When The Angels Weep – Power, Pride and the Forgotten Smile Code

My mother wrote these words from Shakespeare on the wall of our childhood home and made my siblings and me memorize them:

“But man, proud man,

Drest in a little brief authority,

Most ignorant of what he’s most assured…”

I didn’t understand them then.

But somehow, I knew they were powerful.

One day, when neighborhood children were chasing us and throwing stones, I climbed onto a pile of wood and began reciting those words at them.

They ran as though they had seen a ghost.

And they never bothered us again.

I smile at the memory now. But decades later, I find myself returning to those same words for a very different reason.

Because perhaps Shakespeare wasn’t simply writing about one proud man.

He was writing about us.