"I am sorry I can say nothing more consoling to you,
for love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared with love in dreams.
Love in dreams is greedy for immediate action,
rapidly performed and in the sight of all.
Men will even give their lives if only the ordeal does not last long but is soon over,
with all looking on and applauding as though on the stage.
But active love is labour and fortitude,
and for some people too, perhaps, a complete science.
But I predict that just when you see with horror
that in spite of all your efforts
you are getting farther from your goal instead of nearer to it -
at that very moment
I predict
that you will reach it and behold clearly
the miraculous power of the Lord
who has been all the time loving
and mysteriously guiding you."
(from "The Brothers Karamazov" by Fyodor Dostoevsky)
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