“Human love is often but the encounter of two weaknesses.”

“Sensuality often hastens the "Growth of Love" so much that the roots remain weak and are easily torn up.”

“To love can mean 'to love oneself,' and often love is no more than a juxtaposition of two solitudes.”

“Two disappointed believers
Two people playing the game
Negotiations and love songs
Are often mistaken for one and the same.”

“The worst is not ennui nor despair but their encounter, their collision. To be crushed between the two!”

“Modesty restrains weak love,
but it is a weak bridle to powerful love.”

“Men's weaknesses are often necessary to the purposes of life.”

“Love is a possible strength, in an actual weakness. Marriage transforms a distraction into a support, the power of which should be, and happily often is, in direct proportion to the degree of imbecility it supplants.”

“Tenderness is greater than love. I do not admire carnal love when it is by itself and bare. I do not admire its disorderly selfish paroxysms, so grossly short-lived. And yet without love the attachment of two human beings is always weak. Love must be added to affection. The things it contributes to a union are absolutely needed — exclusiveness, intimacy, and simplicity.”

“Although humans are not irrational, they often need help to make more accurate judgements and better decisions. […] [They] also need protection from others who deliberately exploit their weaknesses […].”