True, we love life, not because we are used to living, but because we are used to loving. There is always some madness in love, but there is also always some reason in madness.
Interpretation
We cherish life not just out of habit, but because of our capacity to love, which is both rational and irrational.
This quote emphasizes the duality of love by highlighting that our appreciation for life stems from our ability to love deeply. While love can seem irrational or mad at times, it is also grounded in reason and understanding, suggesting that both aspects coexist and enhance our experience of life.
In practice
During a wedding speech to emphasize the importance of love in life.
Gold, silver, jewels, purple garments, houses built of marble, groomed estates, pious paintings, caparisoned steeds, and other things of this kind offer a mutable and superficial pleasure; books give delight to the very marrow of one's bones. They speak to us, consult with us, and join with us in a living and intense intimacy.
Five enemies of peace inhabit with us - avarice, ambition, envy, anger, and pride; if these were to be banished, we should infallibly enjoy perpetual peace.
Rarely do great beauty and great virtue dwell together.
To begin with myself, then, the utterances of men concerning me will differ widely, since in passing judgment almost every one is influenced not so much by truth as by preference, and good and evil report alike know no bounds.
I looked back at the summit of the mountain, which seemed but a cubit high in comparison with the height of human contemplation, were in not too often merged in the corruptions of the earth.
Sameness is the mother of disgust, variety the cure.
Drop jealousy and love wells up. Jealousy means that I am the owner. It is an ego trip, and wherever there is ego there is poison, and the poison kills the very source of love. One has to become aware of just these few things and discard them and one's life becomes a lotus of love. And then there is no need to go in any search of god, god will come in search of you. This is my observation, that god always comes seeking the true seeker. Whenever the disciple is ready the master appears.
I pray every night that I may live after him; because I would rather be miserable than that he should be — that proves I love him better than myself.
Oh to have you with me, to have you here, not to be alone, but to be with you, my beauty, you of all souls! You.
We need to learn to love ourselves first, in all our glory and our imperfections. If we cannot love ourselves, we cannot fully open to our ability to love others or our potential to create
Love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared with love in dreams.
Too late came I to love you, O Beauty both so ancient and so new! Too late came I to love you - and behold you were with me all the time . . .
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