“What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”
Permalink: William Shakespeare
About this quote
Juliet uses it to talk Romeo out of the name Romeo and to insist that a name is only a label, and the play gives the idea weight in a scene where names have just become dangerous. Quoted on its own, the line is a tidy statement of how much of what we call importance turns out to be a matter of convention.
Source: Romeo and Juliet, Act 2, Scene 2