Quotes About Attachment

If you're as detached as that, why does the obsolete institution of marriage survive with you? Oh, it still has its uses. One couldn't be divorced without it.

But, my dear, it's just the fugitiveness of mortal caring that makes it so exquisite! It's because we know we can't hold fast to it, or to each other, or to anything...

Through the stillness they heard the church clock striking five. Oh, Ethan, it's time! she cried. He drew her back to him. Time for what? You don't suppose I'm going to leave you now? If I missed my train where'd I go? Where are you going if you catch it? She stood silent, her hands lying cold and relaxed in his. What's the good of either of us going anywheres without the other one now? he said.

It's more real to me here than if I went up, he suddenly heard himself say; and the fear lest that last shadow of reality should lose its edge kept him rooted to his seat as the minutes succeeded each other.

To be attached to the subdivision, to love the little platoon we belong to in society, is the first principle (the germ, as it were) of public affections. It is the first link in the series by which we proceed towards a love to our country and to mankind. The interest of that portion of social arrangement is a trust in the hands of all those who compose it; and as none but bad men would justify it in abuse, none but traitors would barter it away for their own personal advantage

The object therefore of this mixed passion, which we call love, is the beauty of the sex . Men are carried to the sex in general, as it is the sex, and by the common law of nature; but they are attached to particulars by personal beauty .

She had always thought that people who had once loved one another kept the faintest trace of it in their being, but not him. He was free of her. Marked of course, but free in a way that she was not. She was still joined by fear, by sexual necessity, by what she knew as love.

Suspicious princes often promote the last of mankind from a vain persuasion, that those who have no dependence, except on their favour, will have no attachment, except to their benefactor.

By the specious professions of gratitude and voluntary attachment, the patrician might disguise his apprehensions of the Scythian conqueror, who pressed the two empires with his innumerable armies.

I do like rocks. I had a terrible trauma this week: I didn't know what had become of my favorite rock. And I thought, Oh my God, I can't live. Fortunately, it was found.

Women are like parasitical plants, casting their wild tendrils from one tree to another, till, swollen into tough cordage, they strangle those they embrace, and luxuriate in their decay.

Talking of 'letting go of a lot of stuff,' his father handed the phrase back to Seamus, held by the corner like someone else's used handkerchief....

Most people either felt regret at staying with someone for too long, or regret at losing them too easily. I manage to feel both ways at the same time about the same object.

Why was the centre of his desire always in a place he had just deserted?

When happy, we possess something we love; when anxious, something we love is at risk; when despondent, something we love has been lost; when angry, something we love is being stolen or kept from us.

Earthly comforts used with moderation, and as supports of our weakness, may be sanctified by a good intention; but whilst they bolster up our weakness, they keep it alive and strengthen it; and if they are sought after, or made use of with eagerness and attachment, immoderately or frequently, they strongly nourish self love and sensuality, and produce a distrust of the solid food of devotion and divine love.

The desire for possession is insatiable, to such a point that it can survive even love itself. To love, therefore, is to sterilize the person one loves.

People could rationally decide that prolonged relationships take up too much time and effort and that they'd much rather do other kinds of things. But most people are afraid of rejection.

When I think of the people who give their sons and everything they have, to the country, I feel ashamed of not being more willing to let a mere dog go. But then Bruce is not just a 'mere dog.' He is – he is Bruce.

Being only a dog, Lad had no way of knowing his vanished deities ever would come back to him. Pitifully he followed the Mistress upstairs and down and everywhere she moved, as she prepared for the departure. He refused to be consoled when she patted him and when she said she and the Master would be back in a few days. His classic head drooped. His plumed tail hung disconsolate. He was the picture of utter misery.

Soon or late, every dog's master's memory becomes a graveyard; peopled by wistful little furry ghosts that creep back unbidden, at times, to a semblance of their olden lives.

All dogs die too soon. Many humans don't die soon enough. A dog is only a dog. And a dog is too gorgeously normal and wholesome to be made ridiculous in death by his owner's sloppy sentimentality.

If you love something so much let it go. If it comes back it was meant to be; if it doesn't it never was

Si accorse che poteva ormai guardarla con freddezza e oggettività, con sguardo sgombro di sentimento. Prima, quando l'amava ancora, la contemplava senza veramente vederla; adesso la vedeva, come si vede un oggetto qualsiasi, senza contemplarla. (Piccola e gelosa)