A man always remembers his first love with special tenderness, but after that he begins to bunch them.
Interpretation
The first love holds a unique emotional significance, while subsequent relationships may blend together in memory.
This quote by H. L. Mencken reflects the idea that a person's first experience of love is cherished and remembered with a distinct warmth and affection. As one experiences more relationships over time, those subsequent loves tend to lose some individuality in memory, becoming generalized rather than distinct, indicating a natural human tendency to romanticize the first love while potentially diminishing the impact of later romances.
In practice
During a speech about the significance of first experiences in relationships.
I know a good many men of great learning-that is, men born with an extraordinary eagerness and capacity to acquire knowledge. One and all, they tell me that they can't recall learning anything of any value in school. All that schoolmasters managed to accomplish with them was to test and determine the amount of knowledge that they had already acquired independently-and not infrequently the determination was made clumsily and inaccurately.
It takes a long while for a naturally trustful person to reconcile himself to the idea that after all God will not help him
It is the theory of all modern civilized governments that they protect and foster the liberty of the citizen; it is the practice of all of them to limit its exercise, and sometimes very narrowly.
The central belief of every moron is that he is the victim of a mysterious conspiracy against his common rights and true deserts.
The cure for the evils of democracy is more democracy.
It is my conviction that no normal man ever fell in love, within the ordinary meaning of the term, after the age of thirty.
She reflected she must be completely besotted about Peter, if his laughter could hallow an aspidistra.
You are flawed, you are stuck in old patterns, you become carried away with yourself. Indeed you are quite impossible in many ways. And still, you are beautiful beyond measure. For the core of what you are is fashioned out of love, that potent blend of openness, warmth, and clear, transparent presence.
We do what only lovers can: make a gift out of necessity.
We shall draw nearer to God, not by trying to avoid the sufferings inherent in all loves, but by accepting them and offering them to Him; throwing away all defensive armour. If our hearts need to be broken, and if He chooses this as the way in which they should break, so be it.
To know the pain of too much tenderness
My vocation, at last I have found it; my vocation is love.
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