“Love is not love at its fullest if one who lives is unwilling to die for it, or if it cannot restore to life one who has so died.”

— Tang Xianzu

Preface to Mudan Ting dated 1598; in The Peony Pavilion, trans. Cyril Birch (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2002), p. ix
Context: Love is of source unknown, yet it grows ever deeper. The living may die of it, by its power the dead live again. Love is not love at its fullest if one who lives is unwilling to die for it, or if it cannot restore to life one who has so died. And must the love that comes in dream necessarily be unreal? For there is no lack of dream lovers in this world.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Love is not love at its fullest if one who lives is unwilling to die for it, or if it cannot restore to life one who ha…" by Tang Xianzu?

Tang Xianzu photo

Tang Xianzu 1

Chinese playwright 1550–1616

Related quotes

“Die before the one whom you love; to live after he dies is to live a worthless life in this world.”

Guru Angad Dev (1504–1552) The second Guru of Sikhism

Guru Granth Sahib p. 83

“In this part of the story I am the one who
dies, the only one, and I will die of love because I love you,
because I love you, Love, in fire and in blood.”

Pablo Neruda (1904–1973) Chilean poet

Source: 100 Love Sonnets

“I am afraid to die sometimes, but God is the one to decide when a person dies. I want to live to the fullest until then.”

Ahmad Shah Massoud (1953–2001) Afghan military leader

As quoted in Massoud's Smile https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FBR8V8YWEAI9OWu?format=jpg, by Hiromi Nagakura

“Without a mother, one cannot love. Without a mother, one cannot die.”

Hermann Hesse book Narcissus and Goldmund

Narcissus and Goldmund (1930)

“So beautiful and fortunate
You're the one who hates to love
But he's the one who loves to hate.”

Elvis Costello (1954) English singer-songwriter

Love For Tender
Song lyrics, Get Happy!! (1980)

“Some cynical Frenchman has said that there are two parties to a love-transaction: the one who loves and the other who condescends to be so treated.”

William Makepeace Thackeray Vanity Fair

Vol. I, ch. 13.
Source: Vanity Fair (1847–1848)

“A love to Christ which is so cowardly and selfish that it is unwilling to proclaim by a public confession its faith in Him who hung before all the world crucified for sinners, is a love which is hardly worth the name.”

Abbott Eliot Kittredge (1834–1912) American minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 155.

“You who suffer because you love, love still more. To die of love, is to live by it.”

Victor Hugo book Les Misérables

Source: Les Misérables

“Resignation,— not to a whirlwind of inexorable forces, not to powers that cannot see or hear or feel, but to One who lives forever, and who loves us well, and who has given us all that we have, ay, life itself, that we may at His bidding freely give it back to Him.”

Henry Liddon (1829–1890) British theologian

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 512.

“I died to the law so that I might live for God. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

Paul of Tarsus book Epistle to the Galatians

2:19-20
Epistle to the Galatians

Related topics