“The best use of life is love. The best expression of love is time. The best time to love is now.”

IV, p. 26.
The Ship in the Desert (1875)
Context: p>The sunlight of a sunlit land,
A land of fruit, of flowers, and
A land of love and calm delight;
A land where night is not like night,
And noon is but a name for rest,
And love for love is reckoned best. Where conversations of the eyes
Are all enough; where beauty thrills
The heart like hues of harvest-home;
Where rage lies down, where passion dies,
Where peace hath her abiding place....</p

Source: The History of Pendennis (1848-1850), Ch. 40.

Jacula Prudentum (1651)

1880s, 1880, Letter to Theo (Cuesmes, July 1880)
Variant: I always think that the best way to know God is to love many things.
Context: I think that everything that is really good and beautiful, the inner, moral, spiritual and sublime beauty in men and their works, comes from God, and everything that is bad and evil in the works of men and in men is not from God, and God does not approve of it.
But I cannot help thinking that the best way of knowing God is to love many things. Love this friend, this person, this thing, whatever you like, and you will be on the right road to understanding Him better, that is what I keep telling myself. But you must love with a sublime, genuine, profound sympathy, with devotion, with intelligence, and you must try all the time to understand Him more, better and yet more. That will lead to God, that will lead to an unshakable faith.

Stand Up Comedy
Lyrics, No Line On The Horizon (2009)

LOVE (1972)