Perhaps life's earnestness might often come to destroy the lovers' play, as it had today, perhaps the little song of love might often die out unheard… - Lou Andreas-Salomé

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Perhaps life's earnestness might often come to destroy the lovers' play, as it had today, perhaps the little song of love might often die out unheard amid the painful, confused tones that assail his heart [as a physician], as it had today. -- But with a happy face she will from this day forward raise up her arms to him, in gratitude that he does not merely caress her and forget life's seriousness when he is with her, but that he struggles with life for himself and for her. And in her lap he shall rest his head when he is suffering. Perhaps then a tender dream will always rise up anew -- in a night like this one -- and, ever again, secretly weave, in the dark, new love around their life. -- -- -- ("One Night") p. 74

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About Lou Andreas-Salomé

Lou Andreas-Salomé (born either Louise von Salomé or Luíza Gustavovna Salomé or Lioulia von Salomé; 12 February 1861 – 5 February 1937) was a Russian-born psychoanalyst and a well-traveled author, narrator, and essayist from a Russian-German family. Her diverse intellectual interests led to friendships with a broad array of distinguished thinkers, including Friedrich Nietzsche, Sigmund Freud, Paul Rée, and Rainer Maria Rilke.

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Alternative Names: Louise von Salomé Luíza Gustavovna Salomé Lou Andreas-Salome Louise von Salome Luiza Gustavovna Salome
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Additional quotes by Lou Andreas-Salomé

Why did he have such a rough picture of her? It was strange that he found it so difficult to comprehend women in the manifold ways of their humanity and not just schematic way, as representations of their gender. Whether he idealized them, or regarded them as diabolic, a man always interpreted women's behavior too simply and personally, based on some chance reaction to himself. Maybe the notion that woman was sphinx-like stemmed from the sole fact that her full humanity, in no way inferior to man's, could not be grasped with such artificial simplifications. p. 25

"But this danger you mention?" he went on. "Tell me, where is there beauty that isn't at the same time in danger? -- and when wasn't the greatest beauty also the greatest danger! -- And mind you: this know-it-all attitude and drive to control, the 'firm hand' you were talking about -- all that arrogance, especially of the usual, masculine kind, will go to pieces trying to deal with this! That approach is only best right from the start and with women who are no threat to anyone. But -- please tell me -- what's so great about a manly stance that has to look out for itself, that's so anxiously self-defensive?" -- Marcus, p. 180

Our first experience is, remarkably, of a disappearance. A moment ago we were everything, undivided; any other being was indivisible from us - then we were urged into being born -- became a residual part of it all, which from then on would have to strive against even further diminution and to assert itself against a contrary world rising ever wider before it, into which it had fallen out of its fullness, as if into an -- at first depriving -- emptiness.

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