Everyone can master a grief but he that has it.

The line is spoken by Benedick in Shakespeare’s comedy *Much Ado About Nothing*. It occurs early in the play (Act I), during the witty exchanges among the Messina court, where characters spar over love, reputation, and emotional vulnerability. Benedick—skeptical of romance and proud of his independence—remarks on how easy it is for outsiders to prescribe composure to someone in pain. The observation fits the play’s broader interest in the gap between public performance and private feeling, and it foreshadows how even the most self-assured characters can be undone when they themselves become emotionally invested.

The quote points to a common human blind spot: emotional suffering is easiest to “manage” in theory, when it belongs to someone else. From the outside, grief can look like a problem to be solved with advice, stoicism, or time; from the inside, it is lived experience that resists quick mastery. Shakespeare uses the line to expose the shallowness of detached counsel and the limits of rational control over feeling. It also carries an ethical implication: compassion requires recognizing that grief is not merely an attitude one can will away, but a burden that changes the sufferer’s world.

1) “Every one can master a grief but he that has it.”
2) “Everyone can master grief but he that has it.”