Source identified
Read & copy the quotation
“One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.”
- Source
- Troilus and Cressida
- Date
- c. 1602
- Local voice
- Fictional character · Ulysses
Meaning of “One touch of nature makes the whole world…”
Shared human tendencies can connect people across status and difference, even when the behavior being shared is imperfect.
Where does it come from?
Troilus and Cressida, Act III, Scene 3, Project Gutenberg #1528; Ulysses speaks to Achilles. ‘One touch of nature makes the whole world kin’ is immediately defined by the following lines: people ‘with one consent praise new-born gauds’ and the present eye praises the present object. The retained line therefore belongs to Ulysses’s argument about novelty, reputation and forgotten past merit, not an uncomplicated statement of sentimental universal fellowship or Shakespearean autobiography.
Why the local voice matters
Ulysses speaks in Troilus and Cressida, Act 3, Scene 3.
