If I tell some one that I love him – as I may have told a hundred others – my words will convey nothing to him; but the silence which will ensue, if I do indeed love him, will make clear in what depths lie the roots of my love, and will in its turn give birth to a conviction, that shall itself be silent; and in the course of a lifetime, this silence and this conviction will never again be the same. …
Maurice Maeterlinck, The Treasure of the humble
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