We have to realize that we are as deeply afraid to live and to love as we are to die.
R. D. LaingRead
From the moment of birth, when the Stone-Age baby confronts the twentieth-century mother, the baby is subjected to these forces of violence called love, as its father and mother and their parents and their parents before them, have been. These forces are mainly concerned with destroying most of its potential.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Love can be both nurturing and destructive, influencing a person's potential from birth.
This quote by R. D. Laing highlights the paradoxical nature of love, suggesting that while it is often seen as a nurturing force, it can also impose limitations on a child's potential. As each generation raises the next, they unconsciously carry forward both the legacies of love and the destructive patterns that can inhibit growth, raising questions about how familial love shapes individuality.
Themes
LovePotentialFamilyDestructionRelationships
In practice
Example use cases
During a family gathering, you might share this quote to spark a discussion about the complexities of familial love.
More from R. D. Laing
All quotes →Madness need not be all breakdown. It may also be break-through. It is potential liberation and renewal as well as enslavement and existential death.
R. D. LaingRead
Whether life is worth living depends on whether there is love in life.
R. D. LaingRead
The experience and behavior that gets labeled schizophrenic is a special strategy that a person invents in order to live in an unlivable situation.
R. D. LaingRead
The range of what we think and do is limited by what we fail to notice.
R. D. LaingRead
Here we have the paradox, the potentially tragic paradox, that our relatedness to others is an essential aspect of our being, as is our separateness, but any particular person is not a necessary part of our being.
R. D. LaingRead
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