"Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence. " Do you agree?

Question

When I read this quote, it makes me feel that love is purely a fantasy we create in our mind. And were we to fall victim to love, we let go all sense of reason. Is this so?

Answer 1

It depends upon what you believe love to be. I thinks its a combination of the two. Trust is implicit to love, and trust is an awareness that this person is someone that you feel should be let in to "your world". I think it is difficult, maybe even foolish to reach this trust without knowing a good deal about this person. I think understanding is key as well; we tend to fall for someone we see reflecting something that exists within ourselves. If your seeing this is a result of imagination then it is not real love.
That's not to say the imagination is not an important player here; just perhaps that focusing solely on the infatuation will cause other aspects of it to go unfulfilled.
I always thought that once you reached that state of true love, the two people are pretty much a unified consciousness anyway; concepts dissolve into something else, but reaching this takes an act of will and perhaps of intelligence
Real love is an energy that exists between two people; this is fed by many wells; passion; imagination; experience; trust; understanding. For one to be in isolation or victorious is an idea that I don't agree with.

Nice Q

Answer 2

It DOES go to explain why I never got married. I'm too intelligent for my own good...

I wonder if it also means that if you always had women around that wore (or didn't wear) things that "left nothing to the imagination" that you would also never fall in love because your imagination was not getting a good workout...

Of course, the whole idea of types of intelligence throws a huge monkey wrench into this concept! Which kind of intelligence since creativity appears to be a seperate intelligence type!! Maybe someone needs a higher CQ than EQ? Or would it be physical or motor intelligence that it would need to beat? Would a higher creative intelligence actually measure a triumph or just a comparative advantage in combat against the other intelligence types? Does the CQ take them individually or can the other intelligences gang up on it and beat it up? If so, I don't see how it could ever win unless someone was a fantastically creative moron.

In my current... relationship (for lack of a better word), I would say that is the case. My intellect keeps coming up with reasons why I should drop the relationship while my imagination is really coming up uncharacteristically short on exciting fantasies about this person. Intellect 1; imagination 0.

Then again, for how I define real love (agape), the answer would actually almost be the opposite. Rational love is not lust or the domain of Eros... So the real love is cool love? Agh. Is that Phaedrus I hear taunting me?

Answer 3

In this quote the word Love is being use for Romantic Love. A more accurate statement would have been:

Romance is the triumph of imagination over intelligence." Romance IS a fantasy we create in our minds. It is based upon not what another person is, but rather what we wish to see in the other. It is based upon our Romantic Ideals.

But then Reality intrudes. Romance comes crashing down and fades with time. Intelligence now balances the Universal equation by defeating imagination.

True or Unconditional Love is a different state entirely. It requires neither intelligence nor imagination. It only requires tolerance and the ability to accept the Love. Once acknowledged, it never fades. It triumphs over all.

Romance can be sought and found. Love can never be found, it finds you, and usually when and where you least expect it.

Answer 4

I don't believe that love is fantasy, we have fantasies about love, but it is in fact possible.

Yes we can fall victim of it, then let go all sense of reason.

but as for the quote, triumph means to win or be victorious.
So its the Victory of Imagination over intelligence.

I somewhat agree and disagree with this,
When you know the true meaning of love you can be so artistic with it, so creative. When I found the true meaning of love I felt like writing books on it! but I was to lazy so i just drew random pictures.

With your intelligence, this is with your partner, I believe.
How you act around them, what you say, what you do.
How are you gonna treat your love? How are you going to handle situations? So much more.

The quote never said love would make it, so I guess I don't really agree.
I believe it takes both mind and heart to make love victorious!!

Answer 5

When we "fall in love" yes, there's a degree of fantasy that makes us think this is unique, that it's never happened to us or anyone else quite exactly like this ever before. So to some extent the quote is true, but only, I'd suggest, of the emotional, hormonal, everything-is-new state of "falling in love", not of love itself. Because love, the enduring residue of those early heady days, is quiet, and constant, and based not on illusion but on shared experience, on humour, on heat, on the hand you look for to make your own complete, on the face you know in any given crowd, on the words you never need to say out loud, on smiles and habits, sleep and snoring, watching hairs go gray and lines go deeper with the sharing.

Falling in love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.
Being in love is the triumph of experience over imagination.

Answer 6

I potentially agree with some of it, but not with all of it. Although love is a feeling, it's not the triumph of imagination over intelligence. I would say it's more like the two feelings together. Plus the sensation of being loved. With all respect to you and your opinion!

Answer 7

No. Imagination can help create an illusion of love, and even help set up a romantic interlude, but imagination can never produce love. Intelligence is the combination of 'book smarts', common sense, wisdom, and matters of the heart.

But wait, there's more, it IS possible, but...

If one's imagination ever triumphs over one's intelligence, one must be living in a trailer park watching Jerry Springer re-runs.

Answer 8

Love is strictly an emotional thing. It does not require any level of intelligence. It exists purely on feeling.
Yes, when we love, all sense of reason flies out the door, for the most part anyways.
I assume you refer to sexual love and not other kinds of love, like that of a parent, or friendship.
When we regain our reasoning power, sometimes love looks quite different. We ask ourselves.....how could I have been so blind! How come I feel different now?

For some, love surives for an entire lifetime. Very rare indeed. And no love is perfect as much as we wish it to be that way. The flaws slowly creep in. Learning to accept and live with those flaws is true love.

It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.....amen to that.

Sometimes it is better to live without love, because loving can sometimes cause too much pain.
Yet we always seem to jump right back into the foray.

Are we truly fools when it comes to love?

Answer 9

I think love is more fantasy then fact. I think the idea or romance is tightly woven into the idea of love. Rooted back in England when women created a hoax of romance. I mean come on a guy in diaper shooting arrows in the hearts of prospective lovers, I'm not buying it. Key concepts are marketable love and patriotism have market value "the pride is back born in America" . A good movie Benny and June that was love for the sake of love alone misguided as love is. Rich in the drama we love about love, Romeo and Juliet the best love story ever told.

Says something like you and me babe how about it ?< cupids arrow

I think that quote is out of context or written by someone who fed at the ponds of planted fish.

Answer 10

That is a quote from H.L. Mencken. What did Henry mean by that? " Moons and junes and ferris wheels/ The dizzy dancing way you feel/ As evry fairy tale comes real/ I've looked at love that way." I think we have all felt something like that before. Before reality sets in and we start to notice that irritating lilttle braying laugh or that not so attractive pimple. Romantic love is a suspension of one's logical self. I can remember a girl telling me in college that if you look into the other person's eyes you can see into their soul. It worked for awhile, after that I just noticed that her eyes were brown. One of my girlfriends in college had grandparents who were really a sweet couple. They had been married for 50 years and had five children. His proposal to his wife was " So, you want to come cook for me?" It must have swept her off her feet. Love is an opiate, a drug that we never quite recover from, but after awhile imagination and intellilgence fuses together.

Answer 11

Ah... yet another question based on quotes, lol.
Ever heard of the expression, "Love is blind?," well it does echo similar sentiments somewhat. That we do love fully and with abandon. Because to love is to surrender & be all-consumed by its energy.
It's the stuff fairytales, books, movies, songs are made of! Love is ONLY a fantasy when you allow yourself to be in a surrealistic realm rather than a reality based existence.
Although there are many forms of love such as to your family, friends, relatives, pets, careers (though most beg to differ, lol), passion/ hobby, etc. It does not necessarily confine to lovers/ spouses.