Madison's Commonplace Blog

 The first time I read this phrase, I did a double-take and look at the footnote to understand the meaning. Toby refers to the sadness that has "plagued" Olivia with the passing of her brother, and then says, "I am sure care's an enemy to life." The meaning of the word "care" here isn't the same as we might use it today; it is synonymous with "sorrow" in this case. Essentially, Toby is explaining that sorrow prevents us from the happiness that we hope to find in life. However, I have to disagree. Dwelling on sadness and sorrow is not  healthy - certainly we should do what we can to keep an optimistic attitude and look for the good things in life. However, without sorrow, we would never be able to experience the happiness and joy that we so desperately seek in this life. We learn this in the scriptures: there must  be an opposition in all things, because without the bad we would never appreciate the good. The moments in my life that have s...

By act 1, scene 3 of Othello , Brabantio's life is quite different than he probably imagined it would be when he had gone to bed that night. After waking up and finding out that his daughter had married without his knowledge, and now standing in front of the duke, trying to prove that his daughter must not have truly deserted him, Brabantio has many reasons to be pessimistic. And yet, when the duke brings up the idea of smiling in the face of something hard or tragic, Brabantio can't help but agree with him, saying, "We lose it not so long as we can smile" (1.3.242). This small exchange between the duke and Brabantio fascinates me, because both men are on the verge of losing something they value very much - the duke worries about losing to the Turks, and Brabantio worries about losing to Othello. However, despite their worry, both the duke and Brabantio agree that one who doesn't stop smiling is one who is not truly defeated. This is a lesson we hear over and over...

 I found the Friar to be one of my favorite characters in Much Ado About Nothing , because of his calm demeanor, and his ability to see the truth when everybody else got distracted or confused. He is also extremely wise, and one of my favorite passages of his wisdom comes when he is helping Leonato devise the plan to hide away Hero and make Claudio believe that she is dead, so that his anger at Hero will turn to grief. This is the perfect plan, he reasons, because "that what we have we prize not to the worth whiles we enjoy it, but being lacked and lost, why then we rack the value, then we find the virtue that possession would not show us whiles it was ours" (4.1.229-33). I think the principle that the Friar is teaching here is one that I need to keep in mind more often in my everyday life. I am often reminded how grateful I am for food when I am fasting. I recognize the miracle of modern technology that provides my apartment with heat when I have to walk to campus in the col...

 Today's quote comes from Act 2, Scene 3, line 243 of Much Ado About Nothing: "these paper bullets of the brain." This quotation is not even a complete sentence, and yet it stuck out to me so much as I was reading this passage. These words are spoken by Benedick, who has just overheard Don Pedro and Claudio talking about Beatrice's love for Benedick, and at this specific moment, he is discovering that, despite his previous claims, he truly does want to be in love. This is when this phrase comes in: he is talking about "quips, and sentences, and these paper bullets of the brain," which will not prevent him from pursuing his newfound love. I think the reason this stuck out to me so much was that I realized that "paper bullets of the brain" is such an excellent way to describe our thoughts. All day long, our brains are racing with thousands of thoughts, and although they may seem harmless ("paper"), they are in fact more dangerous ("bul...