The generality of virtuous women are like hidden treasures, they are safe only because nobody has sought after them.
Francois De La RochefoucauldRead
The first lover is kept a long while, when no offer is made of a second.
Interpretation
The first romantic relationship often lasts longer when no additional offers for love come along.
This quote by Francois De La Rochefoucauld suggests that the duration of a first romantic relationship can be extended if no other romantic opportunities present themselves. It implies that the lack of alternatives can lead to a sense of loyalty or attachment to the first lover, regardless of the quality or depth of that love.
In practice
During a wedding speech, a friend might say this to emphasize the uniqueness of first love.
The generality of virtuous women are like hidden treasures, they are safe only because nobody has sought after them.
Old men delight in giving good advice as a consolation for the fact that they can no longer set bad examples.
Some counterfeits reproduce so very well the truth that it would be a flaw of judgment not to be deceived by them.
Conceit causes more conversation than wit.
The defects and faults of the mind are like wounds in the body; after all imaginable care has been taken to heal them up, still there will be a scar left behind, and they are in continual danger of breaking the skin and bursting out again.
To understand matters rightly we should understand their details; and as that knowledge is almost infinite, our knowledge is always superficial and imperfect.
Women wish to be loved without a why or a wherefore; not because they are pretty, or good, or well-bred, or graceful, or intelligent, but because they are themselves.
A charm invests a face Imperfectly beheld,β The lady dare not lift her veil For fear it be dispelled. But peers beyond her mesh, And wishes, and denies,β Lest interview annul a want That image satisfies.
There is that awful moment when you realize that you're falling in love. That should be the most joyful moment, and actually it's not. It's always a moment that's full of fear because you know, as night follows day, the joy is going to rapidly be followed by some pain or other. All the angst of a relationship.
As Dostoevski said: 'Love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared with love in dreams.
The command is to love him, not just to think about him, or do things for him. We are not to stop with a proper legal relationship - for example, to think of a man as legally lost, which he is, in the sight of a holy God - without thinking of him as a person. Saying this, we can suddenly see that much evangelism is not only sub-Christian, but subhuman - legalistic and impersonal.
Then let yourself love all that you take delight in_x000D_ _x000D_ Accept yourself whole, accept the heritage_x000D_ _x000D_ That shaped you and is passed on from age to age_x000D_ _x000D_ Down to your entity. Remain mysterious;_x000D_ _x000D_ Rather than be pure, accept yourself as numerous.
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