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You are right,” he had said. “Love is not the word. No one can love his neighbor. Say, rather, ‘Know thy neighbor as thyself.” That is, comprehend his hardships and understand his position, deal with his faults as gently as with your own. Do not judge him where you do not judge yourself. Madame, this is the meaning of the word love.
Pearl S. Buck
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Interpretation

What this quote means

The quote emphasizes understanding and compassion towards others as the true essence of love.

In this quote, Pearl S. Buck suggests that love is more than just an emotional attachment; it involves a deep understanding and empathy towards others. By encouraging individuals to comprehend the struggles of their neighbors and to be gentle with their faults, the quote advocates for a love that is rooted in self-awareness and compassion, urging us to avoid judgment and instead embrace mutual respect and understanding.

Themes

LoveUnderstandingCompassionEmpathyNeighbor

In practice

Example use cases

This quote can be used during a community service meeting to inspire volunteers to understand the needs of those they are helping.

More from Pearl S. Buck

Now, five years is nothing in a man's life except when he is very young and very old... - Wang Lung
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You are free when you gain back yourself,” Madame Wu said. “You can be as free within these walls as you could be in the whole world. And how could you be free if, however far you wander, you still carry inside yourself the constant thought of him? See where you belong in the stream of life. Let it flow through you, cool and strong. Do not dam it with your two hands, lest he break the dam and so escape you. Let him go free, and you will be free.
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We should so provide for old age that it may have no urgent wants of this world to absorb it from meditation on the next. It is awful to see the lean hands of dotage making a coffer of the grave.
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To know how to do something well is to enjoy it.
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The lack of emotional security of our American young people is due, I believe, to their isolation from the larger family unit. No two people - no mere father and mother - as I have often said, are enough to provide emotional security for a child. He needs to feel himself one in a world of kinfolk, persons of variety in age and temperament, and yet allied to himself by an indissoluble bond which he cannot break if he could, for nature has welded him into it before he was born.
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Let woman out of the home, let man into it, should be the aim of education. The home needs man, and the world outside needs woman.
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