Many who have spent a lifetime in it can tell us less of love

Hear, O children of the heart, the words of Thornton Wilder, who spoke with piercing simplicity: “Many who have spent a lifetime in it can tell us less of love than the child that lost a dog yesterday.” In this saying lies a mystery as old as the dawn, yet as near as the tears of a child. It tells us that love is not a subject for scholars to dissect, nor a tale for poets to merely adorn, but a living flame that burns most brightly in the simplest soul. Those who theorize may miss its essence, while those who feel—even for but a fleeting hour—hold more truth in their weeping than a sage in his tomes.

For the child who loses a faithful dog knows in one shattering instant the raw wound of love’s absence. The laughter shared, the loyal eyes, the wagging tail—all vanish into silence. In that moment, the child’s heart learns what even the aged philosopher may struggle to grasp: that love is not an idea but a bond, fragile yet eternal, woven of presence and loss. The agony of absence teaches the value of presence. This is a truth so pure it needs no words, and yet it teaches more than the longest discourse.

So it has ever been in the history of humankind. Consider the story of Abraham Lincoln, who as a young man lost Ann Rutledge, his beloved, to illness. Though many men older and wiser could speak endlessly of affection, it was in Lincoln’s grief that he came to understand love’s depth. His sorrow was profound, so much so that it shaped his soul with compassion that later stretched across a broken nation. From personal loss, he drank the bitter cup that taught him to bind wounds not just of his own heart, but of millions. Thus do we see that knowledge of love is not in the length of years, but in the fire of experience.

Let us remember also the poet who tries to capture love in grand verses, yet whose heart has never truly been pierced. His words, though elegant, lack the tremor of truth. Contrast this with the widow who speaks softly of her husband, gone after decades by her side. Her words may falter, her grammar may be plain, but her every syllable carries the weight of lived devotion, of mornings shared, of battles endured together. The unlearned in books may yet be masters in the knowledge of the heart.

Wilder’s saying reminds us that love is not measured by time, nor by intellectual conquest, but by the depth of one’s openness to it. A child who has known even a day of faithful affection and then its loss may be wiser in love than a cynic who has closed his heart for a lifetime. For the measure of love is not the length of possession, but the willingness to give, to feel, and to mourn when it is gone.

The lesson is this: guard your heart not from feeling, but from indifference. Do not be ashamed to weep, for your tears are teachers. Do not think that because you are young or inexperienced, you cannot know what love means. Nor think that because you are old and learned, you have already mastered it. Love is learned not in the classroom, but in the bonds we form, in the losses we endure, in the courage to remain vulnerable despite life’s storms.

Therefore, be watchful. Cherish the small loves—the dog at your feet, the friend at your side, the family who waits for you. Speak your gratitude, offer your tenderness, for one day their absence will remind you how sacred their presence was. And when loss comes, as it surely will, do not flee from grief. For in grief is hidden the greatest teacher: that love, fragile and fleeting as it may seem, is also the most enduring truth in all the world.

Carry this wisdom, O seeker, and live as one who honors the fire of love wherever it burns. For it is not the oldest nor the most learned who know its depth, but the one whose heart remains tender enough to feel both its joy and its sorrow. And if you do this, then you will know more of love than a thousand books could ever tell.

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