The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves, the resolution not to twist them to fit our own image. If in loving them we do not love what they are, but only their potential likeness to ourselves, then we do not love them: we only love the reflection of ourselves we find in them Thomas Merton
About This Quote

The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves. This quote is by Friederich Nietzche. He was an existentialist philosopher who believed that the moment you accept the fact that life is not what you want it to be, but on the contrary what you are, life will change for the better. The quote is saying that when you are in love, what your loved one needs to do is give themselves to you freely without needing you to change them into who they are supposed to be.

It does not matter if your loved one has never had a proper childhood, or if they have made mistakes in their life. Love does not mean that you have to change them into something your perfect of them. The only thing that matters is the fact that they are truely themselves, and if they are truely themselves, then it will be easy for them to accept you as you are.

Source: No Man Is An Island

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More Quotes By Thomas Merton
  1. Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.
  2. There would be no society if living together depended upon understanding each other.
  3. The search for happiness is one of the chief sources of unhappiness.
  4. The opposite of the religious fanatic is not the fanatical atheist but the gentle cynic who cares not whether there is a god or not.
  5. We are told that talent creates its own opportunities. But it sometimes seems that intense desire creates not only its own opportunities but its own talents.
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