Skip to content
quotesby

About this quote

What does it mean?
He compares love to torture or a surgical operation.
In plain terms
Love feels like painful torture or a surgery.
What can you take from it?
Describe love as an intense, possibly harmful experience.

Where it applies

  • breakups
  • intense relationships

Putting it to work

  • prepare for emotional intensity
  • seek healthy boundaries

Questions to consider

  • Why is love likened to pain?
  • How can love be both painful and rewarding?

Another view

Not all love experiences are painful; this is a narrow view.

More from Charles Baudelaire

  1. Dieu est le seul etre qui, pour regner, n'ait meme pas besoin d'exister. Ce qui est cree par l'esprit est plus vivant que la matiere.

    Permalink to quote #52
  2. Aimer les femmes intelligentes est un plaisir de pederaste.

    Permalink to quote #54
  3. Faire son devoir tous les jours et se fier a Dieu, pour le lendemain.

    Permalink to quote #51

Related quotes

  1. Many people genuinely do not wish to be saints, and it is probable that some who achieve or aspire to sainthood have never felt much temptation to be human bei…

    George OrwellGeorge Orwell quote #127
  2. You have never, I think, known real Grief-panic, melancholia, madness, night-sweats, we've all known for most of our lives-you and me particularly. I'm not sur…

    Diana CooperDiana Cooper quote #1
  3. The lyf so short, the craft so longe to lerne. Th' assay so hard, so sharp the conquerynge, The dredful joye, alwey that slit so yerne; Al this mene I be love.

    Geoffrey ChaucerGeoffrey Chaucer quote #1