Quotes about love
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“About me, nothing worse they will tell you, my love, than what I told you”

Pablo Neruda (1904–1973) Chilean poet

“love is dangerous for your tiny heart even in your dreams so please dream softly”

Mathias Malzieu book La Mécanique du cœur

Source: La Mécanique du cœur

Dreams, Heart

“We become like that which we love. If we love what is base, we become base; but if we love what is noble, we become noble.”

Fulton J. Sheen (1895–1979) Catholic bishop and television presenter

Source: Life Is Worth Living

“It's like a spell. It's so strong I can't fight it. Is love always like this?”

Gillian Rubinstein Tales of the Otori

Source: Brilliance of the Moon

Strong, Fight

“Love what you do; Do what you love.”

Wayne W. Dyer (1940–2015) American writer

“The way he looked at you. I got it then. He loved you, and it was killing him. He won't get over you, Clary, he can't.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Glass

Source: City of Glass

Way

“The joys of love… last only a moment. The sorrows of love last all the life long.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

Source: The Joys of Love

Life, Joy

“It’s a story of love, of hatred, and of the dreams that live in the shadow of the wind.”

Carlos Ruiz Zafón book The Shadow of the Wind

Source: The Shadow of the Wind

Dreams

“We are all born for love. It is the principle of existence, and its only end.”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

“When we love someone our love becomes demonstrable or real only through our exertion - through the fact that for that someone (or for ourself) we take an extra step or walk an extra mile. Love is not effortless. To the contrary, love is effortful.”

M. Scott Peck (1936–2005) American psychiatrist

Source: The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values, and Spiritual Growth

Effort

“When we lose one we love, our bitterest tears are called forth by the memory of hours when we loved not enough.”

Maurice Maeterlinck (1862–1949) Belgian playwright, poet, and essayist

Quand nous perdons un être aimé, ce qui nous fait pleurer les larmes qui ne soulagent point, c'est le souvenir des moments où nous ne l'avons pas assez aimé.
Wisdom and Destiny (1898)

Tear, Memory

“As if you could pick in love, as if it were not a lightning bolt that splits your bones and leaves you staked out in the middle of the courtyard. (…) You don't pick out the rain that soaks you to the skin when you come out of a concert.”

Julio Cortázar book Hopscotch

Source: Hopscotch

“Love removes the world for you, and just as surely when it's going well as when it's going badly.”

Alice Munro (1931) Canadian novelist

Source: The Beggar Maid: Stories of Flo and Rose

World

“It is not easy to learn much about love, but one thing I discovered, that Lady Harleigh taught me: it is not whom you love that is important, but only that we love.”

Thomas Tryon (1634–1703) British hat maker

Source: Lady

Learning

“Love can really screw you up before you figure out how to live with it. And once you do? You wonder how the hell you ever lived without it”

Nora Roberts book Bed of Roses

Source: Bed of Roses

Hell

“I know that I shall meet my fate
Somewhere among the clouds above;
Those that I fight I do not hate,
Those that I guard I do not love”

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright

An Irish Airman Forsees His Death http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1441/ The Wild Swans at Coole (1919) Context: I know that I shall meet my fate Somewhere among the clouds above; Those that I fight I do not hate, Those that I guard I do not love; My county is Kiltartan Cross, My countrymen Kiltartan’s poor, No likely end could bring them loss Or leave them happier than before. Nor law, nor duty bade me fight, Nor public men, nor cheering crowds, A lonely impulse of delight Drove to this tumult in the clouds; I balanced all, brought all to mind, The years to come seemed waste of breath, A waste of breath the years behind In balance with this life, this death.

Hate, Fate, Fight

“I am alone and miserable. Only someone as ugly as I am could love me.”

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus

Source: Frankenstein

“I was in love again. I was in trouble”

Charles Bukowski book Women

Source: Women

“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

Funny, Cute, Romantic, Valentine's Day

“Pain or love or danger makes you real again….”

Jack Kerouac book The Dharma Bums

Source: The Dharma Bums

Pain

“Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more.”

William Shakespeare Julius Caesar

Source: Julius Caesar

“I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.”

Ayn Rand book Atlas Shrugged

Source: Atlas Shrugged

Life, Motivational, Success, Life

“Stella:
And when he comes back I cry on his lap like a baby..
[she smiles to herself]
Blanche:
I guess that is what is meant by being in love..”

Tennessee Williams A Streetcar Named Desire

Source: A Streetcar Named Desire

Smile, Baby, Cry

“All my life, I have made it complicated, but it is so simple. I love when I love. And when I love, I am myself.”

Hugh Prather (1938–2010) American writer

Source: Notes to Myself: My Struggle to Become a Person

Life

“Without justice and love, peace will always be a great illusion.”

Helder Camara (1909–1999) Brazilian Catholic priest, archbishop of Olinda and Recife

Peace, Justice

“Clarity of mind means clarity of passion, too; this is why a great and clear mind loves ardently and sees distinctly what it loves.”

Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer, and Christian philosopher

Passion, For Him

“When we love and respect people, revealing to them their value, they can begin to come out from behind the walls that protect them.”

Jean Vanier (1928–2019) Canadian humanitarian

Source: Finding Peace

People

“I am happier than Jane; she only smiles, I laugh. Mr. Darcy sends you all the love in the world, that he can spare from me.”

Jane Austen book Pride and Prejudice

Source: Pride and Prejudice

World, Smile

“I love to sleep. Do you? Isn't it great? It really is the best of both worlds. You get to be alive and unconscious.”

Rita Rudner (1953) American comedian

World, Sleep

“Compassion for animals is intimately connected with goodness of character, and it may be confidently asserted that he, who is cruel to living creatures, cannot be a good man. Moreover, this compassion manifestly flows from the same source whence arise the virtues of justice and loving-kindness towards men.”

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) German philosopher

Part III, Ch. VIII, 7, p. 223 https://archive.org/stream/basisofmorality00schoiala#page/223/mode/2up On the Basis of Morality (1840) Source: The Basis of Morality

Men, Justice, Confidence, Animals

“Sometimes we love with nothing more than hope. Sometimes we cry with everything except tears. In the end that’s all there is: love and its duty, sorrow and its truth. In the end that’s all we have - to hold on tight until the dawn”

Gregory David Roberts book Shantaram

Source: Shantaram

Truth, Hope, Tear, Cry

“I love him wholly and unconditionally and without reservation. I love him enough to sacrifice a friendship. I love him enough to accept my own happiness and use it, in turn, to make him happy back.”

Emily Giffin Something Borrowed

Source: Something Borrowed

Friendship, Happiness

“When you're too close to people, when you spend too much time with them and love them too dearly, sometimes you can't see them”

Tana French book The Likeness

Source: The Likeness

People, Time

“I love New York. You can pop out of the Underworld in Central Park, hail a taxi, head down Fifth Avenue with a giant hellhound loping behind you, and nobody even looks at you funny.”

Rick Riordan (1964) American writer

“You can think whatever you want, do whatever you want. I'm going to just go on loving you, even if it's hopeless.”

Richelle Mead book The Indigo Spell

Source: The Indigo Spell

Thinking

“A woman has got to love a bad man once or twice in her life, to be thankful for a good one.”

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (1896–1953) American novelist

Life

“The art of love… is largely the art of persistence.”

Albert Ellis (1913–2007) American psychologist

Art, Wise, Deep, Cute

“Worship is a posture of life that takes as its primary purpose the understanding of what it really means to love and revere God.”

Ravi Zacharias (1946) Indian philosopher

Source: Jesus Among Other Gods: The Absolute Claims of the Christian Message

Life, God, Understanding

“The name of a person you love is more than language.”

Tennessee Williams (1911–1983) American playwright

Personality

“Self-love, my liege, is not so vile a sin, as self-neglecting.”

William Shakespeare Henry V

Source: King Henry V

Cute, Romantic, For Her, love

“The creative mind plays with the object it loves.”

C.G. Jung (1875–1961) Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology

“I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.”

Henry David Thoreau book Walden ou la vie dans les bois

Source: Walden

Solitude, Time, Parting

“I still love you. And sometimes, my friend, the love that I have, and can't give to you, crushes the breath from my chest. Sometimes, even now, my heart is drowning in a sorrow that has no stars without you, and no laughter, and no sleep.”

Gregory David Roberts book Shantaram

Source: Shantaram

Star, Laughter, Sleep, Heart

“I kissed his cheek, damp and salty. I could feel his heart beating against my ribs, and wanted nothing more than to stay there forever, not moving, not making love, just breathing the same air.”

Diana Gabaldon book Outlander

Source: Outlander

Making love, Feeling, Kiss, Heart

“My books piled up before me for my use waiting in space where I placed them, they haven't disappeared, time's left its remnants and qualities for me to use -- my words piled up, my texts, my manuscripts, my loves.”

Allen Ginsberg book Howl and Other Poems

Source: Howl and Other Poems

Books, Time, Waiting

“There isn’t time--so brief is life--for bickerings, apologies, heartburnings, callings to account. There is only time for loving--and but an instant, so to speak, for that.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Letter to Clara Spaulding (20 August 1886)

Life, Time

“But I had loved him. I loved him longer and truer than I had anyone in my whole life and I would probably never love anyone that way again. Which to be honest was almost a relief.”

Jenny Han (1980) American writer

Source: It's Not Summer Without You

Life, Way

“Whenever I'm sad I'm going to die, or so nervous I can't sleep, or in love with somebody I won't be seeing for a week, I slump down just so far and then I say: 'I'll go take a hot bath.”

Sylvia Plath book The Bell Jar

Source: The Bell Jar

Sadness, Sleep

“As I love the name of honour more than I fear death.”

William Shakespeare Julius Caesar

Source: Julius Caesar

Death, Fear

“everyone knows how to love because we are all born with that gift.”

Paulo Coelho book Eleven Minutes

Source: Eleven Minutes

“This is why you shouldn't fall in love, it blinds you. Love is wicked distraction.”

Gregory Maguire book Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

Source: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

“Nothing good ever comes of love. What comes of love is always something better”

Roberto Bolaño book Amulet

Source: Amulet

“Jacinta never told Penelope that she loved her. The nurse knew that those who really love, love in silence, with deeds and not with words.”

Carlos Ruiz Zafón book The Shadow of the Wind

Variant: The nurse knew that those who really love, love in silence, with deeds and not with words.
Source: The Shadow of the Wind

Silence

“The only thing that would make her jealous would be if I led a parade riding a unicorn while ballerinas sang love songs.”

Brandon Mull (1974) American fiction writer

Source: Grip of the Shadow Plague

“If you have good thoughts they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.”

Roald Dahl (1916–1990) British novelist, short story writer, poet, fighter pilot and screenwriter

Wise, Deep, Happy, Inspirational

“Love's stories written in love's richest books.
To fan the moonbeams from his sleeping eyes.”

William Shakespeare A Midsummer Night's Dream

Source: A Midsummer Night's Dream

Books, Sleep

“Harmony with land is like harmony with a friend; you cannot cherish his right hand and chop off his left. That is to say, you cannot love game and hate predators… The land is one organism.”

Aldo Leopold (1887–1948) American writer and scientist

"Conservation" (c. 1938); Published in Round River, Luna B. Leopold (ed.), Oxford University Press, 1966, p. 145-146.
1930s
Context: Conservation is a state of harmony between men and land. … Harmony with land is like harmony with a friend; you cannot cherish his right hand and chop off his left. That is to say, you cannot love game and hate predators; you cannot conserve the waters and waste the ranges; you cannot build the forest and mine the farm. The land is one organism.

Hate, Game

“I have had prayers answered - most strangely so sometimes - but I think our Heavenly Father's loving-kindness has been even more evident in what He has refused me.”

Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer

Thinking

“You don't stop loving someone just because you hate them.”

Hanif Kureishi (1954) English playwright, screenwriter, novelist

Source: Intimacy

Hate

“Sex is the consolation you have when you can't have love.”

Gabriel García Márquez book Memories of My Melancholy Whores

Variant: Sex is the consolation you have when you can’t have love.
Source: Memories of My Melancholy Whores

Sex

“I love thee, I love but thee,
With a love that shall not die
Till the sun grows cold,
And the stars are old”

Bayard Taylor (1825–1878) United States poet, novelist and travel writer

"Bedouin Song" (1853), in The Poetical Works of Bayard Taylor (1907), p. 69.
Source: The Poems of Bayard Taylor
Context: I love thee, I love but thee,
With a love that shall not die
Till the sun grows cold,
And the stars are old,
And the leaves of the Judgment Book unfold!
Context: From the Desert I come to thee
On a stallion shod with fire;
And the winds are left behind
In the speed of my desire.
Under thy window I stand,
And the midnight hears my cry:
I love thee, I love but thee,
With a love that shall not die
Till the sun grows cold,
And the stars are old,
And the leaves of the Judgment Book unfold!

Star, Sun

“It's usually the selfish people who are loved the most. They do what you deny yourself, and you love them for it. You give them your heart.”

Saul Bellow (1915–2005) Canadian-born American writer

People, Heart, Selfishness

“For everything that's lovely is
but a brief, dreamy, kind of delight.”

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright

Never Give All The Heart http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1545/ In The Seven Woods (1904) Source: Poems Context: Never give all the heart, for love Will hardly seem worth thinking of To passionate women if it seem Certain, and they never dream That it fades out from kiss to kiss; For everything that's lovely is but a brief, dreamy, kind of delight. O never give the heart outright, For they, for all smooth lips can say, Have given their hearts up to the play. And who could play it well enough If deaf and dumb and blind with love? He that made this knows all the cost, For he gave all his heart and lost.

“You know what the secret is? It's so simple. We love one another. We're nice to one another. Do you know how rare that is? - Carmen”

Ann Brashares The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants

Source: The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants

Secret

“I don't like myself you know. I love myself. I'm devoted to myself till my dying day. But I don't like myself.”

Anne Rice (1941) American writer

“Each of us, when our day's work is done, must seek our ideal, whether it be love or pinochle or lobster à la Newburg, or the sweet silence of the musty bookshelves.”

O. Henry (1862–1910) American short story writer

Silence

“I adore the way he looks at me sometimes, as if love is a quantity he cannot measure scientifically, because it multiplies too quickly.”

Jodi Picoult (1966) Author

Way

“In the very depths of Hell, do not demons love one another?”

Anne Rice (1941) American writer

Hell

“I love him who seeks to create over and beyond himself and thus perishes.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

“She was cold by nature, self-love predominating over passion; rather than being virtuous, she preferred to have her pleasures all to herself.”

Emile Zola (1840–1902) French writer (1840-1902)

Source: Pot Luck

Pleasure, Nature, Passion

“And when love speaks, the voice of all the gods makes Heaven drowsy with the harmony.”

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) English playwright and poet

God

“I don't know that love changes. People change. Circumstances change.”

Nicholas Sparks (1965) American writer and novelist

People, Change

“Make love, not war.”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter

War, Making love

“Some day I shall sing to thee in the sunrise of some other world, I have seen thee before in the light of the earth, in the love of man.”

Rabindranath Tagore Stray Birds

Source: Stray Birds

World, Light, Singing

“Love won't be tampered with, love won't go away. Push it to one side and it creeps to the other.”

Louise Erdrich (1954) writer from the United States

“Love is now, is always. All that is missing is the coup de grâce- which is called passion.”

Clarice Lispector (1920–1977) Brazilian writer

Passion

“Now ain nobody tell us it would be fair no love for my father cause the coward wasn't their" {Tu Pac Shukur}”

Tupac Shakur (1971–1996) rapper and actor

“Love sought is good, but giv'n unsought is better.”

William Shakespeare Twelfth Night

Source: Twelfth Night

“What's the earth
With all its art, verse, music, worth —
Compared with love, found, gained, and kept?”

Robert Browning (1812–1889) English poet and playwright of the Victorian Era

Art, Music

“It doesn't matter who you are or what you look like so long as somebody loves you.”

Roald Dahl book The Witches

"The Heart of a Mouse"
Source: The Witches (1983)

“Be the silent watcher of your thoughts and behavior. You are beneath the thinker. You are the stillness beneath the mental noise. You are the love and joy beneath the pain.”

Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer

Pain, Behavior, Joy

“How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face.”

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright

When You Are Old http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1756/, st. 1–3 The Rose (1893) Source: The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats Context: p>When you are old and gray and full of sleep, And nodding by the fire, take down this book, And slowly read, and dream of the soft look Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;How many loved your moments of glad grace, And loved your beauty with love false or true, But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you, And loved the sorrows of your changing face.And bending down beside the glowing bars, Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled And paced upon the mountains overhead And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.</p

Beauty, Soul, Change, Falseness