Would you rather have loving friends or kind acquaintances? This city is full of kind strangers: but I miss my friends.

My friends tell me when food is stuck in my teeth while dining; my acquaintances do not.

It’s easier and complicated to be kind than to be loving. Kindness delivers an immediate gratification and, it is usually beneficial to our society. So, yes, it’s good, but it’s not love.

Love is demanding of us. And, love is a good deal more complicated than kindness–it cherishes forgiveness and mercy while it despises dishonesty and deceit.

“Kindness, as such, cares not whether its object becomes good or bad, provided only that it escapes suffering…”
“Love may forgive all infirmities [weaknesses] and love still in spite of them: but Love cannot cease to will [to desire] their removal.

Love is more sensitive than hatred to every blemish in the beloved…Of all powers [love] forgives most, but [love] condones least: love is pleased with [a] little, but demands all.”
— C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain