“If you love someone but rarely make yourself available to him or her, that is not true love.”

— Thich Nhat Hanh

Source: Living Buddha, Living Christ

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "If you love someone but rarely make yourself available to him or her, that is not true love." by Thich Nhat Hanh?

Thich Nhat Hanh 169

Religious leader and peace activist 1926

Related quotes

“Maybe-- maybe love makes you suspicious and doubting. Is it true that when you love a woman you are never sure-- never sure of her because you aren't sure of yourself?”

John Steinbeck book East of Eden

Source: East of Eden (1952)
Context: Maybe that's the reason," Adam said slowly, feeling his way. "Maybe if I had loved him I would have been jealous of him. You were. Maybe-maybe love makes you suspicious and doubting. Is it true that when you love a woman you are never sure-never sure of her because you aren't sure of yourself? I can see it pretty clearly. I can see how you loved him and what it did to you. I did not love him. Maybe he loved me. He tested me and hurt me and punished me and finally he sent me out like a sacrifice, maybe to make up for something. But he did not love you, and so he had faith in you. Maybe — why, maybe it's a kind of reverse.

“He loved her, as you can only love someone who is an echo of yourself at your time of deepest sorrow.”

Orson Scott Card book Speaker for the Dead

Source: Speaker for the Dead

“The fact that a woman you love reaches a point in the relationship where she ceases to love you, and despite that you can never bring yourself to scorn or despise her, is very rare indeed.”

Françoise Sagan (1935–2004) French writer

Un chagrin de passage (1994, A Fleeting Sorrow, translated 1995)

“True sorrow is as rare as true love.”

Stephen King book Carrie

Source: Carrie

“Love was a rare thing, easily confused with a million other things, and if anybody knew this to be true it was him.”

Junot Díaz book The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

Source: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

“The maid my true heart loves would not my true love be;
She seeks another man; another maid loves he;
And me another maid her own true love would see:
Oh, fie on her and him and Love and HER and me!”

Bhartrihari (570) Indian linguist, poet and writer

Nītiśataka 2
Variant translation from K.M. Joglekar:
That woman about whom I constantly meditate has no affection for me; she, however, yearns after another who is attached to someone else; while a certain woman pines away for me. Fie on her, on him, on the God of Love, on that woman, and on myself.
Śatakatraya