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It takes courage to love, but pain through love is the purifying fire which those who love generously know. We all know people who are so much afraid of pain that they shut themselves up like clams in a shell and, giving out nothing, receive nothing and therefore shrink until life is a mere living death.

It takes courage to love, but pain through love is the purifying fire which those who love generously know. We all know people who are so much afraid of pain that they shut themselves up like clams in a shell and, giving out nothing, receive nothing and therefore shrink until life is a mere living death.

Approximate author period: c. 1923 AD · modern

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Attribution & collection notes
Author or tradition
Eleanor Roosevelt
Attribution: attributed
Country attributed
Not established
A country attribution does not establish the earliest origin.
Historical period
Approximate author period: c. 1923 AD · modern
Approximate author-period anchor from life dates 1884 to 1962; Wikidata Q83396, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q83396 (accessed 2026-10-08). Not a quotation composition date.
An author lifetime, approximate period or collection date is not necessarily the date when these words were first written or spoken.
Recorded source
Contributor-provided quotation collection

Supplied reference C; CSV row 257; supplied attribution, independently unverified

A collection's publication date can be later than the words it records.