Love is not Love which Alteration Finds

I remember hearing this line on a television show during one of my many Netflix marathons. I loved the idea of the phrase, which gave me an automatic adoration of the sonnet. Shakespeare's Sonnet 116 beautifully tells what love is... and what it is not. The voice used in the poem is that of authority, meaning Shakespeare knows what he is talking about. 

"If this be error and upon me proved, 

I never writ, nor no man ever loved."

Love is incapable of alteration. It is not shaken by the tempests. Shakespeare says it in a way that our society is not used to. In a world where half of marriages end in divorce, the idea that if it changes or ends, it never was love is hard to hear. But, if we allow ourselves to believe this, it would cause one to fight for love harder.

"Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom."

Common types of symbols are used in this sonnet as used in others, like "tempests" being for trials, troubles and issues that need to be overcome, or the phrase ,

"It is the star to every wand'ring bark, 

Whose worth's unknown, although his highth be taken."

meaning that love is a guiding star who's worth is not always known. 

This sonnet is explaining love, and in a world we live in where love is less important and understood, it is vital to realize that love cannot die or be changed.