Love is generally confused with dependence; but in point of fact, you can love only in proportion to your capacity for independence.
Rollo MayRead
Generally, the shaking is consciously felt in its positive aspects — as the wonderful new heaven and earth which love with its miracle and mystery has suddenly produced. Love is the answer, we sing. Our Western culture seems to be engaged in a romantic - albeit desperate - conspiracy to enforce the illusion that that is all there is to eros.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Love brings about positive transformations in our lives, but its complexities are often overlooked.
In this quote, Rollo May reflects on the dual nature of love as both a wondrous and mysterious force that creates beauty in our lives. He critiques Western culture's tendency to simplify love to mere romantic notions, suggesting that there is much more depth and complexity to love that is often ignored, urging us to explore its full range of experiences beyond superficial interpretations.
Themes
LoveErosCultureRomanticIllusionTransformation
In practice
Example use cases
During a speech on love and relationships, one could use this quote to emphasize the deeper meanings of love beyond romance.
More from Rollo May
All quotes →To love means to open ourselves to the negative as well as the positive - to grief, sorrow, and disappointment as well as to joy, fulfillment, and an intensity of consciousness we did not know was possible before
Rollo MayRead
Terrorism and the whole drug scene are vivid examples of the fact that what persons abhor most of all in life is the possibility that they will not matter.
Rollo MayRead
Humor is the healthy way of feeling "distance" between one's self and the problem, a way of standing off and looking at one's problem with perspective.
Rollo MayRead
Beauty is the experience that gives us a sense of joy and a sense of peace simultaneously.
Rollo MayRead
The poet, like the lover, is a menace on the assembly line.
Rollo MayRead
Similar quotes
Love from its very nature must be transitory. To seek for a secret that would render it constant would be as wild a search as for the philosopher’s stone or the grand panacea: and the discovery would be equally useless, or rather pernicious to mankind. The most holy band of society is friendship.
Mary WollstonecraftRead
Love creates bridges where it would seem they were impossible.
Paulo CoelhoRead
Every time I take a step in the direction of generosity, I know I am moving from fear to love.
Henri NouwenRead
You are the drop,and the ocean you are kindness,you are anger, you are sweetness,you are poison. Do not make me more disheartened. you are the chamber of the sun, you are the abode of venus, you are the garden of all hope. Oh, Beloved, let me enter.
RumiRead
Love . . . is like nature, but in reverse; first it fruits, then it flowers, then it seems to wither, then it goes deep, deep down into its burrow, where no one sees it, where it is lost from sight, and ultimately people die with that secret buried inside their souls.
Edna O'BrienRead
I definitely don't think that money can buy you love. It can buy you affection but certainly not love.
George BestRead