let me not to the marriage of true minds

Today is Favorite Quote Day.

Do you ever have those kinds of days where random quotations you learned in highschool spin around your head?

I like that Shakespeare sonnet, "Let me not to the marriage of true minds/Admit impediments. Love is not love/Which alters when its alteration finds/Or bends with its remover to remove/Oh no! It is an ever fixed mark..."

I have absolutely no training in Shakespeare whatsoever, but I do think he is using the sonnet in much the same ironic vein as he does in "My mistress's eyes are nothing like the sun."

To me, whatever Shakespeare may or may not have ended up with, I've always had this vague inclination that he was actually began the poem in a bit of bitter mood, making mock of lovers' vain belief that misguided self-love is synonymous with real love itself, which is in fact to a large degree selfless and accepting.

Put another way, I've always rather thought "Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments" had several meanings in the context of the sonnet, but that one of the not-so-immediately-ready interpretations is: "If those fools in love are convinced they can effect change in their lovers for the sake of love and being loved--then let those idiots have each other."