[I]f you are truly a man, sure of yourself and confident of your strength, you may taste of life without fear and without reserve; you may be sad or joyous, deceived or respected; but be sure you are loved, for what matters the rest?

The speaker links maturity and self-possession (“truly a man…confident of your strength”) with an unguarded openness to experience. Life, in this view, inevitably includes contradictory states—joy and sadness, deception and esteem—none of which can be fully controlled. What can anchor a person amid these fluctuations is being loved: love functions as the ultimate measure that renders other outcomes comparatively secondary (“what matters the rest?”). The passage also implies a moral psychology: genuine strength is not invulnerability but the courage to live “without fear and without reserve,” accepting risk and disappointment because one’s deepest need—human attachment and recognition—is met.