"The degree of loving is measured by the degree of giving"
About this Quote
Love, in Cole's frame, isn’t an interior feeling you privately luxuriate in; it’s a verb with receipts. "Measured" is the tell: he’s not describing romance, he’s proposing a yardstick, the kind that appeals to readers who mistrust sentiment and want ethics to look like action. The line carries a faint rebuke to people who talk about love as identity or mood while keeping their hands clean. If you’re serious, it should show up as sacrifice, service, time, attention, resources.
Cole’s context matters. As a Christian men’s movement leader and motivational author, he’s writing into a culture where "love" can be cheapened into reassurance or mere attraction. By tying love to giving, he re-centers it on agape: costly commitment rather than self-expression. The subtext is behavioral accountability. You don’t get to claim love while staying untouched by the other person’s needs.
It’s also a subtle attempt to discipline masculinity: love is proven not through grand declarations but through provision, patience, and presence. That’s empowering for readers who want a clear role, and constraining for those who hear a moral demand tucked inside the romance vocabulary.
Still, the elegance hides a risk: making "giving" the sole metric can romanticize depletion or invite transactional thinking (I gave more, therefore I loved more). The quote works because it’s clean, portable, and bracingly anti-performative; it pushes love out of the diary and into the ledger of what you’re willing to part with.
Cole’s context matters. As a Christian men’s movement leader and motivational author, he’s writing into a culture where "love" can be cheapened into reassurance or mere attraction. By tying love to giving, he re-centers it on agape: costly commitment rather than self-expression. The subtext is behavioral accountability. You don’t get to claim love while staying untouched by the other person’s needs.
It’s also a subtle attempt to discipline masculinity: love is proven not through grand declarations but through provision, patience, and presence. That’s empowering for readers who want a clear role, and constraining for those who hear a moral demand tucked inside the romance vocabulary.
Still, the elegance hides a risk: making "giving" the sole metric can romanticize depletion or invite transactional thinking (I gave more, therefore I loved more). The quote works because it’s clean, portable, and bracingly anti-performative; it pushes love out of the diary and into the ledger of what you’re willing to part with.
Quote Details
| Topic | Love |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Cole, Edwin Louis. (2026, January 15). The degree of loving is measured by the degree of giving. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-degree-of-loving-is-measured-by-the-degree-of-171248/
Chicago Style
Cole, Edwin Louis. "The degree of loving is measured by the degree of giving." FixQuotes. January 15, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-degree-of-loving-is-measured-by-the-degree-of-171248/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"The degree of loving is measured by the degree of giving." FixQuotes, 15 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-degree-of-loving-is-measured-by-the-degree-of-171248/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.
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