QuoteProject
Great lovers will always be unhappy, because, for them, love is of supreme importance. Consequently they demand of their beloved the same intensity of thought as they have for her, otherwise they feel betrayed.
Cesare Pavese
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

Great lovers often find themselves unhappy due to their high expectations of love.

The quote by Cesare Pavese suggests that those who love deeply and passionately may experience dissatisfaction because they seek an equal level of commitment and intensity from their partners. When their beloved cannot match their profound engagement with love, it leads to feelings of betrayal and unhappiness.

Themes

LoveExpectationUnhappinessBetrayalIntensity

In practice

Example use cases

In a discussion about the complexities of relationships at a counseling session.

More from Cesare Pavese

Reality is a prison, where one vegetates and always will. All the rest - thought, action - is just a pastime, mental or physical. What counts then, is to come to grips with reality. The rest can go.
Cesare PaveseRead
Waiting is still an occupation. It is having nothing to wait for that is terrible.
Cesare PaveseRead
Dawn's faint breath breathes with your mouth at the ends of empty streets. Gray light your eyes, sweet drops of dawn on dark hills. Your steps and breath like the wind of dawn smother houses. The city shudders, Stones exhale— you are life, an awakening. Star lost in the light of dawn, trill of the breeze, warmth, breath— the night is done. You are light and morning.
Cesare PaveseRead
There is mercy for everyone, except those who are bored with life.
Cesare PaveseRead
One does not kill oneself for love of a woman, but because love - any love - reveals us in our nakedness, our misery, our vulnerability, our nothingness.
Cesare PaveseRead
The cadence of suffering has begun. Every evening at dusk, my heart constricts until night has come.
Cesare PaveseRead

Similar quotes

You believe that a lover will bring you love, but it is your love that will bring you a lover.
Alan CohenRead
Being in love doesn't mean loving.
Fyodor DostoevskyRead
But if you come at just any time, I shall never know at what hour my heart is to be ready to greet you.
Antoine De Saint-ExuperyRead
Retaliation is counter-poison and poison breeds more poison. The nectar of Love alone can destroy the poison of hate.
Mahatma GandhiRead
To love beauty is to see light.
Victor HugoRead
There are still a few men who love desperately.
J. D. SalingerRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.