Is it love to worship a saint in heaven, whom you dare not touch, who hovers above you like a cloud, which floats away from you even as you gaze? To love is to feel one being in the world at one with us, our equal in sin as well as in virtue. To love, for us men, is to clasp one woman with our arms, feeling that she lives and breathes just as we do, suffers as we do, thinks with us, loves with us, and, above all, sins with us. Your mock saint who stands in a niche is not a woman if she have not suffered, still less a woman if she have not sinned. Fall at the feet of your idol an you wish, but drag her down to your level after that- the only level she should ever reach, that of your heart.
About This Quote
About Emmuska Orczy
Emmuska Orczy was a 19th-century British born british novelist and playwright. Baroness Emma Magdalena Rozália Mária Jozefa Borbála Orczy de Orci, usually known as Baroness Orczy, was a Hungarian-born British novelist and playwright. She is best known for her series of novels featuring The Scarlet Pimpernel, the alter ego of Sir Percy Blakeney, a wealthy English fop who turns into a quick-thinking escape artist in order to save French aristocrats from "Madame Guillotine" during the French Revolution, establishing the "hero with a secret identity" in popular culture. Read more on Wikipedia →
Themes
- Love — Quotes exploring romantic love, compassion, and human connection