"Treasure each other in the recognition that we do not know how long we shall have each other"
About this Quote
The engine of the sentence is its double “each other,” a mutuality that refuses the comforting fantasy that one-sided devotion is enough. It’s not just “value the people you love,” but “build a reciprocal practice of care while you still can.” The phrase “in the recognition” is the subtextual tell: he’s not selling sentiment, he’s prescribing a mental discipline. Recognition isn’t a mood; it’s an awareness you carry into daily choices, especially the small ones that decide whether relationships deepen or calcify.
Contextually, Liebman wrote from within a 20th-century American moral tradition shaped by pastoral counseling and the aftershocks of large-scale loss. Even without naming grief, the quote is calibrated for it. It offers a secular prayer for the ordinary day: let mortality do what it does best, which is clarify priorities. Not in a melodramatic way, but in a practical one. The line’s quiet power is that it doesn’t threaten death; it recruits uncertainty as a reason to be generous now, while “each other” is still available.
Quote Details
| Topic | Love |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite | Cite this Quote |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Liebman, Joshua L. (n.d.). Treasure each other in the recognition that we do not know how long we shall have each other. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/treasure-each-other-in-the-recognition-that-we-do-132489/
Chicago Style
Liebman, Joshua L. "Treasure each other in the recognition that we do not know how long we shall have each other." FixQuotes. Accessed February 2, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/treasure-each-other-in-the-recognition-that-we-do-132489/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"Treasure each other in the recognition that we do not know how long we shall have each other." FixQuotes, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/treasure-each-other-in-the-recognition-that-we-do-132489/. Accessed 2 Feb. 2026.








