There is only one real deprivation… and that is not to be able to give one's gifts to those one loves most.

About May Sarton

Eleanore Marie Sarton (May 3, 1912 – July 16, 1995), known by the pen name May Sarton, was a Belgian and American novelist, poet, and memoirist. Notably, Sarton came out as a lesbian in her writing in 1965, a time when it was highly unusual to do so.

More quotations from May Sarton

Joy, happiness… we do not question. They are beyond question, maybe. A matter of being. But pain forces us to think, and to make connections,… to discover what has been happening to cause it. And, curiously enough, pain draws us to other human beings in a significant way, whereas joy or happiness, to some extent, isolates.

—May Sarton

One must think like a hero to behave like a merely decent human being.

—May Sarton

The hardest thing we are asked to do in this world is to remain aware of suffering, suffering about which we can do nothing.

—May Sarton

suffering awarenss

Love opens the doors into everything… including, and perhaps most of all, the door into one's own secret, and often terrible and frightening, real self.

—May Sarton

Most people have to talk so they won't hear.

—May Sarton

listening speech talking hearing

History

25 Apr 2015 Added
26 Oct 2026 Wording changed

Previous wording

There is only one real deprivation... and that is not to be able to give one's gifts to those one loves most.