In my mind, marriage is a spiritual partnership and union in which we willingly give and receive love, create and share intimacy, and open ourselves to be available and accessible to another human being in order to heal, learn and grow.

Meaning: Distance may weaken a mild attachment while making an intense one feel stronger. The contrast between cooling and inflaming describes different possible responses to absence, rather than a dependable rule for measuring love or deciding how relationships should work.

Meaning: Affection can become excessive indulgence when it prevents a child from learning limits or acting independently. The saying questions how care is expressed, rather than suggesting that a child needs less love.

Meaning: The mind is compared to ground that needs deliberate cultivation. The saying encourages useful learning and attention, while its corn-and-thistles contrast should not turn rest, disability or a different way of thinking into evidence of a defective character.