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
Love is generally confused with dependence; but in point of fact, you can love only in proportion to your capacity for independence.
Interpretation
What this quote means
True love is rooted in independence rather than dependence on another person.
Rollo May's quote emphasizes the distinction between love and dependence, asserting that genuine love flourishes when individuals have a strong sense of independence. The capacity to love is contingent upon one's ability to stand on their own, rather than relying on another person for emotional stability or fulfillment. This perspective challenges the common notion that love equates to attachment, advocating instead for a healthier, more autonomous understanding of love.
Themes
LoveIndependenceRelationshipSelf-RelianceEmotional Health
In practice
Example use cases
This quote could be shared during a discussion on relationships to highlight the importance of personal autonomy.
More from Rollo May
All quotes βTerrorism 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
Joy is the zest that you get out of using your talents, your understanding, the totality of your being, for great aims...That's the kind of feeling that goes with creativity. That's why I say the courage to create. Creation does not come out of simply what you're born with. That must be united with your courage, both of which cause anxiety, but also great joy.
Rollo MayRead
Similar quotes
True love blooms when we care more about another person than we care about ourselves. That is Christ's great atoning example for us, and it ought to be more evident in the kindness we show, the respect we give, and the selflessness and courtesy we employ in our personal relationships.
Jeffrey R. HollandRead
He never wanted love, though. You cannot eat love, nor buy a horse with it, nor warm your halls on a cold night.
George R. R. MartinRead
It was wonderful love that Christ should rather die for us than for the angels that fell. They were creatures of a more noble extract, and in all probability might have brought greater revenues of glory to God; yet that Christ should pass by those golden vessels, and make us clods of earth into stars of glory -- Oh, the hyperbole of Christ's love!
Thomas WatsonRead
A love affair is like a short story--it has a beginning, a middle, and an end. The beginning was easy, the middle might drag, invaded by commonplace, but the end, instead of being decisive and well knit with that element of revelatory surprise as a well-written story should be, it usually dissipated in a succession of messy and humiliating anticlimaxes.
F. Scott FitzgeraldRead
Beauty is not beauty without love.
Thomas CampionRead
Last night I dreamed about you. What happened in detail I can hardly remember, all I know is that we kept merging into one another. I was you, you were me. Finally you somehow caught fire.
Franz KafkaRead