Source: Il vero amore non è un bene da trovare, ma un capolavoro da creare.
Source: prevale.net
Source: Particular Passions: Talks With Women Who Have Shaped Our Times
Source: The Native Star (2010), Chapter 22, “Cupid’s Bludgeon” (p. 315)
“There can be no true goodness, nor true love, without the utmost clear-sightedness.”
The Plague (1947)
Context: The evil that is in the world always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence, if they lack understanding. On the whole men are more good than bad; that, however, isn't the real point. But they are more or less ignorant, and it is this that we call vice or virtue; the most incorrigible vice being that of an ignorance which fancies it knows everything and therefore claims for itself the right to kill. There can be no true goodness, nor true love, without the utmost clear-sightedness.
“Men are apt to offend ('tis true) where they find most goodness to forgive.”
Act IV, scene xi
The Old Bachelor (1693)
Variant: Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone we find it with another.
Source: Love and Living
Source: All the Little Live Things
1820s, Signs of the Times (1829)
“Love always brings difficulties, that is true, but the good side of it is that it gives energy.”
In his letter to Theo, from Nuenen, c. 9 March 1884, http://www.webexhibits.org/vangogh/letter/14/359.htm
1880s, 1884
Context: Love always brings difficulties, that is true, but the good side of it is that it gives energy.... I have not yet had enough experience with women. What we were taught about them in our youth is quite wrong, that is sure, it was quite contrary to nature, and one must try to learn from experience. It would be very pleasant if everybody were good, and the world were good, etc. - yes - but it seems to me that we see more and more that we are not good, no more than the world in general, of which we are an atom - and the world no more good than we are. One may try one's best, or act carelessly, the result is always different from what one really wanted. But whether the result be better or worse, fortunate or unfortunate, it is better to do something than to do nothing. If only one is wary of becoming a prim, self-righteous prig - as Uncle Vincent calls it - one may be even as good as one likes.
[1993, The Transcendent Unity of Religions, Quest Books, 152, 978-0-8356-0587-8]
Spiritual path, Knowledge
