I understand by this passion the union of desire, friendship, and tenderness, which is inflamed by a single female, which read more

I understand by this passion the union of desire, friendship, and tenderness, which is inflamed by a single female, which prefers her to the rest of her sex, and which seeks her possession as the supreme or the sole happiness of our being.

He who knows that enough is enough will always have enough.

He who knows that enough is enough will always have enough.

I love you; not only for what you are, but for what I am when I am with you.

I love you; not only for what you are, but for what I am when I am with you.

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for her. [Ephesians 5:25].

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for her. [Ephesians 5:25].

One does not kill oneself for love of a woman, but because love -- any love -- reveals us in read more

One does not kill oneself for love of a woman, but because love -- any love -- reveals us in our nakedness, our misery, our vulnerability, our nothingness.

Pleasure is a shadow, wealth is vanity, and power a pageant; but knowledge is ecstatic in enjoyment, perennial in frame, read more

Pleasure is a shadow, wealth is vanity, and power a pageant; but knowledge is ecstatic in enjoyment, perennial in frame, unlimited in space and indefinite in duration.

It's not till sex has died out between a man and a woman that they can really love. And now read more

It's not till sex has died out between a man and a woman that they can really love. And now I mean affection. Now I mean to be fond of (as one is fond of oneself) --to hope, to be disappointed, to live inside the other heart. When I look back on the pain of sex, the love like a wild fox so ready to bite, the antagonism that sits like a twin beside love, and contrast it with affection, so deeply unrepeatable, of two people who have lived a life together (and of whom one must die) it's the affection I find richer. It's that I would have again. Not all those doubtful rainbow colors.

Never marry a man who hates his mother, because he'll end up hating you.

Never marry a man who hates his mother, because he'll end up hating you.

Nothing is poorer than a truth expressed as it was thought. Committed to writing in such cases, it is not read more

Nothing is poorer than a truth expressed as it was thought. Committed to writing in such cases, it is not even a bad photograph. Truth wants to be startled abruptly, at one stroke, from her self-immersion, whether by uproar, music or cries for help.