Dialogues of Love

...they say they are loved because they are esteemed as good, but speaking correctly, those things that have no being original: essere proprio. In this metaphysical context, "being" refers to the actual, individual existence of a thing. of their own cannot be called loved, such as health and children when we lack them. I speak of real love, for imagined [love] can be had for all desired things, because of the "being" they possess in the imagination. From this imagined being, a certain love is born, the subject of which is not the actual real thing desired—since it does not yet have being in reality—but only the concept of that thing taken from its general existence. Of such love, the subject is improper because it is not true love, as it lacks a real subject; it is only simulated and imagined, because the desire for such things is stripped of true love.

So it is that among things, three kinds of love and desire are found:

1. Some are loved and desired together, such as truth, wisdom, and a worthy person when we do not possess them.
2. Others are loved and not desired, such as all good things already had and possessed.
3. Some others are desired and not loved, such as health and children when we lack them, and other things that have no real being.

Therefore, the things loved and desired together are those that are esteemed as good, have their own being, and which we lack. The loved and not desired are those same things when we have and possess them. And the things desired and not loved are those that not only do we lack, but which also do not have being in themselves, in which [love] could fall... The text ends mid-sentence on the word "ca-" (likely cadere, meaning "to fall" or "to take hold").