Dumbledore teaches Harry a lesson, again. In "King's Cross", p. 578, he says:
"Don't pity the dead, Harry. Pity the living, and, above all, those who live without love."
This reminds me of something Dumbledore says in OotP, that there are far worse things than death.

I wonder what DD meant by living without love: To live without being loved, like a neglected child for instance, or to live without the power to love (both applies to LV)?
And in case DD pities those without the power to love - is the ability to love something that one can learn or is it something you just have (the Prophecy suggests so)?

i believe it is something that you are born with but if you are loved and nurtured unlike lv you will also learn to love, harry although he never had love handed to him he knew it and was born with it from his parents Lv however never had any love from day 1 and his mother merope never knew what is was like to be loved.

Even worse for LV he must have thought his mum never wanted to have him, he knew that she was a witch yet she let herself die after giving birth, iam guessing that instilled in him a hatred for even the idea of love never mind actually trying to love someone.

I quite agree. Being a mother myself I could never imagine there would be one who wouldn't want to live in order to take care of her baby. The mere existence of a child gives you the power to survive and do your best to fend for the new life you brought into this world.
Merope didn't have the power to love, probably because she wasn't loved inside her family. From what we see about them, they form a bunch of highly problematic beings, with beliefs about grandeur and feelings of superiority over a racist superstition. Where could the poor girl (let's not forget she was very young) find a role model to become an adequate mother, even as far as the basic things are concerned, namely having the will to take care of a helpless baby?

I think those who live without love are those who are neglected. These people would usually be kids and they probably end up thinking that is the way to treat people. Or they take their anger out on people by being a bully. The other group I can think of doesn't have a 'name'. I think they are people that feel they have to hurt others to gain power or use power in horrible ways. Which is really horrible if you think about it.

DD's comment about living without love can actually be read from another angle - at least, the way I read it - and in LV's case, he chose to live his life without love, making him quite a unique literary character in JKR's world. He certainly made himself much less of a man by that choice - that much was apparent throughout the series.

Merope is a good example for neglect (and this neglect passes over generations). What about Draco? He certainly isn't neglected, his mother loves him, but he cooses to live without love too. He is envious, a plotter and a bully, he doesn't care for or sees the beauty in anyone, at least until the end of DH. He could have changed though, because he has been loved by his mother.

See, I'm still trying to get to grips with this, because we are not shown a single instance, in the book, where Voldemort made that decision. What we have seen is him being a horrible child, then a cruel teenager and an evil, twisted inhuman creature. But there is nothing in the text that suggests that he could have been anything different. We are expected to take for granted that he did make a choice.

And about Merope, I also find the suggestion that she chose to die equally problematic. Isn't it implied she died in child birth? In addition to that, although Dumbledore states that he believes Merope gave up magic, he also says:

"Of course, it is also possible that her unrequieted love and the attendant despair sapped her of her powers; that can happen."

If Merope was unable to do magic, can the fact that she was unable to save herself really be held against her? A young woman, alone, pregnant, possibly full of guilt, resentment, who has no where to turn to except to an abusive family...

Isn't it notable that she went to the only possible place that could give her son a some type of home? Shouldn't it also be significant that she gave said son the name of the man she supposedly loved?

Merope made serious mistakes, and she is the perfect example of what an obsessive love can do. But I still think that taking Dumbledore's word at face value is dangerous.

Now about what Dumbledore meant, I think that "to love" is standing in for a number of different things. The word love, I think, is replacing a form of positive emotional conexion with others. Ultimately, we must feel pity for Voldemort, who never really connected with anyone in a significant way.

Sorry if this is confusing, I'm still trying to reconcile a few things in the books.

Oh-h-h, really enjoyed this flip perspective! Voldemort turns the much-vaunted theme of choice in HP on its head. He certainly did decide to live his life without love - his choices defined him much more, I think, than his abandonment. He also chose to live without friends, without equals, and every servant of his was seen to be expendable. Quite the cold existence, although he appeared to enjoy it.

However, although Dumbledore urged that we pity those who live without love, Voldemort's actions do rather render him out of the realm of pity. And perhaps even..... compassion.

Your comments reminded me of a passage from Aristotle's Politics where he says that the individual who lives in complete isolation is either a very good man or a very bad one--either a god or a beast--for it is the essential nature of humans that we are social/political creatures whose true happiness can exist only in a context of family and community. None of us, he claims, live entirely unto ourselves.

Beyond the obvious application to Voldemort you make here, I would add Snape While it is all well and good that he loved Lily, there is nothing else in his life, no shared joy or compassion. He lives without love. Indeed, he throws up a barrier of nastiness that shuts out even ordinary human respect, making himself as unlovable as possible.

Sibyl is another one who concerns me, isolated up there in her tower, trying to gain the respect of students by a combination of fear and feigned superiority.

Sibyl is an example to me of Dumbleodore's machiavellianism. He had a low opinion of divination, but when it suited him he gave her a position and home at Hogwarts. In a big way, he validated Sybil Trelawney in his protection of her, and also validated Voldemort's suspicion that there was something else to the prophecy that he was missing. If Dumbledore ignored her and let her go on her way after the revelation, she might have earned the reputation of a charlatan, possibly saving the Potters from the fate that became theirs when the prophecy was corroborated by Dumbledore.

The thing about these Hogwarts staff is that they're away from 'home' - or if the live at Hogwarts they don't have families. I think in Trelawny's case, we see she can be a nice person, just not good at what she does and then gets taunted and teased by the students.

It could be viewed that it was Dumbledore's pity that allowed her to live at Hogwarts. We heard how he was thinking of ditching Divination, but when she made the prediction about Voldemort and Harry, he took her in to his nice, warm, caring home as an act of kindness to protect her.

We witnessed cold minded Umbridge dismissing her for being 'different'. It is Umbridge who can not love, and therefore can not see things from other people's view. It was Dumbledore's pity that kept her there. In my opinion, you have to be able to love to understand other people and not be discriminatory. All these things work together.

I understand and have always liked Dumbledore. When JKR mentioned that DD was rather machiavellian, this situation came to mind.

I agree that Dumbledore's planning involved Sybil, though I tend to think it was protective. She is not overly talented and DD and McGonagall tend to look down on divination. Fact remains, though, she was the medium through which the famous prophecy that drove Voldemort to Harry. Part of the reason they look down on divination, I suspect, is the degree anyone places stock in prophesies that by themselves are meaningless. It was Voldemort's choice to act on the prophesy, giving it merit, that made Sybil vulnerable. We see this with Olivander, whose knowledge of wands made him a target for Voldy. I felt that it was somewhat of a tough balance for DD protecting Sybil while disliking the subject matter she taught. That combined with the fact that she was only really credible as a medium with the Voldemort situation, made DD aware students were learning from someone he didn't have great faith in. He was hard pressed though to set her loose and make her a target. She is a bit of a "Blanche DuBois" of a character. My best friend is an actress and she feels that Trelawny is possibly the best character for an actress, which I think is fairly accurate. She is certainly interesting. I enjoyed her finding her place in the battle of Hogwarts, it may have changed her to a degree we don't get to see afterwards.

It's been interesting to read the last few posts about Sybill ... I might have another perspective on this as well.

It struck me that by giving her a home at Hogwarts, DD ensured that Sybill Trelawney was protected not only by the protections which held Hogwarts together, but also by the less tangible protection of love ... DD loved his students, his school, probably his teachers - I see Sybill as an integral part of all that, no matter what he thought of her subject. Surely Sybill drew some comfort from the thought that she was loved and cared for to a certain extent, and this is borne out in her loyalty to everything she held dear in the final battle at Hogwarts.

Did that make any sense?

I'd like to know if Voldemort ever found out the truth about the circumstances of his conception. If he did, what a terrible legacy to know you owe your existence to trickery. I think one can sympathize if not applaud why young Tom Riddle chose to bathe his heart in dragon's blood. Eros's arrows can be cruel if his mother's example is anything to go on. What evidence then did he ever have that there was anything to be gained by opening your heart to others? Genius, and he was a genius in wizarding terms, can be a seen as compensation for the warmth of human feeling and no doubt he thought by honing his intellect, without the distractions of sympathy, he would shield himself against vulnerabilty and win the adulation of others; more dignity in that than ending up like Merope. However, his tragedy is that he fails to recognize that genius of the intellect without that of sympathy is invariably of a still born and sterile kind, - hence the hideous, muling infant Harry sees at Kings Cross Station.