Fallen myths can instill venom.

One possessed a thousand and three women (in Spain alone), the other only one. But it is multiplicity that is impoverished, whilethe entire world is concentrated in a single being infinitely possessed. Tristan no longer needs the world--because he loves! While Don Juan, always loved, cannot love in return. Hence his anguish and his frenzied course.

Happiness is indeed a Eurydice, vanishing as soon as gazed upon. It can exist only in acceptance, and succumbs as soon as it is laid claim to.

Passion and marriage are essentially irreconcilable. Their origins and their ends make them mutually exclusive. Their co-existence in our midst constantly raises insoluble problems, and the strife thereby engendered constitutes a persistent danger for every one of our social safeguards.

Fallen myths can instill venom.

What stirs lyrical poets to their finest flights is neither the delight of the senses nor the fruitful contentment of the settled couple; not the satisfaction of love, but its passion. And passion means suffering.

Why should neurotic, selfish, immature people suddenly become angels when they fall in love ... ?