"The greatest thing you'll ever learn, is just to love, and be loved in return"

" Much-Afraid shrank back. "I am afraid," she said. "I have been told that if you really love someone you give that loved one the power to hurt and pain you in a way nothing else can."
"That is true," agreed the Shepherd. "To love does mean to put yourself into the power of the loved one and to become very vulnerable to pain, and you are very Much-Afraid of pain, are you not?"
She nodded miserably and then said shamefacedly, "Yes, very much afraid of it."
"But it is so happy to love," said the Shepherd quietly. " It is happy to love even if you are not loved in return. There is pain too, certainly, but Love does not thing that very significant." "

- Hinds Feet on High Places