Or I should say, I think it is a rather ambiguous statement, and semantically equivalent to equating your worth to your popularity.
How do we quantize love to begin with? Who can know "how much" one person loves another, or even really "how much" a person loves oneself? What measuring system can we use? How do we apply the system to another individual? Suppose one to be innocent and believe the protestations of another that they are loved unconditionally, more than words can say. If that "lover" then decides otherwise, and it turns out that their love is a very small thing indeed, does that mean the innocent believer has a heart the size of a peanut? To evaluate one's own love by the love of another is semantically equivalent to saying that anyone who has not found love doesn't deserve it. I find that appalling.
If the intent of the quote is to convey the idea that the sheer number of people who claim to love you is the measure of your own heart (or worth), then it is an insidious idea that must inevitably shame the unpopular, the inept, and the isolated. Which is rather like running over a puppy with a truck. A baby my die known and loved only by grieving parents, but does the paucity of his acquaintance stand as the yardstick of his value, or his capacity to love? If we are to be evaluated by the number of people who cry at our funerals, then the most vicious and evil dictator imaginable would be said to have a great heart, if the people were forced to grieve on his passing. Or as a friend once asked me, "If I had died in childbirth at 16, would I just be nothing, then?"
It is a thought well-suited to Oz, that we always get what we deserve.
-- Mal
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