Source identified
“If music be the food of love, play on.”
Voice: Fictional character · Duke Orsino
Love is treated as an appetite that can be intensified through beauty, sensation, and repeated emotional stimulation.
Source note: Act 1, Scene 1; Orsino opens the play by comparing music and appetite.
Source identified
“If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more.”
Voice: Fictional character · George Knightley
The difficulty of speaking is used as evidence of emotional depth, contrasting sincere feeling with polished or excessive declaration.
Source note: Chapter 49; Mr. Knightley struggles to express the depth of his feeling to Emma.
Source identified
“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other word would smell as sweet.”
Voice: Fictional character · Juliet
The line questions whether labels and inherited identities should determine the value or reality of the person beneath them.
Source note: Act 2, Scene 2; Juliet separates Romeo from the social meaning of his family name.
Source identified
“Before him, I may think aloud.”
The line describes the relief of a friendship in which thought can be expressed openly before it is polished for public judgment.
Source note: Emerson continues his description of sincerity between friends in the essay Friendship.
Source identified
“Your friend is your needs answered.”
Friendship is described through mutual presence and response, emphasizing what dependable companionship provides.
Source note: The Prophet, “On Friendship.”
Source identified
“Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.”
Voice: Fictional character · Countess of Roussillon
The advice combines generosity with judgment: goodwill can be broad while trust remains selective.
Source note: All’s Well That Ends Well, Act 1, Scene 1; the Countess gives Bertram compact advice about conduct before he leaves.