Quotes about love
page 12

Fyodor Dostoyevsky photo

“Love is such a priceless treasure that you can redeem the whole world by it, and cleanse not only your own sins but the sins of others.”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821–1881) Russian author

Book II, ch. 3 (trans. Constance Garnett)
The Elder Zossima, speaking to a devout widow afraid of death
The Brothers Karamazov (1879–1880)
Context: If you are penitent, you love. And if you love you are of God. All things are atoned for, all things are saved by love. If I, a sinner even as you are, am tender with you and have pity on you, how much more will God have pity upon you. Love is such a priceless treasure that you can redeem the whole world by it, and cleanse not only your own sins but the sins of others.

“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."

“The mind has a thousand eyes,
And the heart but one;
Yet the light of a whole life dies
When love is done.”

Francis William Bourdillon (1852–1921) British poet

"Light" (popularly known as "The Night has a Thousand Eyes"), published in The Spectator (October 1873).
Context: p>The Night has a thousand eyes,
And the Day but one;
Yet the light of the bright world dies
With the dying sun.The mind has a thousand eyes,
And the heart but one;
Yet the light of a whole life dies
When love is done.</p

Friedrich Hölderlin photo

“What is all that men have done and thought over thousands of years, compared with one moment of love. But in all Nature, too, it is what is nearest to perfection, what is most divinely beautiful!”

Hyperion
Context: What is all that men have done and thought over thousands of years, compared with one moment of love. But in all Nature, too, it is what is nearest to perfection, what is most divinely beautiful! There all stairs lead from the threshold of life. From there we come, to there we go.

Hilaire Belloc photo

“There's nothing worth the wear of winning,
But laughter and the love of friends.”

Hilaire Belloc (1870–1953) writer

"Dedicatory Ode", stanza 22
Verses (1910)
Context: From quiet homes and first beginning,
Out to the undiscovered ends,
There's nothing worth the wear of winning,
But laughter and the love of friends.

John of the Cross photo

“In a word, it is for this love that we are all created.”

John of the Cross (1542–1591) Spanish mystic and Roman Catholic saint

Note to Stanza 28 part 3
Spiritual Canticle of The Soul and The Bridegroom, Notes to the Stanzas
Context: When the soul, then, in any degree possesses the spirit of solitary love, we must not interfere with it. We should inflict a grievous wrong upon it, and upon the Church also, if we were to occupy it, were it only for a moment, in exterior or active duties, however important they might be. When God Himself adjures all not to waken it from its love, who shall venture to do so, and be blameless? In a word, it is for this love that we are all created. Let those men of zeal, who think by their preaching and exterior works to convert the world, consider that they would be much more edifying to the Church, and more pleasing unto God — setting aside the good example they would give if they would spend at least one half their time in prayer, even though they may have not attained to the state of unitive love.

Aurelius Augustinus photo

“If thou lovest the Head, thou lovest also the members; if thou lovest not the members, neither dost thou love the Head”

Aurelius Augustinus (354–430) early Christian theologian and philosopher

p 438
On the Mystical Body of Christ
Context: Choose to love whomsoever thou wilt: all else will follow. Thou mayest say, "I love only God, God the Father." Wrong! If Thou lovest Him, thou dost not love Him alone; but if thou lovest the Father, thou lovest also the Son. Or thou mayest say, "I love the Father and I love the Son, but these alone; God the Father and God the Son, our Lord Jesus Christ who ascended into heaven and sitteth at the right hand of the Father, the Word by whom all things were made, the Word who was made flesh and dwelt amongst us; only these do I love." Wrong again! If thou lovest the Head, thou lovest also the members; if thou lovest not the members, neither dost thou love the Head.

John Maynard Keynes photo

“The love of money as a possession — as distinguished from the love of money as a means to the enjoyments and realities of life — will be recognised for what it is, a somewhat disgusting morbidity, one of those semi-criminal, semi-pathological propensities which one hands over with a shudder to the specialists in mental disease”

as quoted in "Keynes and the Ethics of Capitalism" by Robert Skidelsy http://www.webcitation.org/query?id=1256603608595872&url=www.geocities.com/monedem/keyn.html
Essays in Persuasion (1931), Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren (1930)
Context: When the accumulation of wealth is no longer of high social importance, there will be great changes in the code of morals. We shall be able to rid ourselves of many of the pseudo-moral principles which have hag-ridden us for two hundred years, by which we have exalted some of the most distasteful of human qualities into the position of the highest virtues. We shall be able to afford to dare to assess the money-motive at its true value. The love of money as a possession — as distinguished from the love of money as a means to the enjoyments and realities of life — will be recognised for what it is, a somewhat disgusting morbidity, one of those semi-criminal, semi-pathological propensities which one hands over with a shudder to the specialists in mental disease … But beware! The time for all this is not yet. For at least another hundred years we must pretend to ourselves and to everyone that fair is foul and foul is fair; for foul is useful and fair is not. Avarice and usury and precaution must be our gods for a little longer still. For only they can lead us out of the tunnel of economic necessity into daylight.

H.L. Mencken photo

“The fact is that the average man's love of liberty is nine-tenths imaginary, exactly like his love of sense, justice and truth.”

H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer

Baltimore Evening Sun (12 February 1923)
1920s
Context: The fact is that the average man's love of liberty is nine-tenths imaginary, exactly like his love of sense, justice and truth. He is not actually happy when free; he is uncomfortable, a bit alarmed, and intolerably lonely. Liberty is not a thing for the great masses of men. It is the exclusive possession of a small and disreputable minority, like knowledge, courage and honor. It takes a special sort of man to understand and enjoy liberty — and he is usually an outlaw in democratic societies.

Barack Obama photo

“Every one of us is equal. Every one of us has worth. Every one of us matters. And when we respect the freedom of others -- no matter the color of their skin, or how they pray or who they are or who they love -- we are all more free. Your dignity depends on my dignity, and my dignity depends on yours.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2015, Remarks to the People of Africa (July 2015)
Context: Every one of us is equal. Every one of us has worth. Every one of us matters. And when we respect the freedom of others -- no matter the color of their skin, or how they pray or who they are or who they love -- we are all more free. Your dignity depends on my dignity, and my dignity depends on yours. Imagine if everyone had that spirit in their hearts. Imagine if governments operated that way. Just imagine what the world could look like -- the future that we could bequeath these young people.

George Raymond Richard Martin photo

“It is the people who speak to me, the men and women who once lived and loved and dreamed and grieved, just as we do.”

George Raymond Richard Martin (1948) American writer, screenwriter and television producer

infinity plus interview (2001)
Context: Historical processes have never much interested me, but history is full of stories, full of triumph and tragedy and battles won and lost. It is the people who speak to me, the men and women who once lived and loved and dreamed and grieved, just as we do. Though some may have had crowns on their heads or blood on their hands, in the end they were not so different from you and me, and therein lies their fascination. I suppose I am still a believer in the now unfashionable "heroic" school, which says that history is shaped by individual men and women and the choices that they make, by deeds glorious and terrible.

Matthew Arnold photo

“Ah, love, let us be true
To one another!”

St. 4
Dover Beach (1867)
Context: Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk photo
Marlene Dietrich photo
Marlene Dietrich photo
Andrew Biersack photo
Rajneesh photo
Alfred Freddy Krupa photo
Leo Tolstoy photo
Ralph Waldo Emerson photo

“Truth is handsomer than the affectation of love. Your goodness must have some edge to it, — else it is none. The doctrine of hatred must be preached as the counteraction of the doctrine of love when that pules and whines. I shun father and mother and wife and brother, when my genius calls me. I would write on the lintels of the door-post, Whim.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

I hope it is somewhat better than whim at last, but we cannot spend the day in explanation. Expect me not to show cause why I seek or why I exclude company.
1840s, Essays: First Series (1841), Self-Reliance

Nathuram Godse photo
Yuval Noah Harari photo
Virginia Woolf photo
Teal Swan photo
Jason Reynolds photo

“I love these kids. I’m just here to bear witness to their lives, because I believe that it is in bearing witness that everything is made real.”

Jason Reynolds (1983) author of young adult novels

[McKenzie, Joi-Marie, Why Author Jason Reynolds Writes For The Youngest Generation, https://www.essence.com/entertainment/author-jason-reynolds/, Essence, 10 March 2020, February 12, 2020]

Catherine of Genoa photo
Homér photo

“Men grow tired of sleep, love, singing and dancing, sooner than of war.”

A misquotation http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2009-August/092648.html of:

Πάντων μὲν κόρος ἐστὶ καὶ ὕπνου καὶ φιλότητος
μολπῆς τε γλυκερῆς καὶ ἀμύμονος ὀρχηθμοῖο,
τῶν πέρ τις καὶ μᾶλλον ἐέλδεται ἐξ ἔρον εἷναι
ἢ πολέμου· Τρῶες δὲ μάχης ἀκόρητοι ἔασιν.

Men get
Their fill of all things, of sleep and love, sweet song
And flawless dancing, and most men like these things
Much better than war. Only Trojans are always
Thirsty for blood!

Iliad, XIII, 636–639 (tr. Ennis Rees)

The misquotation implies that an overweening love of war was the norm, whereas the real quote decries the Trojans as inhumane for keeping the war going.
Misattributed

Isabel II do Reino Unido photo

“Today it may seem hard that we cannot mark this special anniversary as we would wish. Instead we remember from our homes and our doorsteps. But our streets are not empty; they are filled with the love and the care that we have for each other. And when I look at our country today, and see what we are willing to do to protect and support one another, I say with pride that we are still a nation those brave soldiers, sailors and airmen would recognise and admire.”

Isabel II do Reino Unido (1926–2022) queen of the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, and head of the Commonwealth of Nations

Address to the UK on the 75th anniversary of VE Day, which occurred during the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic, 08/05/2020 https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/the-queen-ve-day-speech-read-full-a9506226.html.

Trevor Noah photo

“That's what I always loved about comedy, it is a way for us to just, you know, to numb the pain, to process what we're going through.”

Trevor Noah (1984) South African comedian

Source: Trevor Noah Was Low Key In Black Panther https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wC6V4gLAat4, June 2018

Swami Samarpanananda photo

“Love is the space in which one finds the freedom to fly.”

Swami Samarpanananda Monk, Author, Teacher

Junglezen Sheru ( Page 17 )

Sara Teasdale photo
Pope Francis photo
Pope Francis photo

“Truth may be vital, but without love, it is unbearable. Caritas in veritate.”

Pope Francis (1936) 266th Pope of the Catholic Church

Source: Movie The Two Popes, Jonathan Pryce as Pope Francis

Jean de La Bruyère photo

“Love and friendship exclude each other.”

Jean de La Bruyère (1645–1696) 17th-century French writer and philosopher
Sören Kierkegaard photo

“Above all, do not forget your duty to love yourself.”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism
Suraj Sani photo

“I love you so much only God is my competitor.”

Suraj Sani (1996) Nigerian writer, Spoken word artist

Quotes from Confessions (Spoken word)

Dua Lipa photo

“If love is a gamble, baby let me roll my dice.”

Dua Lipa (1995) English singer and songwriter

Source: instagram.com/dualipa

Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
Matka Tereza photo

“I have found the paradox that if I love until it hurts, then there is no hurt, but only more love.”

Matka Tereza (1910–1997) Roman Catholic saint of Albanian origin

As quoted in Love Until It Hurts: A Tribute to Mother Teresa and the work of the men and women of the Missionaries of Charity (1980) by Daphne Rae
1980s

Thomas Paine photo
Neale Donald Walsch photo
Chuck Palahniuk photo
Eckhart Tolle photo

“You cannot love your partner one moment and attack him or her the next.”

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

Source: The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

Jack Kerouac photo
Roald Dahl photo

“So please, oh please, we beg, we pray, go throw your TV set away, and in its place you can install, a lovely bookshelf on the wall.”

Variant: So please, oh please, we beg, we pray,
Go throw your TV set away,
And in its place you can install
A lovely bookshelf on the wall.
Then fill the shelves with lots of books.
Source: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Ayn Rand photo
Frank Bidart photo

“then the voice in my head said

WHETHER YOU LOVE WHAT YOU LOVE

OR LIVE IN DIVIDED CEASELESS
REVOLT AGAINST IT

WHAT YOU LOVE IS YOUR FATE”

Frank Bidart (1939) American poet

Source: In the Western Night: Collected Poems, 1965-1990

Oscar Wilde photo
Cassandra Clare photo

“aren't you, uh… reproducing?

"sure, we love reproducing it's one of our favorite things.”

Variant: We love reproducing. Its one of our favorite things.
Source: City of Bones

Jodi Picoult photo
Jean Vanier photo

“People cannot accept their own evil if they do not at the same time feel loved, respected and trusted.”

Jean Vanier (1928–2019) Canadian humanitarian

Source: Community And Growth

Eleanor Roosevelt photo

“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
Judy Garland photo
Blaise Pascal photo

“When one does not love too much, one does not love enough.”

Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer, and Christian philosopher
Erich Maria Remarque photo
Fulton J. Sheen photo
Orhan Pamuk photo
Thomas à Kempis photo
Torquato Tasso photo

“Listen, whatever you see and love—
that’s where you are.”

Mary Oliver (1935–2019) American writer

Source: Dog Songs

Rick Riordan photo
Friedrich Nietzsche photo

“Amor Fati – “Love Your Fate”, which is in fact your life.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist
Salman Rushdie photo
Nisargadatta Maharaj photo
Simone Weil photo
C.G. Jung photo
Naomi Wolf photo
Eckhart Tolle photo

“All the things that truly matter - beauty, love, creativity, joy, inner peace - arise from beyond the mind.”

A New Earth (2005)
Variant: All the things that truly matter - beauty, love, creativity, joy, inner peace - arise from beyond the mind.

Doris Lessing photo

“What's terrible is to pretend that the second-rate is the first-rate. To pretend that you don't need love when you do; or you like your work when you know quite well you're capable of better.”

Anna Wulf, in "Free Women: 2"<!-- 255 -->
Source: The Golden Notebook (1962)
Context: It seems to me like this. It's not a terrible thing — I mean, it may be terrible, but it's not damaging, it's not poisoning, to do without something one really wants. It's not bad to say: My work is not what I really want, I'm capable of doing something bigger. Or I'm a person who needs love, and I'm doing without it. What's terrible is to pretend that the second-rate is the first-rate. To pretend that you don't need love when you do; or you like your work when you know quite well you're capable of better.

William Shakespeare photo
Stephen Chbosky photo

“I am very interested and fascinated how everyone loves each other, but no one really likes each other.”

Variant: Everyone loves each other, but no one really likes each other
Source: The Perks of Being a Wallflower