To me, then, true criticism consists in trying to find out the intrinsic worth of the thing itself, and not in attributing a quality to that thing. You attribute a quality to an environment, to an experience, only when you want to derive something from it, when you want to gain or to have power or happiness. Now this destroys true criticism. Your desire is perverted through attributing values, and therefore you cannot see clearly. Instead of trying to see the flower in its original and entire beauty, you look at it through coloured glasses, and therefore you can never see it as it is.
It is this law of love and its recognition as a rule of conduct in all our relations with friends, enemies and offenders which must inevitably bring about the complete transformation of the existing order of things,
not only among Christian nations, but among all the peoples of the globe
Borges said there are only four stories to tell: a love story between two people, a love story between three people, the struggle for power and the voyage. All of us writers rewrite these same stories ad infinitum.
This Extasie doth unperplex (We said) and tell us what we love, Wee see by this, it was not sexe, Wee see, we saw not what did move: But as all severall soules contain Mixture of things, they know not what, Love, these mixt souls, doth mixe againe. Loves mysteries in soules doe grow, But yet the body is his booke.
... we have to learn to use that force (love) among all that lives, and in the use of it consists our knowledge of God. Where there is love there is life; hatred leads to destruction.