Leadership Quote by Gilbert Parker

Imagination is doing the heavy lifting here, and Parker knows it. By calling love something that often "passes for" the real thing, he’s not denying love; he’s interrogating its paperwork. The phrase smuggles in a legalistic skepticism: love as a claim, a credential, a social performance that can be counterfeited, misfiled, or simply mistaken. Coming from a politician, that’s not incidental. Parker worked in a world where perception becomes reality through repetition, where voters fall for stories as much as policies. He’s applying that same realist lens to romance: we don’t just feel; we narrate.

The intent is a quiet demystification. Imagination, in this framing, is both the engine and the con. It’s what allows attraction to inflate into destiny, a few decent gestures into evidence of character, a moment of chemistry into a forecast of lifelong compatibility. The subtext is slightly unforgiving: much of what we call love is projection - desire stapled to a person who becomes a screen for our needs, grievances, and fantasies. "Root" suggests this isn’t a surface problem; it’s structural.

In Parker’s era, love was also entangled with institution: marriage as social contract, class alignment, respectability. Imagination helps people live inside those scripts, polishing rough realities into something bearable, even noble. Parker’s line lands because it refuses the sentimental alibi while admitting the uncomfortable truth: the stories we tell ourselves don’t merely decorate love; they often manufacture it.