Love Quote by Natalie Clifford Barney

Love at first sight isn`t being celebrated here; it`s being indicted as a clever time-saver for the heart and a time-thief for the mind. Natalie Clifford Barney flips the usual romance script with a single, surgical twist: the "advantage" of instant attraction is that it postpones scrutiny. First sight is impulse masquerading as destiny, and Barney treats that masquerade as useful precisely because it keeps us from looking again - from noticing the mismatched values, the tedious habits, the power plays, the inconvenient truths.

The joke lands because of its structure. "Advantage" sets up a self-help promise, then "delays" reveals the real payoff: not clarity, but avoidance. "Second sight" reads like a sequel to infatuation, but it also echoes second sight as foresight - the ability to see what`s coming. Barney suggests that love at first sight is a kind of strategic blindness, a way to extend the honeymoon period by refusing the evidence.

Context sharpens the cynicism. Barney was a Salon-era iconoclast, writing from a world where desire was both art and performance, and where women (especially queer women) had to negotiate romance under social constraint and coded reputations. In that setting, the line is not just a quip about dating; it`s a critique of how narratives of sudden, fated love can serve as cover for self-deception and social theater. Romance becomes less a revelation than a delay tactic - and Barney, with her trademark wit, prefers the truth delivered as a laugh.