Depression is the flaw in love. There's no such thing as love without the anticipation of loss. And that specter of despair can be the engine of intimacy.
Andrew SolomonRead
When I was younger, not being accepted made me enraged, but now, I am not inclined to dismantle my history. If you banish the dragons, you banish the heroes-and we become attached to the heroic strain in our personal history.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Acceptance of one's history is essential for personal growth.
Andrew Solomon reflects on the importance of embracing all aspects of one's personal history, even the painful or challenging parts. He suggests that rejecting our past experiences—symbolized by 'dragons'—means losing the valuable lessons and strengths they provide, which are integral to our identity and heroism in life.
Themes
AcceptanceHistoryIdentityHeroismExperience
In practice
Example use cases
In a motivational speech about personal growth and resilience.
More from Andrew Solomon
All quotes →I don't accept subtractive models of love, only additive ones. And I believe that in the same way we need species diversity to ensure that the planet can go on, so we need this diversity of affection and diversity of family in order to strengthen the ecosphere of kindness.
Andrew SolomonRead
While people argue with one another about the specifics of Freud's work and blame him for the prejudices of his time, they overlook the fundamental truth of his writing, his grand humility: that we frequently do not know our own motivations in life and are prisoners to what we cannot understand. We can recognize only a small fragment of our own, and an even smaller fragment of anyone else's, impetus.
Andrew SolomonRead
I believe that words are strong, that they can overwhelm what we fear when fear seems more awful than life is good.
Andrew SolomonRead
Then I repeated these words to my spirits: 'Leave me be; give me peace; and let me do the work of my life. I will never forget you.' Something about that incantation was particularly appealing to me. 'I will never forget you'-- as though one had to address the pride of the spirits, as though one wanted them to feel good about being exorcised.
Andrew SolomonRead
Some people are trapped by the belief that love comes in finite quantities, and that our kind of love exhausts the supply upon which they need to draw. I do not accept competitive models of love, only additive ones.
Andrew SolomonRead
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Limitation is essential to authority. A government is legitimate only if it is effectively limited.
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Guilt is altruism's stock in trade, and the inducing of guilt is its only means of self-perpetuati on.
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Even such isTime, which takes in trust Our youth, our joys, and all we have, And pays us but with age and dust, Who in the dark and silent grave When we have wandered all our ways Shuts up the story of our days, And from which earth, and grave, and dust The Lord shall raise me up, I trust.
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