— Great Expectations (1861), Chapter 19
About this quote
हिन्दी में
ईश्वर जानता है, अपने आँसुओं पर हमें कभी शर्मिंदा होने की ज़रूरत नहीं।
What it means
Notice who the sentence is arguing with. Heaven knows is the phrasing of a man answering an objection nobody in the scene has spoken aloud, which tells you the disapproval is ambient and needs no speaker. The claim itself is narrow and exact: not that tears are good, or healthy, or proof of feeling, but that shame is the wrong response to them.
The absolute word is never, and it is left unqualified — no clause about the cause being worthy, no test the grief has to pass first. That matters, because the line is usually produced as comfort for respectable sorrow, bereavement and the like, while as written it equally covers crying out of guilt, humiliation or self-pity. It exempts the tears from shame without passing any judgement on what produced them.
What it teaches you
The common reflex when someone cries is to justify it — of course you’re upset, anyone would be — which quietly makes the tears acceptable only if the cause is good enough, and leaves you with nothing to say when it isn’t. The sentence points the other way: drop the justification, stay in the room, and don’t make the person build a case for something that is already happening.
अर्थ और सीख
यह वाक्य यह नहीं कहता कि रोना अच्छा है या सेहत के लिए ज़रूरी है — यह सिर्फ़ इतना कहता है कि आँसुओं पर शर्म करना ग़लत है। और इसमें कोई शर्त नहीं लगाई गई कि रोने की वजह जायज़ हो, इसलिए यह उन आँसुओं को भी ढक लेता है जो अपराधबोध या अपमान से निकलते हैं। सीख यह कि जब कोई रोए तो उसकी वजह को सही ठहराने की कोशिश छोड़िए और बस साथ बने रहिए।
Where it comes from
The narrator, after Pip weeps on leaving home for London. Dickens is arguing against a particular Victorian instinct: that visible feeling is weakness, especially in boys.
What follows in the book matters too. Pip’s tears are not presented as noble — he is crying partly out of guilt for being ashamed of Joe. Dickens lets the emotion be both genuine and compromised.
