The highest form of love is the love that allows for intimacy without the annihilation of difference.
Interpretation
True love embraces intimacy while respecting individual differences.
This quote emphasizes that the purest and most profound form of love fosters closeness and connection between individuals, yet it also honors the uniqueness and individuality of each person. In a healthy relationship, intimacy is built on mutual understanding and respect for each other's differences rather than attempting to erase or control them.
In practice
During a wedding speech, one could use this quote to highlight the importance of loving one another while maintaining individuality.
The academic bias against subjectivity not only forces our students to write poorly ("It is believed...," instead of, "I believe..."), it deforms their thinking about themselves and their world. In a single stroke, we delude our students into believing that bad prose turns opinions into facts and we alienate them from their own inner lives.
Before I can tell my life what I want to do with it, I must listen to my life telling me who I am.
Self-care is never a selfish act - it is only good stewardship of the only gift I have, the gift I was put on earth to offer others.
We need a coat with two pockets. In one pocket there is dust, and in the other pocket there is gold. We need a coat with two pockets to remind us who we are.
The kind of teaching that transforms people does not happen if the student’s inward teacher is ignored… we can speak to the teacher within our students only when we are on speaking terms with the teacher within ourselves.
Our deepest calling is to grow into our own authentic self-hood, whether or not it conforms to some image of who we ought to be. As we do so, we will not only find the joy that every human being seeks--we will also find our path of authentic service in the world.
She dreams a lot. She dreams of Ondines and falling maidens and houses burning in the night. But search her dreams all you like and you'll never find Prince Charming. No knight on a white horse gallops into her dreams to carry her away. When she dreams of love, she dreams of smashed potatoes.
There is the great lesson of 'Beauty and the Beast,' that a thing must be loved before it is lovable.
Am I in love? --yes, since I am waiting. The other one never waits. Sometimes I want to play the part of the one who doesn't wait; I try to busy myself elsewhere, to arrive late; but I always lose at this game. Whatever I do, I find myself there, with nothing to do, punctual, even ahead of time. The lover's fatal identity is precisely this: I am the one who waits.
Enough about my beauty," Buttercup said. "Everybody always talks about how beautiful I am. I've got a mind, Westley. Talk about that.
And so this young one, this young one whom I had so loved, I had to forsake, no matter how broken my heart, no matter how lonely my soul, no matter how bruised my intellect and spirit.
It is my conviction that no normal man ever fell in love, within the ordinary meaning of the term, after the age of thirty.
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