“Love seeks one thing only: the good of the one loved. It leaves all the other secondary effects to take care of themselves. Love, therefore, is its own reward.”
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Thomas Merton 92
Priest and author 1915–1968Related quotes


“There is only one good thing in life, and that is love.”
"The Love of Long Ago"
Source: The Complete Short Stories of de Maupassant
Context: There is only one good thing in life, and that is love. And how you misunderstand it! how you spoil it! You treat it as something solemn like a sacrament, or something to be bought, like a dress.

Source: Death Kit (1967), p.149
Source: Jack of Shadows (1971), Chapter 11 (p. 118)

Personal inscription on a copy of Mother Goose in Prose (1897) which he gave to his sister, Mary Louise Baum Brewster, as quoted in The Making of the Wizard of Oz (1998) by Aljean Harmetz, p. 317
Letters and essays
Context: When I was young I longed to write a great novel that should win me fame. Now that I am getting old my first book is written to amuse children. For aside from my evident inability to do anything "great," I have learned to regard fame as a will-o-the-wisp which, when caught, is not worth the possession; but to please a child is a sweet and lovely thing that warms one's heart and brings its own reward.
“. “Love doesn’t please itself by seeking revenge. Love sacrifices itself for the good of others.”
Source: Be Still My Vampire Heart

“To enjoy—to love a thing for its own sake and for no other reason.”
The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci (1938), I Philosophy