A kiss that is never tasted, is forever and ever wasted.

When Billie Holiday sang, “A kiss that is never tasted, is forever and ever wasted,” she gave voice to the eternal ache of love unfulfilled, of passion restrained by fear, of moments lost to hesitation. Beneath the tender melody of her words lies a truth as old as humanity itself: that life’s sweetness is found not in the dreams we guard, but in the courage to reach for them. Holiday, the great voice of jazz and sorrow, was no stranger to longing. Her music was born from the meeting place of desire and pain — and this line, delicate yet haunting, reminds us that to deny the heart’s longing is to deny life itself.

At its core, this quote speaks of opportunity and risk, of the beauty and cost of vulnerability. A kiss, in Holiday’s verse, is not merely an act of affection — it is a symbol of life’s fleeting chances, those moments when love, art, or truth call out to us and we hesitate. To let such a moment pass, she tells us, is to waste something eternal. For once the moment is gone, it cannot return; the chance to live, to love, to connect, dissolves like smoke in the wind. In her gentle admonition, she urges us to taste what life offers — for the taste of joy, even if it ends in pain, is still sweeter than the bitterness of regret.

This truth is echoed through the ages. The ancients, too, spoke of the same longing. Horace, the Roman poet, wrote carpe diem — “seize the day” — for he knew that hesitation is the thief of life. The kiss never tasted is the dream never pursued, the word never spoken, the love never confessed. Each withheld gesture becomes a ghost that follows us, whispering of what might have been. Holiday, with her sultry voice and tragic grace, turned this ancient wisdom into something deeply human — reminding us that to live fully, we must dare to be tender.

In her own life, Billie Holiday knew well the cost of passion and restraint. Her voice carried both fire and fragility — the sound of a woman who had loved fiercely and suffered deeply. She sang of the sweetness of love and the sting of its loss because she had lived them both. Her quote, born from this lived truth, tells us that love, however brief or imperfect, is never wasted when it is lived, but always wasted when it is withheld. To love is to risk heartbreak, yet not to love is to guarantee emptiness. Thus, her words are not an invitation to recklessness, but to courage — the courage to let the heart speak before silence claims it.

History offers us many who illustrate this truth. Consider Cleopatra and Mark Antony, whose love defied empires and reason alike. Though their affair ended in tragedy, their passion still burns through the centuries. Would they have lived longer had they denied that kiss? Perhaps. But their lives would have been emptier, and the world would have been poorer for it. Theirs was a love tasted — and therefore immortal. Contrast this with those who let fear hold their hearts in chains: how many kings, poets, and wanderers have passed into oblivion, remembered not for what they dared, but for what they feared to attempt?

Holiday’s line also carries a spiritual resonance. The kiss can be read as the soul’s reaching for beauty, truth, or art — any form of authentic expression. To “never taste the kiss” is to deny the self the act of creation or connection. It is to let one’s gifts wither unexpressed. The painter who never paints, the writer who never writes, the friend who never forgives — all waste the same divine spark. Life itself is a fleeting kiss between the eternal and the mortal, and to withdraw from it in fear is to waste the chance to feel the miracle of existence.

So, O listener, take this lesson as a sacred whisper: do not let your kisses go untasted. Speak the words you hold in your heart. Reach for the hand you long to touch. Write the poem, make the call, forgive, confess, create. Do not let hesitation rob you of the moments that make life real. For the ache of rejection fades, but the ache of regret endures forever. Holiday’s wisdom is simple yet eternal — that the soul, like the body, must taste to live.

And thus, in the spirit of Billie Holiday, let this truth be passed down: the kiss never tasted is not only a lost act of love, but a denial of life itself. The brave may suffer, but they live richly; the fearful may survive, but they live half-asleep. Taste deeply of life, therefore — its sweetness and its sorrow alike — and you will never waste a moment, nor a kiss, that was meant to be yours.