Daily Inspiration Quote by William Shakespeare

Shakespeare is always suspicious of love that arrives with a shopping list. "Love sought is good" nods to romance as pursuit, to the familiar theatrical engine of longing: the wooer, the wager, the chase. But he pivots on a quiet moral flex. Love "given unsought" is better because it breaks the logic of transaction that so often masquerades as devotion. The line flatters desire, then dethrones it.

The wording does the work. "Sought" suggests strategy and appetite; it’s love as acquisition, something you angle for, earn, or win. "Unsought" flips the power dynamic. It implies spontaneity, even risk: affection offered without being summoned, without leverage, without the recipient performing for it. Shakespeare knew how easily "love" becomes a form of social climbing, a currency in courts and households, a plot device that can be bought with flattery or coerced with status. This line insists on a rarer version: love as gift rather than reward.

The subtext is slightly dangerous. Unsought love can be grace, but in Shakespearean worlds it can also be disruptive - arriving when it shouldn’t, attaching to the wrong person, exposing the thin etiquette that keeps desire polite. Still, the hierarchy is clear: pursued love carries ego in its pocket; unbidden love signals abundance. It’s a neat bit of Shakespearean ethics wrapped in romantic language, reminding his audience that the highest form of affection isn’t the one you manage to obtain, but the one someone chooses to give when they don’t have to.