Tolstoy

Get Pocket: Leo Tolstoy on Love and Its Paradoxical Demands by Maria Popova

"The demands of love are so many, and they are all so closely interwoven, that the satisfaction of the demands of some deprives man of the possibility of satisfying others. But if I admit that I cannot clothe a child benumbed with cold, on the pretence that my children will one day need the clothes asked of me, I can also resist other demands of love in the name of my future children."

"If a man decides that it is better for him to resist the demands of a present feeble love, in the name of another, of a future manifestation, he deceives either himself or other people, and loves no one but himself."

"Future love does not exist. Love is a present activity only. The man who does not manifest love in the present has not love."