Sonnet 116, William Shakespeare

Sonnet 116, One of the world's most readable sonnet in weddings by William Shakespeare. Its a piece of art, undoubtedly one of Shakespeare’s most famous sonnets, Sonnet 116 provides a quintessential definition of love. Love, according to this sonnet, does not change or fade; it has no flaws and even outlasts death. The sonnet appeared in Emma Thompson’s screenplay for the film of Sense and Sensibility, and is memorably quoted by Kate Winslet, who played romantic Marianne.

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love

Or bends with the remover to remove:

Which alters when it alteration finds,

O no! it is an ever-fixed mark

It is the star to every wandering bark,

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle's compass come:

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

If this be error and upon me proved,

I never writ, nor no man ever loved.