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.
…he glanced over his shoulder at her, regarding her, as he often did before they made love, as if she were a lost continent about to be rediscovered.
When I clamber to the heights of sleep, Or when I grow excited with wine, suddenly I meet your face.
My affection hath an unknown bottom, like the Bay of Portugal.
I love who I am, and I encourage other people to love and embrace who they are. But it definitely wasn't easy - it took me a while.
Young poets bewail the passing of love; old poets, the passing of time. There is surprisingly little difference.
I think there must have been some other girl printed somewhere in his heart, for he was a man of love and his wife was not a woman to show her feelings.
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