When we make ourselves vulnerable, we do open ourselves to pain, sometimes excruciating pain. The more people we love, the more we are liable to be hurt, and not only by the people we love, but for the people we love.
Interpretation
Vulnerability in love invites both joy and suffering.
This quote suggests that opening ourselves up to love requires a willingness to be vulnerable, which can lead to pain. The deeper our connections, the greater the risk of suffering, not just from the loved ones themselves but also from the emotional burden we bear for them.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of emotional openness in relationships.
Truth is what is true, and it's not necessarily factual. Truth and fact are not the same thing. Truth does not contradict or deny facts, but it goes through and beyond facts. This is something that it is very difficult for some people to understand. Truth can be dangerous.
George MacDonald gives me renewed strength during times of trouble--times when I have seen people tempted to deny God--when he says, "The Son of God suffered unto death, not that men might not suffer, but that their sufferings might be like his.
If you don't recount your family history, it will be lost. Honor your own stories and tell them too. The tales may not seem very important, but they are what binds families and makes each of us who we are.
I never want to lose the story-loving child within me, or the adolescent, or the young woman, or the middle-aged one, because all together they help me to be fully alive on this journey, and show me that I must be willing to go where it takes me, even through the valley of the shadow.
The minute we begin to think we have all the answers, we forget the questions.
When we believe in the impossible, it becomes possible, and we can do all kinds of extraordinary things.
Israel has no better friend than America. And America has no better friend than Israel. We stand together to defend democracy. We stand together to advance peace. We stand together to fight terrorism.
Sometimes you have to get to know someone really well to realize you're really strangers.
My heart was broken and my head was just barely inhabitable
I questioned whether anyone would love me because I'm in a wheelchair.
But with a sigh he had released her hand, while she was so lost in the fantasy that she hadn't felt it go away, as if he'd known the best moment to let go.
In many ways, a song-writing partnership is like a marriage. Apart from just liking each other, a lyricist and a composer should be able to spend long periods of time together - around the clock if need be - without getting on each other's nerves. Their goals, outlooks, and basic philosophies should be similar.
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