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Love is swift, sincere, pious, joyful, generous, strong, patient, faithful, prudent, long-suffering, courageous, and never seeking its own; for wheresoever a person seeketh his own, there he falleth from love.
Thomas A Kempis
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Interpretation

What this quote means

Love encompasses various virtues and never seeks selfish gain.

This quote by Thomas A Kempis emphasizes that true love is characterized by a range of admirable qualities such as patience, generosity, and strength. It points out that genuine love is selfless; when a person prioritizes their own desires over the well-being of others, they divert from the true essence of love.

Themes

LoveSelflessnessVirtuesPatienceGenerosity

In practice

Example use cases

In a discussion about what constitutes true love, this quote can illuminate the qualities we should cultivate.

More from Thomas A Kempis

How seldom we weigh our neighbor in the same balance with ourselves.
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He will easily be content and at peace, whose conscience is pure.
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Trust not to your feelings for whatever they might be now, they will quickly be changed towards some other thing.
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Jesus has many who love the kingdom of God, but few who bear a cross. He has many who desire His comfort, but few who desire His suffering. All want to rejoice with him, but few are willing to suffer for Him. He writes; there are many who admire his miracles, but there are few who follow in the humiliation of the cross.
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Anyone who thinks hard work will never hurt you has never had to pay to have it done. Jesus now has many lovers of his Heavenly Kingdom, but few bearers of his cross.
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He has great tranquillity of heart who cares neither for the praises nor the fault-finding of men. He will easily be content and pacified, whose conscience is pure. You are not holier if you are praised, nor the more worthless if you are found fault with. What you are, that you are; neither by word can you be made greater than what you are in the sight of God.
Thomas A KempisRead

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