Quotes about love
page 92

Leon R. Kass photo
Thanissaro Bhikkhu photo
Donald J. Trump photo

“As we stand together with our Irish friends, I'm reminded of that proverb – and this is a good one, this is one I like, I've heard it for many many years and I love it – "Always remember to forget the friends that proved untrue, but never forget to remember those that have stuck by you." We know that, politically speaking, a lot of us know that, we know it well, it's a great phrase.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

Trump speaking during a visit of Enda Kenny, the then Irish head of government https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/mar/17/trumps-irish-proverb-causes-derision-on-the-web (17 March 2017)
2010s, 2017, March

Nicholas Sparks photo

“Is love at first sight truly possible?”

Nicholas Sparks (1965) American writer and novelist

Jeremy Marsh, Prologue, p. 1
2000s, At First Sight (2005)

Oliver Goldsmith photo
Edith Stein photo

“The motive, principle, and end of the religious life is to make an absolute gift of self to God in a self-forgetting love, to end one's own life in order to make room for God's life.”

Edith Stein (1891–1942) Jewish-German nun, theologian and philosopher

Essays on Woman (1996), The Ethos of Woman's Professions (1930)

“For him who loves labor, there is always something to do.”

Publilio Siro Latin writer

Maxim 219
Sentences, The Moral Sayings of Publius Syrus, a Roman Slave

Russell Brand photo
Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson photo
Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay photo

“He had a head which statuaries loved to copy, and a foot the deformity of which the beggars in the streets mimicked.”

Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay (1800–1859) British historian and Whig politician

On Moore’s Life of Lord Byron (1830)

Joseph Louis Lagrange photo
Halldór Laxness photo
Van Morrison photo
Leo Tolstoy photo
Andrew Marvell photo

“Love's whole world on us doth wheel.”

Andrew Marvell (1621–1678) English metaphysical poet and politician

The Definition of Love (1650-1652)

José Martí photo

“Life on earth is a hand-to-hand mortal combat… between the law of love and the law of hate.”

José Martí (1853–1895) Poet, writer, Cuban nationalist leader

Letter (1881), as quoted in The Conscience of Worms and the Cowardice of Lions : Cuban Politics and Culture in an American Context (1993) by Irving Louis Horowit, p. 11

James Hudson Taylor photo

“Wave after wave of trial rolled over us; but at the end of the year some of us were constrained to confess, that we had learned more of the loving-kindness of the Lord than in any previous year of our lives.”

James Hudson Taylor (1832–1905) Missionary in China

(A.J. Broomhall. Hudson Taylor and China’s Open Century, Book Five: Refiner’s Fire. London: Hodder and Stoughton and Overseas Missionary Fellowship, 1985, 285).

John Muir photo

“I did find Calypso hotdog — but only once, far in the depths of the very wildest of Canadian dark woods, near those high, cold, moss-covered swamps. … I felt as if I were in the presence of superior beings who loved me and beckoned me to come. I sat down beside them and wept for joy.”

John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American naturalist and author

letter to Mrs. Ezra S. Carr (1866); published as "The Calypso Borealis, Botanical Enthusiasm" in Boston Recorder, 21 December 1866; republished in Bonnie Johanna Gisel, Kindred & Related Spirits: The Letters of John Muir and Jeanne C. Carr (2001), page 41
Muir's first published writing, concerning the orchid Calypso http://plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=CABU.
1860s

James Finlay Weir Johnston photo

“Among the friends and patrons of the society at York who paid kind and hospitable attention to those whom the love of science had brought to the meeting, the clergy must not be passed over in silence. They had been the zealous promoters of the meeting; had done much towards facilitating the preliminary arrangements; and exerted themselves by their influence and example to secure to the association that respect and general attention which it deserved, and which at York it amply received. To the church, therefore, the British Association is deeply indebted; and convinced, as I am, that true religion and true science ever lead to the same great end, manifesting and exalting the glory and goodness of the great object of our common worship, I trust that the firmer the association is established, and the more influential it becomes, the more willing and the more efficient an ally it will prove in the cause of religion. While in former times science was said to lead to infidelity, because then it was less profoundly studied, or with less zeal for truth, it is one of the happy characters of the science of this day that it renders men more devout; and it is a pleasing evidence that such is the received opinion, when discerning and educated men — the friends and teachers of religion — of all ranks, step forward not only to patronize science, but to enlist themselves among its cultivators, and to distinguish those who have most successfully advanced it.”

James Finlay Weir Johnston (1796–1855) Scottish agricultural chemist

Report of the First Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science held at York in September 1831. By James F. W. Johnston, A. M. &c. &c. As found in David Brewster's The Edinburgh Journal Of Science. Vol. 8 https://archive.org/stream/edinburghjourna09brewgoog#page/n29/mode/2up, p. 29.

Nicholas Sparks photo

“There are ghosts and there is love,
And both are present here,
To those who listen, this tale will tell
The truth of love and if it's near.”

Nicholas Sparks (1965) American writer and novelist

Miss Harkins, Chapter 13, p. 139
2000s, A Bend in the Road (2001)

Ephrem the Syrian photo

“The hutzpah of our love is pleasing to you, O Lord, just as it pleased you that we should steal from your bounty.”

Ephrem the Syrian (306–373) Syriac deacon and a prolific Syriac-language hymnographer and theologian of the 4th century

Hymns on Faith 16:5

Arthur Schopenhauer photo
Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
Samuel Johnson photo

“I am willing to love all mankind, except an American.”

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

April 15, 1778, p. 392
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol III

Roger Scruton photo
Victor Villaseñor photo
Julian of Norwich photo

“My neighbour
doesn't want to be loved
as much as
he wants to be envied.”

Irving Layton (1912–2006) Romanian-born Canadian poet

Aphs.
The Whole Bloody Bird (1969)

Kent Hovind photo
Conor Oberst photo
Alice Walker photo
William L. Shirer photo
Ray Comfort photo
Mata Amritanandamayi photo
Georg Brandes photo

“Being in love means never having to say 'giddy-up.”

Radio From Hell (January 12, 2006)

Robert Pinsky photo

“The poetry I love is written with someone’s voice and I believe its proper culmination is to be read with someone’s voice. And the human voice in that sense is not electronically reproduced or amplified.”

Robert Pinsky (1940) American poet, editor, literary critic, academic.

Sleigh, Tom. "Robert Pinsky", ‘’BOMB Magazine’’ Summer, 1998. .
Other

Mark Hopkins (educator) photo
George William Russell photo
Colin Wilson photo
Thomas Aquinas photo

“Charity, by which God and neighbor are loved, is the most perfect friendship.”

Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Italian Dominican scholastic philosopher of the Roman Catholic Church

Source: Quaestiones disputatae: De caritate (ca. 1270) http://dhspriory.org/thomas/QDdeVirtutibus2.htm#4

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg photo

“Man loves company — even if it is only that of a small burning candle.”

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–1799) German scientist, satirist

K 40
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook K (1789-1793)

Henry Newbolt photo

“To set the cause above renown,
To love the game above the prize.”

Henry Newbolt (1862–1938) English poet and writer

The Island Race (1898).

Jonah Goldberg photo
Aldo Leopold photo
Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford photo

“If women could be fair and yet not fond,
Or that their love were firm, not fickle still,
I would not marvel that they make men bond
By service long to purchase their good will;
But when I see how frail those creatures are,
I laugh that men forget themselves so far.”

Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford (1550–1604) English peer and courtier of the Elizabethan era

Poem "If women could be fair and yet not fond", also sometimes titled "Woman's Changeableness". According to Oxford specialist Steven May this is "possibly" by Oxford, but his authorship is not certain. It was printed in variant form as the work of Oxford in 1587, but attributed to "R.W." in the Harleian MS. A version was printed in Britons Bower of Delights (1591) attributed to Oxford.
Poems, Attributed

Julian of Norwich photo

“If I build a castle of love [i. e., mystical knowledge]
for the suffering people, they kill me!
If I don’t build I die!”

Jahonotin Uvaysiy (1781–1845) Uzbekistani poet

(Uvaysiy 1980:58) Quoted in Female Celebrations in Uzbekistan and Afghanistan: The Power of Cosmology in Musical Rites http://raziasultanova.co.uk/YTM%2008-Sultanova-FINAL.pdf by Razia Sultanova, in The 2008 Yearbook For Traditional Music, Volume 40, page 14

Chinmayananda Saraswati photo

“To love and to be loved is the greatest happiness.”

Chinmayananda Saraswati (1916–1993) Indian spiritual teacher

Quotations from Gurudev’s teachings, Chinmya Mission Chicago

Francesco Petrarca photo
Charlotte Perkins Gilman photo
Imelda Marcos photo

“I have never been a material girl. My father always told me never to love anything that cannot love you back.”

Imelda Marcos (1929) Former First Lady of the Philippines

As quoted in TIME magazine (November 1996) http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,985518,00.html.

Laura Pausini photo
John Ogilby photo
Robin Meyers photo
Richard Wurmbrand photo
A.E. Housman photo
James Allen photo
Norodom Ranariddh photo
John Flavel photo

“Here you may suppose the Father to say when driving His bargain with Christ for you. The Father speaks. "My Son, here is a company of poor, miserable souls that have utterly undone themselves and now lay open to my justice. Justice demands satisfaction for them, or will satisfy itself in the eternal ruin of them." The Son responds. "Oh my Father. Such is my love to and pity for them, that rather than they shall perish eternally I will be responsible for them as their guarantee. Bring in all thy bills, that I may see what they owe thee. Bring them all in, that there be no after-reckonings with them. At my hands shall thou require it. I would rather choose to suffer the wrath that is theirs then they should suffer it. Upon me, my Father, upon me be all their debt." The Father responds. "But my Son, if thou undertake for them, thou must reckon to pay the last mite. Expect no abatement. Son, if I spare them… I will not spare you." The Son responds. "Content Father. Let it be so. Charge it all upon me. I am able to discharge it. And though it prove a kind of undoing to me, though it impoverish all my riches, empty all my treasures… I am content to take it."”

John Flavel (1627–1691) English Presbyterian clergyman

The Works of John Flavel, Vol.1, "A Display of Christ in His Essential and Mediatorial Glory", 42 Sermons, Sermon Number 3, "The Covenant of Redemption between the Father and the Redeemer", Use 6.

Paul McCartney photo
Nicholas of Cusa photo
Thomas Hardy photo
Pierce Brown photo

“Jazz musicians have some outlaw in them somewhere if they are serious about this music…The is no valid motivation for it other than love– outlaw motivation in a profit-motivated society.”

Mike Zwerin (1930–2010) American jazz musician

La Tristesse de Saint Louis: Swing Under the Nazis, Chapter. 4, 1985, Dictionary of Quotations, Chambers: Edinburgh, U.K, 2005, p. 937

Umberto Eco photo

“Love is just a little bit of death in the heart,
For how often can one love in certainty that love will be returned?
Giving so much love, and receiving so little of it;
Because people are fickle, or indifferent? Who knows?
During moments together as in hours apart,
I'm mindful that the moon fades, flowers wither, souls pass away…
They wander lost in the somber darkness of sorrow,
Those fools who follow the footprints of love.
Because life is an endless desert,
And love is an entangling web.
Love is just a little bit of death in the heart.”

Xuân Diệu (1916–1985) Vietnamese poet

"Love" [Yêu], as quoted in "Shattered Identities and Contested Images: Reflections of Poetry and History in 20th-Century Vietnam" by Neil Jamieson, in Crossroads: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, Vol. 7, No. 2, 1992, pp. 86–87, and in Understanding Vietnam by Neil Jamieson (University of California Press, 1995), p. 162
Variant translation by Huỳnh Sanh Thông:
To love is to die a little in the heart,
for when you love can you be sure you're loved?
You give so much, so little you get back—
the other lets you down or looks away.
Together or apart, it's still the same.
The moon turns pale, blooms fade, the soul's bereaved...
They'll lose their way amidst dark sorrowland,
those passionate fools who go in search of love.
And life will be a desert bare of joy,
and love will tie the knot that binds to grief.
To love is to die a little in the heart.

Stevie Wonder photo
Brian Wilson photo
Thomas Brooks photo
Francis de Sales photo

“You learn to speak by speaking, to study by studying, to run by running, to work by working; and just so you learn to love God and man by loving. All those who think to learn in any other way deceive themselves.”

Francis de Sales (1567–1622) French bishop, saint, writer and Doctor of the Church j

Quoted by Bishop Jean-Pierre Camus in The Spirit of Saint Francis de Sales, ch. 1, Pg. 3 (1880)

Mike Oldfield photo

“I feel a rush in the air tonight,
I can feel the Earth moving.
Love is beacon, a guiding light,
can't you feel the Earth moving?”

Mike Oldfield (1953) English musician, multi-instrumentalist

Song lyrics, Earth Moving (1989)

Jacques Ellul photo
Edith Stein photo

“The deepest feminine yearning is to achieve a loving union which, in its development, validates this maturation and simultaneously stimulates and furthers the desire for perfection in others.”

Edith Stein (1891–1942) Jewish-German nun, theologian and philosopher

Essays on Woman (1996), Spirituality of the Christian Woman (1932)

John Calvin photo
John Green photo

“As he read, I fell in love the way you fall asleep; Slowly, and then all at once.”

Hazel Grace Lancaster, p. 125
Compare Ernest Hemingway, speaking about the process of going bankrupt: "'Gradually and then suddenly.'"
The Fault in Our Stars (2012)

Terence photo

“Lovers' quarrels are the renewal of love.”
Amantium irae amoris integratio est.

Act III, scene 3, line 23 (555).
Variant translation: Lovers’ rows make love whole again.
Andria (The Lady of Andros)

“I hold he loves me best that calls me Tom.”

Thomas Heywood (1574–1641) English playwright, actor, and author

Hierarchie of the Blessed Angells (1635).

Samuel Johnson photo

“There is no wisdom in useless and hopeless sorrow; but there is something in it so like virtue, that he who is wholly without it cannot be loved.”

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

Letter to Hester Thrale (12 April 1781) http://books.google.com/books?id=184WAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA736

“The disciple whom Jesus loved leaned on His bosom. Dear friend, where are you?”

Anna Shipton (1815–1901) British religious writer

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 397.

Sueton photo

“Once a woman declared that she was desperately in love with him, and he took her to bed with him. "How shall I enter that item in your expense ledger?" asked his accountant later, on learning that she had got 4,000 gold pieces out of him; and Vespasian replied, "Just put it down to 'passion for Vespasian'."”
Expugnatus autem a quadam, quasi amore suo deperiret, cum perductae pro concubitu sestertia quadringenta donasset, admonente dispensatore, quem ad modum summam rationibus vellet inferri, "Vespasiano," inquit, "adamato".

Source: The Twelve Caesars, Vespasian, Ch. 22

Megan Mullally photo
Sarah Palin photo

“But I didn't believe in the theory that human beings – thinking, loving beings – originated from fish that sprouted legs and crawled out of the sea. Or that human beings began as single-celled organisms that developed into monkeys who eventually swung down from trees; I believed we came about through a random process, but were created by God.”

Going Rogue: An American Life (2009), p. 217 http://books.google.com/books?id=Wx00mzMRGH8C&pg=PA217&dq=%22But+I+didn't+believe+in+the+theory%22, quoted in Memoir Is Palin’s Payback to McCain Campaign, The New York Times, 2009-11-14 https://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/15/books/15book.html?_r=2&pagewanted=2&ref=books,
2014

Alexander Maclaren photo
Paul Cézanne photo
David Icke photo

“A gift of truth is the gift of love”

David Icke (1952) English writer and public speaker

ibid.
Variant: A gift of truth is the gift of love.

F. Anstey photo

““Thou hast heard of her incomparable charms, and verily the ear may love before the eye.”
”It may,” admitted Horace, “but neither of my ears is the least in love at present.””

F. Anstey (1856–1934) English novelist and journalist

Source: The Brass Bottle (1900), Chapter 14, “Since There’s No Help, Come, Let Us Kiss and Part!”

Sri Chinmoy photo
Ellen G. White photo
Stuart Merrill photo

“Incense smokes, and love takes care,
In her blue bed the virgin died;
The fire broods, the day falls,
The Angel, sisters, knocks on the door.”

Stuart Merrill (1863–1915) American poet, who wrote mostly in the French language

Fume l'encens, veille l'amour,
Dans son lit bleu la vierge est morte;
Couve le feu, tombe le jour,
L'Ange, mes soeurs, frappe à la porte.
"La Mystérieuse Chanson"

Zia Haider Rahman photo