Our business in life is not to succeed, but to continue to fail in good spirits.
Robert Louis StevensonRead
You can give without loving, but you can never love without giving.
Interpretation
What this quote means
True love entails selflessness and generosity, while giving can occur without love.
This quote emphasizes the profound relationship between love and giving. It suggests that while one can perform acts of giving without any emotional attachment or love, authentic love inherently involves a willingness to give, share, and sacrifice for the well-being of others. It highlights that love is fundamentally linked to generosity, compassion, and the desire to nurture those we hold dear.
Themes
LoveGivingSelflessnessGenerosityRelationships
In practice
Example use cases
This quote could be used in a wedding speech to highlight the importance of love in relationships.
More from Robert Louis Stevenson
All quotes →Like a bird singing in the rain, let grateful memories survive in time of sorrow.
Robert Louis StevensonRead
That man is a success who has lived well, laughed often and loved much.
Robert Louis StevensonRead
His past was fairly blameless; few men could read the rolls of their life with less apprehension; yet he was humbled to the dust by the many ill things he had done, and raised up again into sober and fearful gratitude by the many he had come so near to doing, yet avoided.
Robert Louis StevensonRead
The habit of being happy enables one to be freed, or largely freed, from the domination of outward conditions.
Robert Louis StevensonRead
It is the history of our kindnesses that alone make this world tolerable. If it were not for that, for the effect of kind words, kind looks, kind letters . . . I should be inclined to think our life a practical jest in the worst possible spirit.
Robert Louis StevensonRead
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Then there were the shabti, magical figurines that were supposed to come to life when summoned. A few months ago, I’d fallen for a girl named Zia Rashid, who’d turned out to be a shabti. Falling in love for the first time had been hard enough. But when the girl you like turns out to be ceramic and cracks to pieces before your eyes—well, it gives “breaking your heart” a new meaning.
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He takes her in his arms He wants to say I love you, nothing can hurt you But he thinks this is a lie, so he says in the end You're dead, nothing can hurt you which seems to him a more promising beginning, more true.
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Darling, You asked me to write you a letter, so I am writing you a letter. I do not know why I am writing you this letter, or what this letter is supposed to be about, but I am writing it nonetheless, because I love you very much and trust that you have some good purpose for having me write this letter. I hope that one day you will have the experience of doing something you do not understand for someone you love. Your father
Jonathan Safran FoerRead
Love is anterior to life, posterior to death, initial of creation, and the exponent of breath.
Emily DickinsonRead