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The fact is, there is no foundation, no secure ground, upon which people may stand today if it isn’t the family. If you don’t have the support and love and caring and concern that you get from a family, you don’t have much at all. Love is so supremely important. As our great poet Auden said, ‘Love each other or perish’.
Mitch Albom
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Interpretation

What this quote means

Family is the essential support system for love and well-being.

In this quote, Mitch Albom emphasizes the critical importance of family as the foundation of our lives. He argues that without the love, support, and care that come from family, we lack a secure and meaningful existence, echoing the sentiment of the poet W.H. Auden who highlights the life-or-death significance of love in our relationships.

Themes

FamilyLoveSupportImportanceConnection

In practice

Example use cases

During a family gathering, I quoted Albom to highlight the significance of our bonds.

More from Mitch Albom

For better or for worse, I've watched people die in front of me. I see how they are in the end. And they're not cynical. In the end, they wanna hold somebody's hand. And that's real to me.
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If we tend to the things that are important in life, if we are right with those we love, and behave in line with our faith, our lives will not be cursed with the aching throb of unfulfilled business. Our words will always be sincere, our embraces will be tight. We will never wallow in the agony of ‘I could have, I should have’. We can sleep in a storm. And when its time, our goodbyes will be complete.
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Young men go to war. Sometimes because they have to, sometimes because they want to. Always, they feel they are supposed to. This comes from the sad, layered stories of life, which over the centuries have seen courage confused with picking up arms, and cowardice confused with laying them down.
Mitch AlbomRead
What about a man who sits down to wonder Why life has cheated him? Thinks about his situation Hangs his head and cries Will we pretend, his problems don't exist? He's reaching out for help-will we selfishly resist? What about your brother? He's crying What about your brother? He's dying What about your brother?
Mitch AlbomRead
Sacrfice," the captain said. "You made one. I made one. We all made them. But you were angry over yours. You kept thinking about what you lost. You didn't get it. Sacrifice is a part of life. It's supposed to be. It's not something to regret. It's something to aspire to.
Mitch AlbomRead
The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.
Mitch AlbomRead

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