Passion is the quickest to develop, and the quickest to fade. Intimacy develops more slowly, and commitment more gradually still.
Interpretation
Passion can ignite suddenly but is transient; intimacy and commitment take time to build.
This quote by Robert Sternberg highlights the different dynamics of relationships, emphasizing that while passion can spark quickly, it often diminishes just as fast. In contrast, intimacy and commitment require patience and nurturing, suggesting that lasting relationships are built on deeper emotional connections that develop over time.
In practice
This quote can be used in relationship workshops to explain the evolution of love.
In other words, if a teacher only teaches in one way, then they conclude that the kids who can't learn well that way don't have the ability, when, in fact, it may be that the way the teacher's teaching is not a particularly good match to the way those kids learn.
If you're not adapting to the very rapidly changing environment, if you can't think creatively, you lose big in this society because there are very few jobs for you left.
Current intelligence-testing practices require examinees to answer but not to pose questions. In requiring only the answering of questions, these tests are missing a vital half of intelligence- the asking of questions.
I think when one becomes very close to another person, it can mean loving and intimacy, but on the other hand, there's also the danger of one destructing another under the name of love. I think that is the scariest thing for me in various relationships.
Every man rejoices twice when he has a partner in his joy. He who shares tears with us wipes them away. He divides them in two, and he who laughs with us makes the joy double.
Be honest, brutally honest. That is what's going to maintain relationships.
The tongue has no bones, but can break a heart.
Interdependence is and ought to be as much the ideal of man as self-sufficiency. Man is a social being.
Written on the body is a secret code only visible in certain lights: the accumulations of a lifetime gather there. In places the palimpsest is so heavily worked that the letters feel like Braille. I like to keep my body rolled up away from prying eyes, never unfold too much, or tell the whole story. I didn't know that Louise would have reading hands. She has translated me into her own book.
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