The uncommitted life isn't worth living.

The uncommitted life isn't worth living.

For the memory of love is sweet, though the love itself were in vain. And what I have lost of read more

For the memory of love is sweet, though the love itself were in vain. And what I have lost of pleasure, assuage what I find of pain.

What ever beauty may be, it has for its basis order, and for its essence unity.

What ever beauty may be, it has for its basis order, and for its essence unity.

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding read more

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. {2} If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. {3} If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing. {4} Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. {5} It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. {6} Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. {7} It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. {8} Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. {9} For we know in part and we prophesy in part, {10} but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. {11} When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. {12} Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. {13} And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

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.

Woe to the man whose heart has not learned while young to hope, to love - and to put its read more

Woe to the man whose heart has not learned while young to hope, to love - and to put its trust in life.

The supreme happiness in life is the conviction that we are loved.

The supreme happiness in life is the conviction that we are loved.

Pleasure is a necessary reciprocal. No one feels, who does not at the same time give it. To be pleased, read more

Pleasure is a necessary reciprocal. No one feels, who does not at the same time give it. To be pleased, one must please. What pleases you in others, will in general please them in you.

Compassion is the antitoxin of the soul: where there is compassion even the most poisonous impulses remain relatively harmless.

Compassion is the antitoxin of the soul: where there is compassion even the most poisonous impulses remain relatively harmless.