Henryk Sienkiewicz: Quotes about love

Henryk Sienkiewicz was Polish journalist, Nobel Prize-winning novelist, and philanthropist. Explore interesting quotes on love.
Henryk Sienkiewicz: 76   quotes 5   likes

“Whoso loves beauty is unable for that very reason to love deformity.”

Henryk Sienkiewicz book Quo Vadis

Petronius, Ch. 72
Quo Vadis (1895)
Context: Whoso loves beauty is unable for that very reason to love deformity. One may not believe in our gods, but it is possible to love them...

Love , Beauty

“I love her now beyond all words; she sees it, — she reads it in my eyes, and in my whole manner towards her.”

Henryk Sienkiewicz book Without Dogma

11 November
Without Dogma (1891)
Context: I love her now beyond all words; she sees it, — she reads it in my eyes, and in my whole manner towards her. When I succeed in cheering her up, or call forth her smiles, I am beside myself with delight. There is at present in my love something of the attachment of the faithful servant who loves his mistress. I often feel as if I ought to humble myself before her, as if my proper place were at her feet. She never can grow ugly, changed, or old to me. I accept everything, agree to everything, and worship her as she is.

Love , Reading

“It is not merely a question of sorrow after the death of a beloved being, but of the reproaches she will apply to herself, thinking that if she had loved him more he might have clung more to his life.”

Henryk Sienkiewicz book Without Dogma

13 November
Without Dogma (1891)
Context: It is not merely a question of sorrow after the death of a beloved being, but of the reproaches she will apply to herself, thinking that if she had loved him more he might have clung more to his life. Empty, trivial, and unjust reproaches, for she did everything that force of will could command, — she spurned my love and remained pure and faithful to him. But one must know that soul full of scruples as I know it, to gauge the depth of misery into which the news would plunge her, and how she would suspect herself, — asking whether his death did not correspond to some deeply hidden desire on her part for freedom and happiness; whether it did not gratify those wishes she had scarcely dared to form.

Love , Life , Death , Question

“If it be a great misfortune to love another man's wife, be she ever so commonplace, it is an infinitely greater misfortune to love a virtuous woman.”

Henryk Sienkiewicz book Without Dogma

4 August
Without Dogma (1891)
Context: If it be a great misfortune to love another man's wife, be she ever so commonplace, it is an infinitely greater misfortune to love a virtuous woman. There is something in my relations to Aniela of which I never heard or read; there is no getting out of it, no end. A solution, whether it be a calamity or the fulfilment of desire, is something, but this is only an enchanted circle. If she remain immovable and I do not cease loving her, it will be an everlasting torment, and nothing else. And I have the despairing conviction that neither of us will give way.

Love

“It is an altogether wrong idea that the modern product of civilization is less susceptible to love.”

Henryk Sienkiewicz book Without Dogma

10 November
Without Dogma (1891)
Context: It is an altogether wrong idea that the modern product of civilization is less susceptible to love. I sometimes think it is the other way.

Love , Idea

“But I think happiness springs from another source, a far deeper one that doesn't depend on will because it comes from love.”

Henryk Sienkiewicz book Quo Vadis

Source: Quo Vadis

Love , Spring , Thinking , Dependency

“I follow you — because I must. Do you think I am not afraid of death? I am afraid because I do not know what there is, and see only darkness without end; which makes me recoil. I do not know whether there be nothingness, or existence without space and time; perhaps some midplanetary wind carries the spiritual monad from star to star to implant it in an ever-renewing existence. I do not know whether there be immense restlessness, or a peace so perfect as only Omnipotence and Love can bestow on us. But since you have died through my "I do not know," how could I remain here — and live?
The more I fear, the more I do not know, — the more I cannot let you go alone; I cannot, Aniela mine, — and I follow. Together we shall sink into nothingness, or together begin a new life; and here below where we have suffered let us be buried in oblivion.”

Henryk Sienkiewicz book Without Dogma

Rome, 5 December
Without Dogma (1891)

Love , Life , Death , Fear

“Riches, glory, power are mere smoke, vanity! The rich man will find a richer than himself; the greater glory of another will eclipse a man who is famous; a strong man will be conquered by a stronger. But can Cæsar himself, can any god even, experience greater delight or be happier than a simple mortal at the moment when at his breast there is breathing another dear breast, or when he kisses beloved lips? Hence love makes us equal to the gods, O Lygia.”

Henryk Sienkiewicz book Quo Vadis

Marcus Vinicius to Lygia, in Ch. 2
Quo Vadis (1895)

Love , God , Kiss , Strong

“O Petronius, thou hast seen what endurance and comfort that religion gives in misfortune, how much patience and courage before death; so come and see how much happiness it gives in ordinary, common days of life. People thus far did not know a God whom man could love, hence they did not love one another; and from that came their misfortune, for as light comes from the sun, so does happiness come from love. Neither lawgivers nor philosophers taught this truth, and it did not exist in Greece or Rome; and when I say, not in Rome, that means the whole world. The dry and cold teaching of the Stoics, to which virtuous people rally, tempers the heart as a sword is tempered, but it makes it indifferent rather than better.”

Henryk Sienkiewicz book Quo Vadis

Quo Vadis (1895)

Love , Life , Death , God

“Do not be afraid, Leon, — I feel much better; but in case anything should happen to me I wanted to leave you something to remember me by. Perhaps I ought not to say it so soon after my husband's death; but as I might die, I wanted to tell you now that I loved you very, very much.”

Henryk Sienkiewicz book Without Dogma

Anelia, to Leon, 21 November
Without Dogma (1891)

Love , Death , Feeling

“I often think that Aniela does me a great wrong, not to say that she calls things by wrong names. She considers my love a mere earthly feeling, an infatuation of the senses. I do not deny that it is composed of various threads, but there are among them some as purely ideal as if spun of poetry. Very often my senses are lulled to sleep, and I love her as one loves only in early youth. Then the second self within me mocks, and says derisively: "I had no idea you could love like a schoolboy or a romanticist!"”

Henryk Sienkiewicz book Without Dogma

Yet such is the fact. I may be ridiculous, but I love her thus, and it is not an artificial feeling.
12 July
Without Dogma (1891)

Love , Youth , Feeling , Idea

“I felt within me a boundless wealth of this almost mystic love, and a belief that this earthly chrysalis would come forth in another world a butterfly, which, detached from all earthly conditions would soar from planet to planet, till it became united to the spirit of All-Life. For the first time the thought crossed my mind that Aniela and I may pass away as bodies, but our love will survive and even be our immortality. "Who knows," I thought, "whether this be not the only existing form of immortality?" — because I felt distinctly that there is something everlasting in my feeling, quite distinct from the ever changing phenomena of life.”

Henryk Sienkiewicz book Without Dogma

15 July
Without Dogma (1891)

Love , Life , World , Feeling

“There is now resentment in my love. The thought is troubling my mind that she has a narrow heart, and that in this lies the secret of her unyieldingness. To-day, when I come to think it over more calmly, I go back to the conviction that she has some feeling for me, composed of gratitude, pity, and memories of the past; but it has no active power, cannot rise above prejudice, — even to the avowal of its existence. It does not respect itself, hides, is ashamed of itself, and in comparison with mine is as the mustard-seed to those Alps which surround us. From Aniela one may expect that she will restrict it rather than let it grow. It is of no use to hope or watch for anything from her; that conviction makes me very wretched.”

Henryk Sienkiewicz book Without Dogma

2 August
Without Dogma (1891)

Love , Secret , Hope , Feeling