“Art quickens nature; care will make a face; Neglected beauty perisheth apace.”
Robert Herrick book Hesperides
"Neglect".
Hesperides (1648)
“Art quickens nature; care will make a face; Neglected beauty perisheth apace.”
Robert Herrick book Hesperides
"Neglect".
Hesperides (1648)
“There are a hundred paths through the world that are easier than loving. But, who wants easier?”
Mary Oliver (1935–2019) American writer
Source: New and Selected Poems, Vol. 1
“It is easier to love humanity as a whole than to love one's neighbor.”
Eric Hoffer (1898–1983) American philosopher
Source: The Ordeal of Change (1963), Ch. 11: "Brotherhood"
Context: It is easier to love humanity as a whole than to love one's neighbor. There may even be a certain antagonism between love of humanity and love of neighbor; a low capacity for getting along with those near us often goes hand in hand with a high receptivity to the idea of the brotherhood of men. About a hundred years ago a Russian landowner by the name of Petrashevsky recorded a remarkable conclusion: "Finding nothing worthy of my attachment either among women or among men, I have vowed myself to the service of mankind." He became a follower of Fourier, and installed a phalanstery on his estate. The end of the experiment was sad, but what one might perhaps have expected: the peasants — Petrashevsky's neighbors-burned the phalanstery.
Some of the worst tyrannies of our day genuinely are "vowed" to the service of mankind, yet can function only by pitting neighbor against neighbor. The all-seeing eye of a totalitarian regime is usually the watchful eye of the next-door neighbor. In a Communist state love of neighbor may be classed as counter-revolutionary.
“It was always easier for me to love than to praise.”
Antonio Porchia (1885–1968) Italian Argentinian poet
Siempre me fue más fácil amar que elogiar.
Voces (1943)
“Power, like love, is easier to experience than to define or measure.”
Joseph Nye (1937) American political scientist
Source: Understanding International Conflicts: An Introduction to Theory and History (6th ed., 2006), Chapter 3, Balance of Power and World War I, p. 60.
“Lust has less logic than love, sometimes, but it's easier to fight.”
Laurell K. Hamilton book The Killing Dance
Source: The Killing Dance
“The scar of fire, the dint of steel,
Are easier than Love's wounds to heal.”
Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist
Canto II
The Troubadour (1825)
“Byron says that it is easier to die for the woman one loves than to live with her.”
André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer
Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Loving
“Hatred is so much easier to win than love - and so much harder to get rid of.”
Enid Blyton (1897–1968) author
Source: Six Cousins Again