Some reflections on how to love.

Post 420 - I watched the movie Elmer Gantry the other night and took note when Burt Lancaster said several times that "Love is the morning and the evening star" (which is presumably a reference to the planet Venus). It reminded me that I've never written about love - that which "makes the world go 'round," according to a once popular song. Even if love doesn't make the world go 'round, it certainly makes the ride worthwhile. So here are some thoughts on this topic:

Freud, when asked what a normal person should be able to do well, said "to love and to work." He also said that the best cure for a neurosis was to fall in love.

You’ve got to learn how to love before you learn how to live.

Love isn't love until you give it away. The love you give away is the only love you keep.

The best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other.

Love doesn't consist in gazing at each other but in looking outward together in the same direction.

Love is like playing the piano. First, you must learn to play by the rules, then you must forget the rules and play from your heart.

When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. 
You just know that your name is safe in their mouth.

A wise lover values not so much the gift of the lover as the love of the giver.

Power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic.

What we need to learn in life is how to love people and use things instead of using people and loving things.

Let's hope that we're all preceded in this world by a love story.


1 Corinthians 13 is a very famous romantic blessing that's often used at weddings:

1. If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.

2. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

3. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

4. Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.

5. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.

6. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.

7. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

8. Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.

9. For we know in part and we prophesy in part.

10. But when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears.

11. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.

12. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

13. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.


And for all you contrarians, I remember a bumper sticker in the early '90s that said, "Forget love, I'd rather fall in chocolate!"