There are other ways of finding satisfaction, recipes for human happiness, enjoyment, dignified and meaningful, gratifying life, than increased consumption that increases production.
Zygmunt BaumanRead
As far as love is concerned, possession, power, fusion and disenchantment are the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes that love can lead to destructive outcomes when it is treated as possession or power.
Zygmunt Bauman uses the metaphor of the 'Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse' to convey that love, when associated with concepts such as possession, power, fusion, and disenchantment, can lead to catastrophic results. These elements suggest that a controlling or possessive attitude towards love ultimately breeds disenchantment and destruction rather than fulfillment and happiness.
Themes
LovePossessionPowerFusionDisenchantmentRelationshipsApocalypse
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about healthy relationships, one might quote Bauman to highlight the dangers of possessiveness in love.
More from Zygmunt Bauman
All quotes βCivilisation, the orderly world in which we live, is frail. We are skating on thin ice. There is a fear of a collective disaster. Terrorism, genocide, flu, tsunamis.
Zygmunt BaumanRead
In a liquid modern life there are no permanent bonds, and any that we take up for a time must be tied loosely so that they can be untied again, as quickly and as effortlessly as possible, when circumstances change - as they surely will in our liquid modern society, over and over again.
Zygmunt BaumanRead
We belong to talking, not what talking is about... Stop talking - and you are out. Silence equals exclusion.
Zygmunt BaumanRead
The carrying power of a bridge is not the average strength of the pillars, but the strength of the weakest pillar. I have always believed that you do not measure the health of a society by GNP but by the condition of its worst off.
Zygmunt BaumanRead
We live in a world of communication - everyone gets information about everyone else. There is universal comparison and you don't just compare yourself with the people next door, you compare yourself to people all over the world and with what is being presented as the decent, proper and dignified life. It's the crime of humiliation.
Zygmunt BaumanRead
Similar quotes
It is a good thing to be rich and strong, but it is a better thing to be loved.
EuripidesRead
Maybe we were together in another life...in a parallel universe, maybe our paths are not supposed to cross twice, maybe your arms are not supposed to go around me. I hear about you now & then, I wonder where you are & how you feel. Sometimes I walk by & I look up to your balcony, just to make sure you were real-just to make sure that I can still feel you...it appears to me that Destiny Rules.
Stevie NicksRead
It is not so essential to think much as to love much.
Teresa Of AvilaRead
Training is needed in order to love properly; and to be able to give happiness and joy, you must practice DEEP LOOKING directed toward the other person you love. Because if you do not understand this person, you cannot love properly. Understanding is the essence of love. If you cannot understand, you cannot love. That is the message of the Buddha.
Nhat HanhRead
Somebody," said Jacques, "your father or mine, should have told us that not many people have ever died of love. But multitudes have perished, and are perishing every hour - and in the oddest places! - for the lack of it.
James A. BaldwinRead
In springtime, the only pretty ring time Birds sing, hey ding A-ding, a-ding Sweet lovers love the springβ
William ShakespeareRead