"To fall in love is easy, even to remain in it is not difficult; our human loneliness is cause enough. But it is a hard quest worth making to find a comrade through whose steady presence one becomes steadily the person one desires to be"
About this Quote
Strong doesn’t romanticize romance; she demotes it. Falling in love is “easy,” staying in it “not difficult,” because loneliness is such a blunt evolutionary and social pressure that almost any attachment can feel like salvation. That first move is the quiet provocation: if love is powered mainly by deprivation, then “being in love” isn’t automatically virtuous, rare, or even especially discerning. It’s coping.
The pivot comes with “But” and the word “comrade,” a term that carries political weight for a journalist whose life spanned labor struggles, world war, and revolutionary movements. “Comrade” isn’t the soulmate of consumer romance; it’s a partner in conditions, a co-worker in living. Strong smuggles a collective ethic into the private sphere: intimacy should have standards, and those standards are measured by what you become in another person’s company.
The subtext is almost austere. She’s suspicious of passion as a credential and uninterested in love as mere endurance. What she prizes is a relationship that functions like a moral climate: “steady presence” shaping “steadily the person one desires to be.” The repetition insists on practice over fireworks, character over chemistry. It also dodges the sentimental trap of “you complete me” and replaces it with “you help me keep my aim.”
In a century of upheaval and ideology, Strong’s intent reads as both personal advice and cultural critique: don’t confuse relief from loneliness with the rarer, harder achievement of mutual growth. The real quest isn’t to feel, but to build.
The pivot comes with “But” and the word “comrade,” a term that carries political weight for a journalist whose life spanned labor struggles, world war, and revolutionary movements. “Comrade” isn’t the soulmate of consumer romance; it’s a partner in conditions, a co-worker in living. Strong smuggles a collective ethic into the private sphere: intimacy should have standards, and those standards are measured by what you become in another person’s company.
The subtext is almost austere. She’s suspicious of passion as a credential and uninterested in love as mere endurance. What she prizes is a relationship that functions like a moral climate: “steady presence” shaping “steadily the person one desires to be.” The repetition insists on practice over fireworks, character over chemistry. It also dodges the sentimental trap of “you complete me” and replaces it with “you help me keep my aim.”
In a century of upheaval and ideology, Strong’s intent reads as both personal advice and cultural critique: don’t confuse relief from loneliness with the rarer, harder achievement of mutual growth. The real quest isn’t to feel, but to build.
Quote Details
| Topic | Soulmate |
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