Понеже сложни цели си поставя, тя простите си длъжности забравя и щом постигне нещо някой ден, превзема сякаш град опожарен — загубила е толкоз във войната, че плячката не стига за отплата.
Валери Петров (Love's Labour's Lost)
That sport best pleases that doth least know how, where zeal strives to content, and the contents dies in the zeal of that which it presents. Their form confounded makes most form in mirth when great things laboring perish in their birth.
William Shakespeare (Love's Labour's Lost)
And so when the generation, which itself desired to level and to be emancipated, to destroy authority and at the same time itself, has, through the scepticism of the principle association, started the hopeless forest fire of abstraction; when as a result of levelling with this scepticism, the generation has rid itself of the individual and of everything organic and concrete, and put in its place 'humanity' and the numerical equality of man and man: when the generation has, for a moment, delighted in this unlimited panorama of abstract infinity, unrelieved by even the smallest eminence, undisturbed by even the slightest interest, a sea of desert; then the time has come for work to begin, for every individual must work for himself, each for himself. No longer can the individual, as in former times, turn to the great for help when he grows confused. That is past; he is either lost in the dizziness of unending abstraction or saved for ever in the reality of religion. Perhaps very many will cry out in despair, but it will not help them--already it is too late...Nor shall any of the unrecognizable presume to help directly or to speak directly or to teach directly at the head of the masses, in order to direct their decisions, instead of giving his negative support and so helping the individual to make the decision which he himself has reached; any other course would be the end of him, because he would be indulging in the short-sighted compassion of man, instead of obeying the order of divinity, of an angry, yet so merciful, divinity. For the development is, in spite of everything, a progress because all the individuals who are saved will receive the specific weight of religion, its essence at first hand, from God himself. Then it will be said: 'behold, all is in readiness, see how the cruelty of abstraction makes the true form of worldliness only too evident, the abyss of eternity opens before you, the sharp scythe of the leveller makes it possible for every one individually to leap over the blade--and behold, it is God who waits. Leap, then, into the arms of God'. But the 'unrecognizable' neither can nor dares help man, not even his most faithful disciple, his mother, or the girl for whom he would gladly give his life: they must make the leap themselves, for God's love is not a second-hand gift. And yet the 'unrecognizable' neither can nor dares help man, not even his most faithful disciple, his mother, or the girl for whom he would gladly give his life: they must make the leap themselves, for God's love is not a second-hand gift. And yet the 'unrecognizable' (according to his degree) will have a double work compared with the 'outstanding' man (of the same degree), because he will not only have to work continuously, but at the same time labour to conceal his work.
Søren Kierkegaard (The Present Age)
The silence in the room was deep as the night itself. Biff stood transfixed, lost in his meditations. Then suddenly he felt a quickening in him. His heart turned and he leaned his back against the counter for support. For in a swift radiance of illumination he saw a glimpse of human struggle and of valour. Of the endless fluid passage of humanity through endless time. And of those who labour and of those who - one word - love. His soul expanded. But for a moment only. For in him he felt a warning, a shaft of terror. Between the two worlds he was suspended . . . suspended between radiance and darkness, between bitter irony and faith . . . And would he just stand here like a jittery nanny or would he pull himself together and be reasonable? For after all was he a sensible man or was he not?
Carson McCullers (The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter)
Yet not so strictly hath our Lord imposed Labour, as to debar us when we need Refreshment, whether food, or talk between, Food of the mind, or this sweet intercourse Of looks and smiles; for smiles from reason flow, To brute denied, and are of love the food; Love, not the lowest end of human life.
John Milton (Paradise Lost)
Such a nice little pastiche. Of course, a true Elizbethan theater wouldn't have a roof, would it? Or such comfortable chairs. All the same quite charming.I wonder what play they're putting on now? Oh, its ... Love's Labour Lost. Well, isn't that apropos? Is it? I wonder if it's modern dress. No, I don't wonder at all.On that particular question, I have been quite driven from the firld. Everywhere one goes now it's Uzis at Agincourt, Imogen in jeans, the Thane of Cawdor in a three-button suit. Nest thing you know, Romeo and Julie will simply text each other. Damn the balcony. OMG,Romeo. ILY 24-7.
Louis Bayard (The School of Night)
Просто уличен, макар че не на улицата, а в парка. То беше само едно вместопрестъпление, а господин приставът вика: „Три стават!“ Защото, казва, по трите точки си престъпил устава формално. Първо, пристъпил си към нея — значи: „пристъпление“; второ, целунал си я право в устата — значи: „противоуставно“; и трето, пипал си й формите — значи "формално".
Валери Петров (Love's Labour's Lost)
Why, all delights are vain, but that most vain Which, with pain purchased, doth inherit pain; As painfully to pore upon a book To seek the light of truth while truth the while Doth falsely blind the eyesight of his look. Light, seeking light, doth light of light beguile; So ere you find where light in darkness lies Your light grows dark by losing of your eyes. Study me how to please the eye indeed By fixing it upon a fairer eye, Who dazzling so, that eye shall be his heed, And give him light that it was blinded by. Study is like the heavens’ glorious sun, That will not be deep searched with saucy looks. Small have continual plodders ever won Save base authority from others’ books. These earthly godfathers of heaven’s lights, That give a name to every fixed star, Have no more profit of their shining nights Than those that walk and wot not what they are. Too much to know is to know naught but fame, And every godfather can give a name. a
William Shakespeare (Love's Labour's Lost)
O, never will I trust to speeches penn'd, Nor to the motion of a schoolboy's tongue, Nor never come in vizard to my friend, Nor woo in rhyme, like a blind harper's song! Taffeta phrases, silken terms precise, Three-piled hyperboles, spruce affectation, Figures pedantical; these summer-flies Have blown me full of maggot ostentation: I do forswear them; and I here protest, By this white glove;--how white the hand, God knows!-- Henceforth my wooing mind shall be express'd In russet yeas and honest kersey noes: Love’s Labour’s Lost Act V, Scene II
William Shakespeare (The Complete Works of Shakespeare)
БИРОН Не съм ли с вас танцувал във Брабант? РОЗАЛИНА Не съм ли с вас танцувала в Брабант? БИРОН Танцувахте, разбира се! РОЗАЛИНА Тогава защо питате? БИРОН Изглежда, че сте в отговора бърза! РОЗАЛИНА Въпросът ви галопа му отвърза. БИРОН Ще капнете, недейте толкоз скача! РОЗАЛИНА Ще капне по-напред от мен ездача! БИРОН А колко е часът, да знаете? РОЗАЛИНА О, краен час да се отчаете! БИРОН Ах, вий сте твърде рязка! РОЗАЛИНА Не, вашта ласка драска! БИРОН Оставям ви тогаз! РОЗАЛИНА Ще минем и без вас! БИРОН Добре, на добър час!
Валери Петров (Love's Labour's Lost)
To thwart robbers, the poor in particular often held on to departed loved ones until the bodies had begun to putrefy and so had lost their value. Edwin Chadwick’s Report on the Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Classes of Great Britain was full of gruesome and shocking details about the practice. In some districts, he noted, it was common for families to keep a body in the front room for a week or more while waiting for putrefaction to get a good hold. It was not unusual, he said, to find maggots dropping onto the carpet and infants playing among them. The stench, not surprisingly, was powerful.
Bill Bryson (At Home: A Short History of Private Life)
АРМАДО А лицето на моята любов е като роза — бяло-румено, без нито едно петънце! КОМАРЧЕТО Доста петънца, господарю, могат да се скрият под тази смес от румено и бяло. АРМАДО Изясни се, изящно възпитани юноша! КОМАРЧЕТО Татенце, майчице, елате ми на помощ! АРМАДО Какво сладко синовно обръщение! Колко нежно и прочувствено! КОМАРЧЕТО „Под розови страни греха не можеш ти откри — човек хладее от страха, а от срама гори. А сняг и плам се смесват в тях и чудиш се смутен: кое е срам, кое е страх, кое — естествен тен?“ Леки стихчета, господарю, за нерозовото положение при розовите лица.
Валери Петров (Love's Labour's Lost)
КОМАРЧЕТО О, каква лоша памет! Защо не вземете любимата си по-присърце! АРМАДО О, аз съм я взел присърце и във сърце, момченце! КОМАРЧЕТО Не, във сърцето ви я няма. Тя ви е само „при“, „под“ и „над“ него. Мога да ви го докажа. АРМАДО Ти — на мен? И какво ще ми докажеш? КОМАРЧЕТО Че съм мъж, когато порасна! Но сега засега само това, че вашата любима ви е „при, под и над“ сърцето. „При“ — защото ви е примамила; „под“ — защото ви се подиграва; и „над“ — защото е инат и никога няма да ви се даде! АРМАДО И трите ти игрословици бяха великолепни! КОМАРЧЕТО (настрани) А ти си една велика лепка по тях!
Валери Петров (Love's Labour's Lost)
En sevdiğim kitaplardan vazgeçtim, gözlerini kitap yaptım kendime, Çünkü yaşamın bütün zevkleri, bilginin kavradığı her şey senin gözlerinde. Eğer bilgi bir hedefse, seni bilmek her şey için yeterlidir; Seni övebilecek olan ancak iyi eğitim görmüş bir dil olabilir, Seni görüp de hayran olmayan dünyanın en cahil kişisidir; Görür görmez her şeyine hayran olmak gurur duyduğum niteliğimdir. Jüpiter'in yıldırımları gözünde çakıyor, sesin onun gök gürültüleri gibi, Kızgın olmadığında uyumlu bir müzik ve tatlı bir sıcaklık yayıyor sesin. Sen cennete layık bir varlıksın, ne olur bağışla bu hayranını sevgilim, Cennetin övgüsünü kazanmış birine böyle dünyevi sözler ettiğim için.
William Shakespeare (Love's Labour's Lost)
Която страст е също, но такава, че мъките със мъка награждава! Какво? Да търсим в книги до зори свещицата на правда непозната, додето четенето изгори на нашите зеници светлината, и дирейки във нощ неясен зрак, деня си ясен да превърнем в мрак? Не, нека да потапяме очи в две по-сияещи очи отсреща и удивени да летим в лъчи, каквито никой учен не усеща! Науката е слънце — ослепява тоз, който твърде дълго в нея гледа и своя плява като разпилява сред чуждите цитати, буквоеда при цялата си ученост голяма се радва на звездите във нощта не повече от оня, който няма понятие за звездните неща. Да, можеш да кръщаваш светилата и пак да ти е празно във главата!
Валери Петров (Love's Labour's Lost)
Only a fool says in his heart There is no Creator, no King of kings, Only mules would dare to bray These lethal mutterings. Over darkened minds as these The Darkness bears full sway, Fruitless, yet, bearing fruit, In their fell, destructive way. Sterile, though proliferate, A filthy progeny sees the day, When Evil, Thought and Action mate: Breeding sin, rebels and decay. The blackest deeds and foul ideals, Multiply throughout the earth, Through deadened, lifeless, braying souls, The Darkness labours and gives birth. Taking the Lord’s abundant gifts And rotting them to the core, They dress their dish and serve it out Foul seeds to infect thousands more. ‘The Tree of Life is dead!’ they cry, ‘And that of Knowledge not enough, Let us glut on the ashen apples Of Sodom and Gomorrah.’ Have pity on Thy children, Lord, Left sorrowing on this earth, While fools and all their kindred Cast shadows with their murk, And to the dwindling wise, They toss their heads and wryly smirk. The world daily grinds to dust Virtue’s fair unicorns, Rather, it would now beget Vice’s mutant manticores. Wisdom crushed, our joy is gone, Buried under anxious fears For lost rights and freedoms, We shed many bitter tears. Death is life, Life is no more, Humanity buried in a tomb, In a fatal prenatal world Where tiny flowers Are ripped from the womb, Discarded, thrown away, Inconvenient lives That barely bloomed. Our elders fare no better, Their wisdom unwanted by and by, Boarded out to end their days, And forsaken are left to die. Only the youthful and the useful, In this capital age prosper and fly. Yet, they too are quickly strangled, Before their future plans are met, Professions legally pre-enslaved Held bound by mounting student debt. Our leaders all harangue for peace Yet perpetrate the horror, Of economic greed shored up Through manufactured war. Our armies now welter In foreign civilian gore. How many of our kin are slain For hollow martial honour? As if we could forget, ignore, The scourge of nuclear power, Alas, victors are rarely tried For their woeful crimes of war. Hope and pray we never see A repeat of Hiroshima. No more! Crimes are legion, The deeds of devil-spawn! What has happened to the souls Your Divine Image was minted on? They are now recast: Crooked coins of Caesar and The Whore of Babylon. How often mankind shuts its ears To Your music celestial, Mankind would rather march To the anthems of Hell. If humanity cannot be reclaimed By Your Mercy and great Love Deservedly we should be struck By Vengeance from above. Many dread the Final Day, And the Crack of Doom For others the Apocalypse Will never come too soon. ‘Lift up your heads, be glad’, Fools shall bray no more For at last the Master comes To thresh His threshing floor.
E.A. Bucchianeri (Vocation of a Gadfly (Gadfly Saga, #2))
But how am I to get over the ten or twelve days that must yet elapse before they go? Yet why so long for their departure? When they are gone how shall I get through the months or years of my future life, in company with that man—my greatest enemy—for none could injure me as he has done? Oh! when I think how fondly, how foolishly I have loved him, how madly I have trusted him, how constantly I have laboured, and studied, and prayed, and struggled for his advantage; and how cruelly he has trampled on my love, betrayed my trust, scorned my prayers and tears, and efforts for his preservation—crushed my hopes, destroyed my youth's best feelings, and doomed me to a life of hopeless misery—as far as man can do it—it is not enough to say that I no longer love my husband—I hate him! The word stares me in the face like a guilty confession, but it is true: I hate him—I hate him!—But God have mercy on his miserable soul!—and make him see and feel his guilt—I ask no other vengeance! if he could but fully know and truly feel my wrongs, I should be well avenged; and I could freely pardon all; but he is so lost, so hardened in his heartless depravity that, in this life, I believe he never will.
Anne Brontë (The Tenant of Wildfell Hall)
My dear Michael, I have given you my heart. I have said that I loved you, and I have pledged myself to be your wife. I am as much yours through all changes of good and evil as if we had been married on the day when such words passed between us. I know you well, and know that if we should be separated and our union broken off, your whole life would be shadowed, and all that might, even now, be stronger in your character for the conflict with the world would then be weakened to the shadow of what it is!” “God help me, Christiana!” said I. “You speak the truth.” “Michael!” said she, putting her hand in mine, in all maidenly devotion, “let us keep apart no longer. It is but for me to say that I can live contented upon such means as you have, and I well know you are happy. I say so from my heart. Strive no more alone; let us strive together. My dear Michael, it is not right that I should keep secret from you what you do not suspect, but what distresses my whole life. My mother: without considering that what you have lost, you have lost for me, and on the assurance of my faith: sets her heart on riches, and urges another suit upon me, to my misery. I cannot bear this, for to bear it is to be untrue to you. I would rather share your struggles than look on. I want no better home than you can give me. I know that you will aspire and labour with a higher courage if I am wholly yours, and let it be so when you will!” I was blest indeed, that day, and a new world opened to me. We were married in a very little while, and I took my wife to our happy home.
Charles Dickens (The Complete Christmas Books and Stories)
He was but three-and-twenty, and had only just learned what it is to love—­to love with that adoration which a young man gives to a woman whom he feels to be greater and better than himself. Love of this sort is hardly distinguishable from religious feeling. What deep and worthy love is so, whether of woman or child, or art or music. Our caresses, our tender words, our still rapture under the influence of autumn sunsets, or pillared vistas, or calm majestic statues, or Beethoven symphonies all bring with them the consciousness that they are mere waves and ripples in an unfathomable ocean of love and beauty; our emotion in its keenest moment passes from expression into silence, our love at its highest flood rushes beyond its object and loses itself in the sense of divine mystery. And this blessed gift of venerating love has been given to too many humble craftsmen since the world began for us to feel any surprise that it should have existed in the soul of a Methodist carpenter half a century ago, while there was yet a lingering after-glow from the time when Wesley and his fellow-labourer fed on the hips and haws of the Cornwall hedges, after exhausting limbs and lungs in carrying a divine message to the poor. That afterglow has long faded away; and the picture we are apt to make of Methodism in our imagination is not an amphitheatre of green hills, or the deep shade of broad-leaved sycamores, where a crowd of rough men and weary-hearted women drank in a faith which was a rudimentary culture, which linked their thoughts with the past, lifted their imagination above the sordid details of their own narrow lives, and suffused their souls with the sense of a pitying, loving, infinite Presence, sweet as summer to the houseless needy. It is too possible that to some of my readers Methodism may mean nothing more than low-pitched gables up dingy streets, sleek grocers, sponging preachers, and hypocritical jargon—­elements which are regarded as an exhaustive analysis of Methodism in many fashionable quarters. That would be a pity; for I cannot pretend that Seth and Dinah were anything else than Methodists—­not indeed of that modern type which reads quarterly reviews and attends in chapels with pillared porticoes, but of a very old-fashioned kind. They believed in present miracles, in instantaneous conversions, in revelations by dreams and visions; they drew lots, and sought for Divine guidance by opening the Bible at hazard; having a literal way of interpreting the Scriptures, which is not at all sanctioned by approved commentators; and it is impossible for me to represent their diction as correct, or their instruction as liberal. Still—­if I have read religious history aright—­faith, hope, and charity have not always been found in a direct ratio with a sensibility to the three concords, and it is possible—­thank Heaven!—­to have very erroneous theories and very sublime feelings. The raw bacon which clumsy Molly spares from her own scanty store that she may carry it to her neighbour’s child to “stop the fits,” may be a piteously inefficacious remedy; but the generous stirring of neighbourly kindness that prompted the deed has a beneficent radiation that is not lost. Considering these things, we can hardly think Dinah and Seth beneath our sympathy, accustomed as we may be to weep over the loftier sorrows of heroines in satin boots and crinoline, and of heroes riding fiery horses, themselves ridden by still more fiery passions.
George Eliot
Love is a familiar. Love is a devil. There is no evil angel but Love. —William Shakespeare, Love’s Labour’s Lost
Anonymous
Home again, and full of the thousand cares that follow the summer and precede the winter. But let mothers and wives fret as they will, they enjoy these labours of love, and would feel lost without them. For what amount of leisure, ease, and comfort, would I exchange husband and children and this busy home?
Elizabeth Payson Prentiss
Of what use is my going to church every day and still come home and remain the same? Of what use is my attending the mosques and the next day I enter the mall with knives and start slaughtering people in the name of religion. God is a God of variety. He was not stupid creating all of us different with our uniqueness. His creating us different shows the level of His creativity. He didn't make you white to hate black or vice versa. He made it so that we can cherish and love each other irrespective of our differences just as He loved us with all our flaws and our short comings. Can we forgive those who have offended us? Yes and some will say no but never forget that you are not worthy but God still forgives you even till the last hour of your life. If God can love us against all our atrocities why can't we learn to love one another. Take a look around you, you can only see sad faces. Was that really God's intention for us on earth? Absolutely not. But we have remoulded God's creativity to suit our taste and lifestyles and now we are reaping the fruit of our labour. You should not expect to reap love when you sowed the seed of hatred. What a man sows that he reaps. We sowed on weapons of war and we are yielding war in return. We have sowed on weapons of destruction so why are we asking for peace. If you ask me....I will say let's go back to our source. He has never lost any battle. I am a living witness.
Patience Johnson (Why Does an Orderly God Allow Disorder)
No, precious creature: I had rather crack my sinews, break my back, Than you should such dishonour undergo, While I sit lazy by.
William Shakespeare (The Complete Comedies of William Shakespeare: All's Well That Ends Well; As You Like It; The Comedy Of Errors; Love's Labour's Lost; Measure For Measure; The Merchant Of Venice)
Tend to th’ master’s whistle.—Blow
William Shakespeare (The Complete Comedies of William Shakespeare: All's Well That Ends Well; As You Like It; The Comedy Of Errors; Love's Labour's Lost; Measure For Measure; The Merchant Of Venice)
Love is a familiar. Love is a devil. There is no evil angel but Love. —William Shakespeare, Love’s Labour’s Lost TWO
Cassandra Clare (City of Lost Souls (The Mortal Instruments, #5))
Crisp Fried Baby Artichokes SERVES 4 Green indeed is the colour of lovers … LOVE’S LABOUR’S LOST, 1.2 IN SHAKESPEARE’S TIME artichokes were thought to be an aphrodisiac. Only the bottoms were eaten and the leaves, if used at all, were only for garnish.
Francine Segan (Shakespeare's Kitchen: Renaissance Recipes for the Contemporary Cook)
Emotional Labour: The f Word, by Jane Caro and Catherine Fox "Work inside the home is not always about chores. One of the most onerous roles is managing the dynamics of the home. The running of the schedule, the attention to details about band practice and sports training, the purchase of presents for next Saturday’s birthday party, the check up at the dentist, all usually fall on one person's shoulders. Woody Allen, in the much-publicised custody case for his children with Mia Farrow, eventually lost, in part because unlike Farrow, he could not name the children’s dentist or paediatrician. It’s a guardianship role and it is not only physically time consuming but demands enormous intellectual and emotional attention. Sociologists call it kin work. It involves: 'keeping in touch with relations, preparing holiday celebrations and remembering birthdays. Another aspect of family work is being attentive to the emotions within a family - what sociologists call ‘emotion work.’ This means being attentive to the emotional tone among family members, troubleshooting and facing problems in a constructive way. In our society, women do a disproportionate amount of this important work. If any one of these activities is performed outside the home, it is called work - management work, psychiatry, event planning, advance works - and often highly remunerated. The key point here is that most adults do two important kinds of work: market work and family work, and that both kinds of work are required to make the world go round.' (Interview with Joan Williams, mothersandmore.org, 2000) This pressure culminates at Christmas. Like many women, Jane remembers loving Christmas as a child and young woman. As a mother, she hates it. Suddenly on top of all the usual paid and unpaid labour, there is the additional mountain of shopping, cooking, cleaning, decorating, card writing, present wrapping, ritual phone calls, peacekeeping and emotional care taking. And then on bloody Boxing Day it all has to be cleaned up. If you want to give your mother a fabulous Christmas present just cancel the whole thing. Bah humbug!
Jane Caro and Catherine Fox
When Karl Marx elaborated upon the savage exploitation of workers by the capitalists, he described that due to extensive mechanization and division of labour, the work of the proletarians lost its exclusive character and became dull and monotonous increasing the repulsiveness of work while decreasing the wages. However, in the case of dowry extortion, the women are oppressed in multiple ways. The authoritative Brahminic ideology that propagates the dowry, forcibly extorts wealth from a woman and her family, mercilessly exploits her labour, and simultaneously deprives of her any wages or any monetary compensation for her extensive contribution behind the veil of labour of love and the rhetoric of sacrifices for the sake of family.
Shalu Nigam
Floral stoics still make a virtue of embracing each season in turn. Like Berowne in Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost, they insist that at Christmas they 'no more desire a rose / Than wish a snow in May's new-fangled mirth; / But like of each thing that in season grows.
Kasia Boddy (Blooming Flowers: A Seasonal History of Plants and People)
Quick spinning seasons Where everything speeds Achingly open spaces Free for next year’s trees Identities distilled To essence Sapping slowly Dissolving memory Hinting of patiently Waiting eternity All living things decay They cannot stay. Be Carefully To gain your Salvation Cleave The bonds That bind. Reflect, refract The undying light Though we may grieve There is no staying grief We are life’s loves Labours lost That leaf Then leave
Peter Pink-Howitt (Ethics of Life: freedom and diversity)
Most detached of all is the great but damaged Sonnet 146, which would be more at home in a religious than in an amatory sequence. It may be significant that it immediately follows the Anne Hathaway sonnet (No. 14S), which also seems irrelevantly imported into the collection. The antithesis between soul and body has occurred earlier, and will be repeated in a grosser context in Sonnet 151 (see pp. 53, 71, below). It is a Renaissance topos; Love's Labour's Lost might be regarded as an extended dramatization of it. Shakespeare develops it here with consummate skill in a perfectly formed poem, marred only by the textual dislocation in its second line. The couplet is worthy of John Donne ('Death, thou shalt die', Holy Sonnets, 6) and anticipates Dylan Thomas's `Death, thou shalt have no dominion' (itself biblical in origin):
Paul Edmondson (Shakespeare's Sonnets (Oxford Shakespeare Topics))
each other. No words were needed, they both felt the same. What a load of bollocks. They’d known each other two minutes. How could they be in love? Joan was just going over the top. The four glasses clinked together. “Tuck in guys. This is one of my better dishes. My mam helped with it too so I know it’s going to be top notch.” Trevor rubbed his hands together and grabbed his fork. There were no flies on him he was tucking in. Food was his comfort and now Joan was off the market he needed it more than ever. Mabel picked at the food on her plate, nibbling, watching everyone else around her. Patrick sat next to Joan and every chance he got he kissed her, held her hand. He knew he was on show here tonight and he was making sure he ticked all the boxes. * Cath and Katrina were chatting in the yard. The winds were blowing with force. They both looked freezing as they marched around the concrete yard. There were high steel fences with barbed wire on the top of it. There was no way out. Katrina needed a friendly ear, some advice, someone to ease her heavy heart. Once she’d filled Cath in on everything that had happened they both sat on a bench not far from the fence.  The screws watched them with caution and never took their eyes from them. They were high-risk prisoners. Cath let out a laboured breath and bit down hard on her bottom lip. “For crying out loud didn’t I tell you to keep away from that prick. Look what’s happened now. You’ve fucking blown it. You were getting out of this shit-hole in a few more months and you’ve gone and fucked it all. Where is your head at woman, you should of steered well clear of any trouble?” Katrina snivelled, her eyes flooding with tears. “I know, I just wanted to hurt him like he’s hurt me. I loved that man with all my heart and he just fucked off and left me. I’ve lost it all Cath. My kids, my home, everything I ever loved. How can I tell my kids I’m not coming home? It will break their hearts. I’ve made promises to them. A better life, no more trouble. Their mother home for good.” “They’ve not charged you yet. Wait until it’s set in stone and then you know what you’re dealing with.” Cath held her in her arms and squeezed her tight. She knew as much as the other person that she wasn’t getting out of jail anytime soon. The crime she’d committed would be all over the news soon and the public would know who she was. She’d seen it so many times before. Once an offender was named, the nation would be all over it. No doubt Norman would be made out to be the hero too. There would be no story about the way he treated this woman, no mention of all the women he’d abused in the past. Maybe someone should have grassed him up. Katrina had warned him if he she got her collar felt there would be repercussions. Why hadn’t she put his name in the picture yet? Now was the time to put her cards on the table and look after number one. Maybe if she turned Queen’s evidence she could get a deal with the prosecution. A lesser sentence, a few years knocked off. Cath was aware of this but to be a Judas was another matter. Katrina would have to
Karen Woods (Sins)