To love is to strive for the benefit of another. This implies a particular relationship, that of leaving the sphere of I for that of you. It is an opening, an absorption, an enrichment, an expansion of the heart.
The one who loves places the welfare of another above his own comfort, in such a way that the quality of love may be measured by its corresponding degree of abegation and sacrifice.
To the ears of a hedonistic society it may sound strange to say that within suffering love occupies an unequivocal place.
The bee sucks the bitter nectar of the flowers… and from it makes honey, sweet to the palate of another.
It is a logic inverse to that of the egoist, who identifies happiness with pleasure, and uses others as mere objects to serve his own whims and desires. Bitterness and sorrow are thus generated all around him.
“We begin to show maturity when we feel that we are more concerned about others than about ourselves” (Albert Einstein).