I love three things," I then say. "I love a dream of love I once had, I love you, and I love this patch of earth." "And which do you love best?" "The dream.
Interpretation
The quote expresses the depth of love for an idealized dream, a person, and the beauty of nature.
In this quote, Knut Hamsun illustrates a complex relationship with love, highlighting that while personal connections and the beauty of the world are cherished, there is an even deeper affection for the dream of love itself. This suggests that dreams and ideals can often hold a profound significance that surpasses tangible relationships and the physical environment.
In practice
Using this quote in a romantic dinner to express deep feelings about love and dreams.
The intelligent poor individual was a much finer observer than the intelligent rich one. The poor individual looks around him at every step, listens suspiciously to every word he hears from the people he meets; thus, every step he takes presents a problem, a task, for his thoughts and feelings. He is alert and sensitive, he is experienced, his soul has been burned.
Earth and sea merged, the sea tossed itself in the air in a fantastic dance, into the shapes of men and horses and tattered banners. I stood in the lee of an overhanging rock and thought of many things.
The writer must be able to revel and roll in the abundance of words; he must know not only the direct but also the secret power of a word. There are overtones and undertones to a word, and lateral echoes, too.
The other one he loved like a slave, like a madman and like a beggar. Why? Ask the dust on the road and the falling leaves, ask the mysterious God of life; for no one knows such things. She gave him nothing, no nothing did she give him and yet he thanked her. She said: Give me your peace and your reason! And he was only sorry she did not ask for his life.
No worse fate can befall a young man or woman than becoming prematurely entrenched in prudence and negation.
In old age we are like a batch of letters that someone has sent. We are no longer in the past, we have arrived.
We tend to lack humility toward love, to patronize it rather than bow before it, to put mundane considerations before the emotional need to hold someone in our arms.
I think whenever you love something or somebody it means that you have to extend yourself, you have to grow - get a little larger. You can't stay in your little comfortable - spot.
Even stones have a love, a love that seeks the ground.
Love isn't always magic. But if I offered my body to the magician, if I told him to cut me in half so after that I could come to you whole and ask for you back would you listen for this dark alley love song? For the winter we heated our home from the steam off our own bodies?
I won't do this movie because I don't believe the love story," she told Selznick. "The heroine is an intellectual woman, and an intellectual woman simply can't fall in love so deeply.
How is it that we do not die of love in seeing that God Himself could do no more than shed His divine blood for us drop by drop? When as man He was preparing for death, He made Himself our food in order to give us life. God becomes food, bread for his creatures. Is this not enough to make us die of love?
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