Love is generally confused with dependence; but in point of fact, you can love only in proportion to your capacity for independence.
Rollo MayRead
Hate is not the opposite of love; apathy is.
Interpretation
Apathy, or lack of interest, is a greater absence in relationships than hate.
Rollo May's quote emphasizes that true love involves passion and engagement, while apathy signifies emotional detachment. In this context, he suggests that indifference can be more detrimental to relationships than negative feelings like hate, as it implies a complete lack of care or connection.
In practice
During a discussion on emotional health, one might use this quote to explain the importance of engagement in relationships.
Love is generally confused with dependence; but in point of fact, you can love only in proportion to your capacity for independence.
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
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.
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.
Beauty is the experience that gives us a sense of joy and a sense of peace simultaneously.
The poet, like the lover, is a menace on the assembly line.
I fairly often have thought how lucky I was. I knew everybody because I was married to Bogie, and that 25-year difference was the most fantastic thing for me to have in my life.
This last night we tear into each other, as if to wound, as if to find the key to everything before morning.
Are you the new person drawn toward me?
Difficulty empathising translates into a whole set of hurdles. You might be last person to get the point of a joke, which can leave you feeling like an outsider. You might end up saying something that another person finds hurtful or offensive, when that was the last thing you intended.
Of all the actions of a man's life, his marriage does least concern other people, yet of all the actions of our lives, 'tis the most meddled with by other people.
I want to meet a woman that will make me stop and listen to what she has to say. I want a woman who will make my jaw drop in awe. A woman that has little time for me. One who does not throw herself at me. One who respects herself who has a sense of herself. Where is she
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.