Quotes about love page 15
“If you love someone but rarely make yourself available to him or her, that is not true love.”
Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist
Source: Living Buddha, Living Christ
“When He tells us to love our enemies He gives, along with the command, the love itself.”
Corrie ten Boom (1892–1983) Dutch resistance hero and writer
Source: The Hiding Place: The Triumphant True Story of Corrie Ten Boom
“Whom the gods love dies young.”
Menander (-342–-291 BC) Athenian playwright of New Comedy
[Epigramatic] Sentences, 425
He whom the gods love dies young.
The Double Deceiver, frag. 4.
Variant: ὃν οἱ θεοὶ φιλοῦσιν, ἀποθνῄσκει νέος.
Source: Menander: The Plays and Fragments
Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer
Source: Ariel: The Restored Edition
“Love, the poet said, is woman's whole existence.”
Virginia Woolf book Orlando: A Biography
Source: Orlando
“Love ceases to be a demon only when he ceases to be a god.”
Denis de Rougemont (1906–1985) Swiss writer
Giacomo Casanova (1725–1798) Italian adventurer and author from the Republic of Venice
Memoirs (trans. Machen 1894), book 1, Preface http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/c/casanova/c33m/preface2.html <br class="br">Referenced
“Trust no friend without faults, and love a maiden, but no angel.”
Doris Lessing (1919–2013) British novelist, poet, playwright, librettist, biographer and short story writer
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, as quoted in Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern English and Foreign Sources (1899) by James Wood, p. 499
Misattributed
“There are no laws, there are no rules, just grab your friend and love him.”
Jim Morrison (1943–1971) lead singer of The Doors
John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American naturalist and author
July 1890, page 315
John of the Mountains, 1938
Sarah Dessen book What Happened to Goodbye
What Happened To Goodbye (2011)
Source: What Happened to Goodbye
“And now such a warm commotion, such busy love.”
Alice Munro (1931) Canadian novelist
Source: Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage: Stories
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist
The Gay Science (1882)
Irving Stone (1903–1989) American writer
Source: Clarence Darrow for the Defense
Louis Armstrong (1901–1971) American jazz trumpeter, composer and singer
Spoken intro to "What a Wonderful World" (1970 version)
Context: Seems to me, it aint the world that's so bad but what we're doin' to it. And all I'm saying is, see, what a wonderful world it would be if only we'd give it a chance. Love baby, love. That's the secret, yeah. If lots more of us loved each other, we'd solve lots more problems. And then this world would be a gasser. That's wha' ol' Pops keeps saying.
Context: Some of you young folks been saying to me, "Hey Pops, what you mean 'What a wonderful world'? How about all them wars all over the place? You call them wonderful? And how about hunger and pollution? That aint so wonderful either." Well how about listening to old Pops for a minute. Seems to me, it aint the world that's so bad but what we're doin' to it. And all I'm saying is, see, what a wonderful world it would be if only we'd give it a chance. Love baby, love. That's the secret, yeah. If lots more of us loved each other, we'd solve lots more problems. And then this world would be a gasser. That's wha' ol' Pops keeps saying.
“Love comforteth like sunshine after rain.”
William Shakespeare (1564–1616) English playwright and poet
Source: The Complete Sonnets and Poems
Marcus Aurelius book Meditations
Variant: When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive-to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.
Source: Meditations
Source: La Fin de Chéri (The Last of Cheri) (1926)
“Friendship is Love without wings.”
George Gordon Byron (1788–1824) English poet and a leading figure in the Romantic movement
L'Amitié est l'Amour sans Ailes, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
Paullina Simons book The Bronze Horseman
Variant: Ask yourself three questions and you will know who you are. Ask 'What do you believe in? What do you hope for? But most important - ask what do you love?
Source: The Bronze Horseman (2001)
“Work is not an end in itself; there must always be time enough for love.”
Robert A. Heinlein Time Enough for Love
Source: Time Enough for Love
“Love yourself. Then forget it.
Then, love the world.”
Mary Oliver (1935–2019) American writer
Source: Evidence: Poems
Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XIX Philosophical Maxims. Morals. Polemics and Speculations.
Jimmy Carter (1924) American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981)
Source: A Full Life: Reflections at Ninety
Patrick Süskind (1949) German writer and screenwriter
Source: Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
“It's a feeling which tells me that any woman can be beautiful in the eyes of a man who loves her.”
Joanne Harris book Five Quarters of the Orange
Source: Five Quarters of the Orange
Amy Bloom (1953) Fiction writer, screenwriter, social worker, psychotherapist
“for a woman, love is its own reason. "I love you because I love you.”
Fulton J. Sheen (1895–1979) Catholic bishop and television presenter
Source: Life Is Worth Living
“We were eighteen and had begun to love life and the world; and we had to shoot it to pieces.”
Erich Maria Remarque book All Quiet on the Western Front
Source: All Quiet on the Western Front
Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress
The Sixteenth Revelation, Chapter 82
Context: If any such lover be in earth which is continually kept from falling, I know it not: for it was not shewed me. But this was shewed: that in falling and in rising we are ever preciously kept in one Love. For in the Beholding of God we fall not, and in the beholding of self we stand not; and both these be sooth as to my sight. But the Beholding of our Lord God is the highest soothness. Then are we greatly bound to God that He willeth in this living to shew us this high soothness. And I understood that while we be in this life it is full speedful to us that we see both these at once. For the higher Beholding keepeth us in spiritual solace and true enjoying in God; that other that is the lower Beholding keepeth us in dread and maketh us ashamed of ourself. But our good Lord willeth ever that we hold us much more in the Beholding of the higher, and leave not the knowing of the lower, unto the time that we be brought up above, where we shall have our Lord Jesus unto our meed and be fulfilled of joy and bliss without end.
“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
“Of course it's possible to love a human being if you don't know them too well.”
Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer
“we laughed until we had to cry, we loved until we said goodbye.”
Melissa de la Cruz (1971) American writer
“We shouldn't teach great books; we should teach a love of reading.”
B.F. Skinner (1904–1990) American behaviorist
As quoted in B. F. Skinner : The Man and His Ideas (1968) by Richard Isadore Evans, p. 73.
Context: We shouldn't teach great books; we should teach a love of reading. Knowing the contents of a few works of literature is a trivial achievement. Being inclined to go on reading is a great achievement.
“A nomad I will remain for life,
in love with distant and uncharted places.”
Isabelle Eberhardt (1877–1904) Swiss explorer and author
Joe Hill (1879–1915) Swedish-American labor activist, songwriter, and member of the Industrial Workers of the World
Source: NOS4A2
Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer
Source: The Journals of Sylvia Plath
“There is love in holding and there is love in letting go.”
Elizabeth Berg (1948) American novelist
Variant: There is love in holding, and there is love in letting go.
Source: The Year of Pleasures
“For where all love is, the speaking is unnecessary”
Diana Gabaldon book Outlander
Variant: For where all love is, the speaking is unnecessary. It is all. It is undying. And it is enough.
Source: Outlander
Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer
Source: The Journals of Sylvia Plath
Richard Rohr (1943) American spiritual writer, speaker, teacher, Catholic Franciscan priest
Source: Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life
Cesare Pavese (1908–1950) Italian poet, novelist, literary critic, and translator
This Business of Living (1935-1950)
John Patrick The Curious Savage
Source: The Curious Savage
Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935) Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic, translator, publisher and philosopher
“I love the great despisers because they are the great adorers…”
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist
“Yeah, I love being famous. It's almost like being white, y'know?”
Chris Rock (1965) American comedian, actor, screenwriter, television producer, film producer, and director
Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist
1960s, The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell (1967-1969)
Context: Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a deep ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.
“But it’s like Cherise says, the hardest ones to love are always the ones who need it most. (Aimee)”
Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist
Source: Bad Moon Rising
“Beauty is simply reality seen with the eyes of love”
Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali polymath
Walter Scott The Lay of the Last Minstrel
Canto III, stanza 2.
The Lay of the Last Minstrel (1805)
Context: In peace, Love tunes the shepherd's reed;
In war, he mounts the warrior's steed;
In halls, in gay attire is seen;
In hamlets, dances on the green.
Love rules the court, the camp, the grove,
And men below, and saints above;
For love is heaven, and heaven is love.
“Explain to me what loving feels like, Beth. I want to understand.”
Jennifer Ashley (1974) American author
Source: The Madness of Lord Ian Mackenzie
“Love asks me no questions, and gives me endless support.”
William Shakespeare (1564–1616) English playwright and poet
Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850–1919) American author and poet
Optimism
Poetry quotes, Poems of Pleasure (1900)
Context: I find a rapture linked with each despair,
Well worth the price of anguish. I detect
More good than evil in humanity.
Love lights more fires than hate extinguishes,
And men grow better as the world grows old.