What I need is a woman who is something, anything: either very beautiful or very kind or in the last resort very wicked; very witty or very stupid, but something.
Interpretation
The quote expresses a desire for a woman who embodies distinct characteristics, whether they are positive or negative, rather than being bland or unremarkable.
In this quote, Alfred De Musset articulates the human longing for connection and the complexity of attraction. He suggests that a person's unique traits, whether they be beauty, kindness, wit, or even wickedness, contribute to their allure, emphasizing that it is better to be something distinct than to be mundane or average. This reflects a deeper understanding of love and attraction, which often thrives on contrast and individuality.
In practice
In a romantic context, one might use this quote during a toast at a wedding to highlight the beauty of unique traits in a partner.
Alas, everything that men say to one another is alike; the ideas they exchange are almost always the same, in their conversation. But inside all those isolated machines, what hidden recesses, what secret compartments! It is an entire world that each one carries within him, an unknown world that is born and dies in silence! What solitudes all these human bodies are!
You’re like a lighthouse shining beside the sea of humanity, motionless: all you can see is your own reflection in the water. You’re alone, so you think it’s a vast, magnificent panorama. You haven’t sounded the depths. You simply believe in the beauty of God’s creation. But I have spent all this time in the water, diving deep into the howling ocean of life, deeper than anyone. While you were admiring the surface, I saw the shipwrecks, the drowned bodies, the monsters of the deep
The blood of my motherland waters a magic plant that cures all ills. That plant is art, and sometimes art needs corruption as a kind of fertilizer
life is a deep sleep of which love is the dream
The only true language in the world is a kiss.
A happy memory is perhaps on this earth truer than happiness itself.
This is my child. I planted it. I saw it grow. I loved it. Don't cut it down.
My mother says I didn't open my eyes for eight days after I was born, but when I did, the first thing I saw was an engagement ring. I was hooked.
Then Aragorn stooped and looked in her face, and it was indeed white as a lily, cold as frost, and hard as graven stone. But he bent and kissed her on the brow, and called her softly, saying: 'Éowyn Éomund's daughter, awake! For your enemy has passed away!' - Aragorn & Éowyn
The closer I'm bound in love to you, the closer I am to free.
It is an interesting law of romance that a truly strong woman will choose a strong man who disagrees with her over a weak one who goes along. Strength demands intelligence, intelligence demands stimulation, and weakness is boring. It is better to find a partner you can contend with for a lifetime than one who accommodates you because he doesn't really care.
Sometimes I have the strangest feeling about you. Especially when you are near me as you are now. It feels as though I had a string tied here under my left rib where my heart is, tightly knotted to you in a similar fashion. And when you go to Ireland, with all that distance between us, I am afraid that this cord will be snapped, and I shall bleed inwardly.
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