"The first step to taake is to become aware that love is an art..."
"Man is gifted with reason; he is life being aware of itself; he has awareness of himself, of his fellow men, of his past, and of the possibilities of his future."
(on Adam and Eve) "The awareness of human separation, without reunion by love-is the source of shame. It is at the same time the source of guilt and anxiety.
The deepest need of man ,then, is the need to overcome his separateness, to leave the prison n of his aloneness:"
"This desire for interpersonal fusion is the most powerful striving in man. "
"Yet if we call he achievement of interpersonal union "love", we find ourselves in serious difficulty. "
"What matters is that we know what kind of union we are talking about when we speak of love.
Do we speak about love as the mature answer to the problem of existence, or..."
"In contrast to symbiotic union, mature love is union under the condition of preserving one's integrity, one's individuality. Love is an active power in man ; a power which breaks through the walls which separate man from his fellow men, which unites him with others; love makes him overcome the sense of isolation and separateness, yet it permits him to be himself, to retain his integrity. In love the paradox occurs that two beings become one and yet remain two."
"Erotic love, if it is love, has one premise. That i love from the essence of my being-and experience the other person in the essence of his or her being."
"...,the main condition for the achievement of love is the overcoming of one's own narcissism."
"The faculty to think objectively is reason; the emotional attitude behind reason is humility."
"The ability to love......depends on our capacity to grow, to develop a productive orientation in or relationship toward the world and ourselves. The process of emergence, of birth, of waking up, requires one quality as a necessary condition: faith. "
he ends:
"To analyze the nature of love is to discover its general absence today and to criticize the social conditions which are responsible for this absence.
To have faith in the possibility of love as a social and not only exceptional-individual phenomenon, is a rational faith based on the insight into the very nature of man."
another part of this book deals with "Love of God" :
""Thought can only lead us to the knowledge that it cannot give us the ultimate answer. The world of thought remains caught in the paradox. The only way in which the world can be grasped ultimately lies , not in thought, but in the act, in the experience of oneness. Thus paradoxical logic leads to the conclusion that the love of God is neither the knowledge of God in thought, nor the thought of one's love for God, but the act of experiencing the oneness with God.
This leads to the emphasis on the right way of living. All of life, every little and every important action, is devoted to the knowledge of God, but a knowledge not in right thought, but in right action."
..
"In short, paradoxical thought led to tolerance and an effort toward self-transformation.
The Aristotelean standpoint led to dogma and science, to the Catholic Church, and to the discovery of atomic energy."
Tuesday, July 5, 2016
Alain de Botton, The Course of Love, quotes
"It may come very fast, this certainty that another human being is a soulmate. We needn't have spoken with them; we may not even know their name. Objective knowledge doesn't come into it. What matters instead is intuition: a spontaneous feeling that seems all the more accurate and worthy of respect because it bypasses the normal process of reason."
"Sexiness might at first appear to be a merely physiological phenomenon, the result of awakened hormones and stimulated nerve endings. But in truth it is not so much about sensations as it is about ideas- foremost among them, the idea of acceptance, and the promise of an end to loneliness and shame."
"Looked at through this ancient Greek lens, when lovers point out what might be unfortunate or uncomfortable about the other's character, they shouldn't be seen as giving up on the spirit of love.
They should be congratulated for trying to do something very true to love's essence: helping their partners to develop into better versions of themselves.
In a more evolved world, one a little more alive to the Greek ideal of love, we would perhaps know to be a little less clumsy, scared and aggressive when wanting to point something out, and rather less combative, and sensitive when receiving feedback. "
"Childhood sweetness: the immature part of goodness, as seen through the prism of adult experience, which is to say from the far side of a substantial amount of suffering, renunciation and discipline.
We label as 'sweet' children's open display of hope, trust, spontaneity, wonder and simplicity-qualities which are under severe threat, but are deeply longed for in the ordinary run of grown-up life, The sweetness of children reminds us of how much we had to sacrifice on the path to maturity; the sweet is a vital part of ourselves-in exile."
Pronouncing a lover "perfect" can only be a sign that we have failed to understand them. We can claim to have begun to know someone only when they have substantially betrayed us."
In this book romanticism is being deeply questioned though the need to be loved is not being despised. the idea of love finds meaning.
No one can be fully understood, no one has no secrets .
There is a way to transcendence of self for another : but nobody is perfect.
The secret of living communication is in acceptance of each other.
I like this book.
.
"Sexiness might at first appear to be a merely physiological phenomenon, the result of awakened hormones and stimulated nerve endings. But in truth it is not so much about sensations as it is about ideas- foremost among them, the idea of acceptance, and the promise of an end to loneliness and shame."
"Looked at through this ancient Greek lens, when lovers point out what might be unfortunate or uncomfortable about the other's character, they shouldn't be seen as giving up on the spirit of love.
They should be congratulated for trying to do something very true to love's essence: helping their partners to develop into better versions of themselves.
In a more evolved world, one a little more alive to the Greek ideal of love, we would perhaps know to be a little less clumsy, scared and aggressive when wanting to point something out, and rather less combative, and sensitive when receiving feedback. "
"Childhood sweetness: the immature part of goodness, as seen through the prism of adult experience, which is to say from the far side of a substantial amount of suffering, renunciation and discipline.
We label as 'sweet' children's open display of hope, trust, spontaneity, wonder and simplicity-qualities which are under severe threat, but are deeply longed for in the ordinary run of grown-up life, The sweetness of children reminds us of how much we had to sacrifice on the path to maturity; the sweet is a vital part of ourselves-in exile."
Pronouncing a lover "perfect" can only be a sign that we have failed to understand them. We can claim to have begun to know someone only when they have substantially betrayed us."
In this book romanticism is being deeply questioned though the need to be loved is not being despised. the idea of love finds meaning.
No one can be fully understood, no one has no secrets .
There is a way to transcendence of self for another : but nobody is perfect.
The secret of living communication is in acceptance of each other.
I like this book.
.
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