We cannot seek or attain health, wealth, learning, justice or kindness in general.

We cannot seek or attain health, wealth, learning, justice or kindness in general. Action is always specific, concrete, individualized, unique.

Happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory.

Happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory.

I love humanity but I hate people

I love humanity but I hate people.

Life is a quest and love a quarrel

Life is a quest and love a quarrel …

You call it madness, but I call it love

You call it madness, but I call it love.

Tell me who admires and loves you, And I will tell you who you are

Tell me who admires and loves you,
And I will tell you who you are.

Love, like truth and beauty, is concrete

Love, like truth and beauty, is concrete. Love is not fundamentally a sweet feeling; not, at heart, a matter of sentiment, attachment, or being “drawn toward.” Love is active, effective, a matter of making reciprocal and mutually beneficial relation with one’s friends and enemies.

Love creates righteousness, or justice, here on earth. To make love is to make justice. As advocates and activists for justice know, loving involves struggle, resistance, risk. People working today on behalf of women, blacks, lesbians and gay men, the aging, the poor in this country and elsewhere know that making justice is not a warm, fuzzy experience. I think also that sexual lovers and good friends know that the most compelling relationships demand hard work, patience, and a willingness to endure tensions and anxiety in creating mutually empowering bonds.

For this reason loving involves commitment. We are not automatic lovers of self, others, world, or God. Love does not just happen. We are not love machines, puppets on the strings of a deity called “love.” Love is a choice — not simply, or necessarily, a rational choice, but rather a willingness to be present to others without pretense or guile. Love is a conversion to humanity — a willingness to participate with others in the healing of a broken world and broken lives. Love is the choice to experience life as a member of the human family, a partner in the dance of life, rather than as an alien in the world or as a deity above the world, aloof and apart from human flesh.

Where love rules, there is no will to power; and where power predominates, there love is lacking

Where love rules, there is no will to power; and where power predominates, there love is lacking. The one is the shadow of the other.

Why love if losing hurts so much? We love to know that we are not alone

Why love if losing hurts so much? We love to know that we are not alone.

The heart has its reasons which reason knows not of

The heart has its reasons which reason knows not of.