You know the old adage: Plant an expectation, reap a disappointment.
Elizabeth GilbertRead
Balance is not letting anyone love you less than you love yourself.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Self-love should be prioritized above the love others give you.
This quote emphasizes the importance of self-love in relationships, suggesting that one should not accept less affection or respect from others than they are willing to give themselves. It highlights that true balance in love comes from recognizing one's own worth and ensuring that feelings of love from others match the love one has for themselves.
Themes
BalanceSelf-LoveRelationshipsWorthAffection
In practice
Example use cases
During a self-help seminar, I shared this quote to encourage participants to prioritize their own well-being in relationships.
More from Elizabeth Gilbert
All quotes βDo not apologize for crying. Without this emotion, we are only robots.
Elizabeth GilbertRead
I had always been taught that the pursuit of happiness was my natural (even national) birthright. It is the emotional trademark of my culture to seek happiness. Not just any kind of happiness, either, but profound happiness, even soaring happiness. And what could possibly bring a person more soaring happiness than romantic love.
Elizabeth GilbertRead
When I tried this morning, after an hour or so of unhappy thinking, to dip back into my meditation, I took a new idea with me: compassion. I asked my heart if it could please infuse my soul with a more generous perspective on my mind's workings. Instead of thinking that I was a failure, could I perhaps accept that I am only a human being--and a normal one, at that?
Elizabeth GilbertRead
And when you sense a faint potentiality for happiness after such dark times you must grab onto the ankles of that happiness and not let go until it drags you face-first out of the dirt - this is not selfishness, but obligation. You were given life; it is your duty to find something beautiful within life no matter how slight.
Elizabeth GilbertRead
But never again use another person's body or emotions as a scratching post for your own unfulfilling yearnings.
Elizabeth GilbertRead
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Every human being must be viewed according to what it is good for. For not one of us, no, not one, is perfect. And were we to love none who had imperfection, this world would be a desert for our love.
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Love was just a word to me. Until you came along and gave it meaning.
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I wept as I remembered how often you and I had tired the sun with talking and sent him down the sky.
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