But it's loving that's the important thing, not being loved. One's not even grateful to the people who love one; if one doesn't love them, they only bore one.
 W. Somerset Maugham, The Painted Veil (1925). copy citation

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Author W. Somerset Maugham
Source The Painted Veil
Topic love
Date 1925
Language English
Reference
Note
Weblink https://www.gutenberg.org/files/64682/64682-h/64682-h.htm

Context

“"I haven't the smallest doubt that if I really left her, definitely, she would commit suicide. Not with any ill-feeling towards me, but quite naturally, because she was unwilling to live without me. It is a curious feeling it gives one to know that. It can't help meaning something to you."
But it's loving that's the important thing, not being loved. One's not even grateful to the people who love one; if one doesn't love them, they only bore one. "I have no experience of the plural," he replied. "Mine is only in the singular."
"Is she really an Imperial Princess?"
"No, that is a romantic exaggeration of the nuns. She belongs to one of the great families of the Manchus, but they have, of course, been ruined by the revolution.” source