Our lives become the sum of all whom we have loved. It is important not to waste anyone. One task of living out the last half of life is excavating and recovering all of those whom we loved in the first half. Thus, the recovery of lost loves becomes an important way in which the past affects the present.
George VaillantThe seventy-five years and twenty million dollars expended on the Grant Study points to a straightforward five-word conclusion: Happiness is love. Full stop.
George VaillantWe can laugh from either joy or happiness, but we weep only from grief or joy...Without the pain of farewell, there is no joy in reunion...without the pain of captivity, we don't experience the joy of freedom.
George VaillantIt is all too common for caterpillars to become butterflies and then to maintain that in their youth they had been little butterflies. Maturation makes liars of us all.
George VaillantWhether we live to a vigorous old age lies not so much in our stars or in our genes but in ourselves.
George Vaillant