“Don't threaten me with love, baby. Let's just go walking in the rain.”
Billie Holiday (1915–1959) American jazz singer and songwriter
Love quotes page 2
“The best colour in the whole world is the one that looks good on you.”
Coco Chanel (1883–1971) French fashion designer
As quoted in Beauty in Bloom : A Collection of Beautiful Inspirations (2009) by Natalie Bloom, p. 23
Laozi (-604) semi-legendary Chinese figure, attributed to the 6th century, regarded as the author of the Tao Te Ching and fou…
Attributed to Laozi in self-help books and on social media, this quotation is of unknown origin and date.
Misattributed
“In order to be irreplaceable one must always be different.”
Coco Chanel (1883–1971) French fashion designer
As quoted in Coco Chanel : Her Life, Her Secrets (1971) by Marcel Haedrich
“The greatest thing you'll ever learn
Is just to love and be loved in return.”
Eden ahbez (1908–1995) American songwriter and recording artist
"Nature Boy" (1948)
The greatest thing you'll ever learn is to love and be loved, just to love and be loved.
His assertion to Joe Romersa, of how his lyrics should be corrected, saying that "To be loved in return, is too much of a deal, and that has nothing to do with love."
Context: While we spoke of many things
Fools and kings
This he said to me:
"The greatest thing you'll ever learn
Is just to love and be loved in return."
“Love life more than the meaning of it.”
Fyodor Dostoyevsky book Los hermanos Karamazov
Source: The Brothers Karamazov (Bratři Karamazovi)
“In order to be happy oneself it is necessary to make at least one other person happy.”
Theodor Reik (1888–1969) austrian-american psychoanalytist
“The giving of love is an education in itself.”
Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States
“Love is a choice you make from moment to moment.”
Barbara De Angelis (1951) American psychologist
“You never lose by loving, you lose by holding back.”
Barbara De Angelis (1951) American psychologist
Variant: You never lose by loving. You always lose by holding back.
Source: Chicken Soup for the Couple's Soul
“Pleasure of love lasts but a moment, Pain of love lasts a lifetime.”
Bette Davis (1908–1989) film and television actress from the United States
“Love is never lost. If not reciprocated, it will flow back and soften and purify the heart.”
Washington Irving (1783–1859) writer, historian and diplomat from the United States
Attributed to Irving as early as 1883. [Hit and miss : a story of real life, Angie Stewart, Manly, Chicago, J.L. Regan, 1883, i, http://hdl.handle.net/2027/osu.32435018229575?urlappend=%3Bseq=7] However, it does not seem to appear in Irving's known works. Other citations from the same year leave the quotation unattributed. [Henry S. (ed.), Clubb, The Peacemaker and Court of Arbitration, Volume 1, Universal Peace Union, 1883, 125, Philadelphia, https://books.google.com/books?id=Uu84AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA125] [The Australian Women's Magazine and Domestic Journal, Vol. 2 No. 2 (May 1883), 1883, Melbourne, 435, https://books.google.com/books?id=mq0sAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA435]. A similar passage is found in a pseudonymous novel published two years earlier in 1881: "Julia knew that sacrifices to patience are not in vain. Although they often do not produce the happiness for which they are made, they will, always, flow back and soften and purify the heart of the one who makes them". [Illma, Or, Which was Wife?, Miss, M.L.A., Cornwell & Johnson, 1881, 239, New York, http://hdl.handle.net/2027/osu.32435017658592?urlappend=%3Bseq=245]
Disputed
“To accomplish great things we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe.”
Anatole France (1844–1924) French writer
Variant: To accomplish great things, we must dream as well as act.
Source: Discours de réception, Séance De L'académie Française (introductory speech at a session of the French Academy), 24th December 1896, on Ferdinand de Lesseps' work on the Suez Canal.
Context: To accomplish great things we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe.
“Nobody has ever measured, not even poets, how much the heart can hold.”
Zelda Fitzgerald (1900–1948) Novelist, wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald
Variant: nobody hαs ever meαsured, not even poets, how much the heαrt cαn hold.
“Love comforteth like sunshine after rain.”
William Shakespeare (1564–1616) English playwright and poet
Source: The Complete Sonnets and Poems
“My wish is that you may be loved to the point of madness.”
André Breton (1896–1966) French writer
Source: What is Surrealism?: Selected Writings
“Love asks me no questions, and gives me endless support.”
William Shakespeare (1564–1616) English playwright and poet
“To love someone is to see a miracle invisible to others.”
Francois Mauriac (1885–1970) French author
Nicole Krauss The History of Love
Variant: Then she kissed him. Her kiss was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering.
Source: The History of Love (2005), P. 11
“The love we give away is the only love we keep.”
Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915) American writer, publisher, artist, and philosopher fue el escritor del jarron azul
“Love is an act of endless forgiveness, a tender look which becomes a habit.”
Peter Ustinov (1921–2004) English actor, writer, and dramatist
BBC obituary (2004)
“My father gave me the greatest gift anyone could give another person, he believed in me.”
Jim Valvano (1946–1993) American basketball player-coach
“Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired.”
Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet
As quoted in a review of A Swinger of Birches (1957) by Sydney Cox in Vermont History, Vol. 25 (1957), p. 355
1950s
“The art of love… is largely the art of persistence.”
Albert Ellis (1913–2007) American psychologist
“As you were, I was. As I am, you will be.”
Hunter S. Thompson (1937–2005) American journalist and author
Source: Hell's Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga
“Love is like a virus. It can happen to anybody at any time.”
Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet
Variant: Love is like a virus. It can happen to anybody at any time.
“The mystery of love is greater than the mystery of death.”
le mystère de l'amour est plus grand que le mystère de la mort.
Source: Salomé (1893)
“Love is an emotion experienced by the many and enjoyed by the few.”
George Jean Nathan (1882–1958) American drama critic and magazine editor
“If you obey all of the rules, you miss all of the fun.”
Katharine Hepburn (1907–2003) film, stage, and television actress
Variant: If you obey all the rules, you miss all the fun
“There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love.”
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement
1960s, (1963)
“Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.”
Helen Keller (1880–1968) American author and political activist
"Helen and Teacher: The Story of Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan Macy", Joseph P. Lash (1980) http://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/04/21/together/
“Love is an endless mystery, because there is no reasonable cause that could explain it.”
Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali polymath
“Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds.”
William Shakespeare (1564–1616) English playwright and poet
Source: Love Poems and Sonnets
“I have decided to stick to love… Hate is too great a burden to bear.”
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement
Source: A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches
“You are my heart, my life, my one and only thought.”
Arthur Conan Doyle book The White Company
The White Company (1891)
“The love that is not all pain is not all love.”
Antonio Porchia (1885–1968) Italian Argentinian poet
El amor que no es todo dolor, no es todo amor.
Voces (1943)
“That's not my love; that's just your life.”
Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet
Ibid.
The Book of Disquiet
Original: Isso não é o meu amor; é apenas a sua vida.
“Granted we known each other for some time
but it don't take a whole day to recognize sunshine”
Common (rapper) (1972) American rapper, actor and author from Illinois
"The Light" (Track 7)
Albums, Like Water for Chocolate (2000)
“The important thing is to be nothing.”
Bram van Velde (1895–1981) Dutch painter
1960's, Conversations with Samuel Beckett and Bram van Velde' (1965 - 1969)
“A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person.”
Mignon McLaughlin (1913–1983) American journalist
The Complete Neurotic's Notebook (1981), Marriage
“If you find someone you love in your life, then hang on to that love.”
Diana, Princess of Wales (1961–1997) First wife of Charles, Prince of Wales
"Princess Diana: 10 most inspiring quotes from the 'people's princess'", Hello Magazine, Daily News (1 July 2015)
“The most powerful weapon on earth is the human soul on fire.”
Ferdinand Foch (1851–1929) French soldier and military theorist
As quoted in The 32d Infantry Division in World War II (1956) by Harold Whittle Blakeley, p. 3
“We made the buttons on the screen look so good you'll want to lick them.”
Steve Jobs (1955–2011) American entrepreneur and co-founder of Apple Inc.
On Mac OS X's Aqua user interface, as quoted in Fortune magazine (24 January 2000)
2000s
“The more you are motivated by love, the more fearless and free your actions will be.”
Katherine Mansfield (1888–1923) New Zealand author
This has been attributed to Mansfield on the internet, but no published source by her or any other author has been located.
Misattributed
“One word
Frees us of all the weight and pain of life:
That word is love.”
Source: Oedipus at Colonus, Line 1616–18
“You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.”
Mary Oliver (1935–2019) American writer
"Wild Geese"
Dream Work (1986)
Context: You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.
“To live is to not know that one is living”
Florbela Espanca (1894–1930) Portuguese poet
Diary (20 April, 1930), quoted in Afinado desconcerto (2002), p. 262
Context: Sometimes I start looking at the mirror and examining myself, feature by feature: eyes, mouth, shape of the forehead, eyelids curve, the face line... And this vulgar and hideous-looking, grotesque and miserable amalgam, would it know how to do verses? Oh, no! There is something else … but what? After all, why think? To live is to not know that one is living... Why don't I forget that I am living... to live?
“I like the saying "The world is as you are."”
David Lynch book Catching the Big Fish
The Circle, p. 21
Catching the Big Fish (2006)
Context: I like the saying "The world is as you are." And I think films are as you are. That's why, although the frames of a film are always the same — the same number, in the same sequence, with the same sounds — every screening is different. The difference is sometimes subtle but it's there. It depends on the audience. There is a circle that goes from the audience to the film and back. Each person is looking and thinking and feeling and coming up with his or her own sense of things. And it's probably different from what I fell in love with.
So you don’t know how it's going to hit people. But if you thought about how it's going to hit people, or if it's going to hurt someone, or if it's going to do this or do that, then you would have to stop making films. You just do these things that you fall in love with, and you never know what's going to happen.
“I am not, I will not be.
I have not, I will not have.”
Nagarjuna (150–250) Indian philosopher
That frightens all the childish
And extinguishes fear in the wise.
§ 26
Major attributed works, Ratnāvalī (Precious Garland)
“Love does not consist of gazing at each other, but in looking together in the same direction.”
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1900–1944) French writer and aviator
“Love has no age, no limit; and no death.”
John Galsworthy (1867–1933) English novelist and playwright
“Love cures people - both the ones who give it and the ones who receive it.”
Karl Menninger (1893–1990) American psychiatrist
“Two minds with but a single thought, two hearts that beat as one.”
Jasper Fforde book First Among Sequels
Source: First Among Sequels
Henry Van Dyke (1852–1933) American diplomat
Time Is
Undated
Source: Time Is...
Too slow for those who wait,
Too swift for those who fear,
Too long for those who grieve,
Too short for those who rejoice,
But for those who love,
Time is Eternity. (Music and Other Poems, 1904)
David Sedaris book Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim
Source: Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim
“Love will find a way through paths where wolves fear to prey.”
George Gordon Byron (1788–1824) English poet and a leading figure in the Romantic movement
“The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of.”
Rohinton Mistry book Family Matters
Source: Family Matters
“I love thee to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach.”
Elizabeth Barrett Browning book Sonnets from the Portuguese
No. LXIII
Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850)
Variant: How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach
Context: How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
Context: How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints,—I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! —and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
“And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.”
Paul McCartney (1942) English singer-songwriter and composer
"The End"; The last full song track of Abbey Road (1969) the last Beatles album to be recorded before the band broke up. (Let It Be was the last album released, but had been recorded earlier.)
Lyrics, The Beatles
Source: The Beatles Illustrated Lyrics
“To love is to admire with the heart; to admire is to love with the mind.”
Théophile Gautier (1811–1872) French writer
Jane Austen (1775–1817) English novelist
Variant: In vain I have struggled. It will not do. My feelings will no longer be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.
Source: Pride And Prejudice
Victor Hugo book Les Misérables
Variant: To love or have loved is all-sufficing. We must not ask for more. No other pearl is to be found in the shadowfolds of life. To love is an accomplishment.
Source: Les Misérables
“Though lovers be lost, love shall not; And death shall have no dominion.”
Dylan Thomas (1914–1953) Welsh poet and writer
Variant: Though lovers be lost love shall not.
“You are my sun,
my moon, and
all my stars.”
E.E. Cummings (1894–1962) American poet
Variant: Yours is the light by which my spirit's born: - you are my sun, my moon, and all my stars.
“We must be our own before we can be another's.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet
“Love is when you meet someone who tells you something new about yourself.”
André Breton (1896–1966) French writer
Source: Mad Love