Quotes about lovers (990 quotes, page 9)

“It is my profound wish that this entire collection shall be devoted to the advancement of fine music for the continued enjoyment of music enthusiasts throughout the United States, be they students of the arts, performing artists, or members of that vast audience of music lovers among the American public.”

Leopold Stokowski (1882–1977) British conductor

From his will, in which he provided for his conducting scores, manuscript orchestral transcriptions, and recordings to archived and accessible to the public. The Stokowski Archives are now housed in the University of Pennsylvania Library.

Art , Music

“Lovers need to know how to lose themselves and then how to find themselves again.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

By The River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept (1994)

“How do I love thee?
Let me count the days.
If there are 50 ways to leave your lover
then there are 50 ways to be left.”

Sheri-D Wilson (1958) Canadian Spoken Word Poet

"Heart"
Goddess Gone Fishing for a Map of the Universe (2012)

Love , Way

“I don't want to be your friend,
I just want to be your lover.”

Thom Yorke (1968) English musician, philanthropist and singer-songwriter

House of Cards
Lyrics, In Rainbows (2007)

“A lover, when he is admitted to cards, ought to be solemnly silent, and observe the motions of his mistress. He must laugh when she laughs, sigh when she sighs. In short, he should be the shadow of her mind. A lady, in the presence of her lover, should never want a looking-glass; as a beau, in the presence of his looking-glass, never wants a mistress.”

Henry Fielding Love in Several Masques

Act II, sc. xi
Love in Several Masques (1728)

“He can only be defined by his contradictions: a patriot whose ultimate allegiance was not to Ireland but to the Cayman Islands; a preacher of family values who kept an expensive mistress; a lover of power who allowed himself to become a kept man; a product of the Catholic lower middle class who spent millions of pounds of other people's money in affecting the style of an Ascendancy gent; a man of the people who secretly sniggered at the people's credulity; a charmer who liked to cultivate an air of menace and warned his own bank that he could be a very troublesome adversary.”

Charles Haughey (1925–2006) Irish politician

Fintan O'Toole, "A Life and Legacy". Irish Times, 14th June 2006.
About

Money , People , Family

“I looked and it was not the Magistrate whom I saw, it was Vasudeva, it was Narayana who was sitting there on the bench. I looked at the Prosecuting Counsel and it was not the Counsel for the prosecution that I saw; it was Sri Krishna who sat there, it was my Lover and Friend who sat there and smiled. "Now do you fear?" He said, "I am in all men and I overrule their actions and their words. My protection is still with you and you shall not fear. This case which is brought against you, leave it in my hand. It is not for you. It was not for the trial that I brought you here but for something else. The case itself is only a means for my work and nothing more."”

Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru and poet

The Uttarpara Address (1909)

Men , Fear , Smile

“Let the lover be disgraceful, crazy, absent-minded.
Someone sober will worry about events going badly.
Let the lover be.”

Rumi (1207–1273) Iranian poet

Source: Disputed, The Essential Rumi (1995), Ch. 4 : Spring Giddiness, p. 46

“People can be lovers and enemies at the same time, you know. We were… A man and woman draw apart from that long embrace, and see what they have done to each other… In age we lose everything; even the power to love.”

Willa Cather book My Mortal Enemy

Part II, Ch. 4
My Mortal Enemy (1926)

Love , People , Age , Time

“We have dealt with all these idealists in the past, I’m sure we’ll find a way to deal with them today… Rid our world of all these fanatics one by one, won’t let not prophet lover ruin my fun. We’ll string ‘em up and shoot ‘em down.”

Dawud Wharnsby (1972) Canadian musician

"Wood and Nails"
Blue Walls and The Big Sky (1995)

World , Way , Past

“We meet fellow humans throughout our travels,
Become close — friends, dates, lovers.
Always we are distanced again
from death, geography, or meeting others,
Only dialtone on the phone,
cold and empty beneath the covers.”

Patri Friedman (1976) American libertarian activist and theorist of political economy

Parting is such sweet sorrow http://patrifriedman.com/quotes/sex_love.html

Death , Travel

“What kind of man takes a live bomb across the seas in order to blow up other people? People who have mothers and lovers and children, just like him?
Probably either a professional or a patriot, Alex thought. Or, worse, both.”

David Brin book Earth

Part IX (p. 524)
Earth (1990)

Children , People , Sea

“She sat there, the white of saliva at the ends of her mouth, her teeth gritted, her hands pulling at her long hair, her face fighting off a scream, but it didn't matter; she could scream if she liked, for Arturo Bandini wasn't queer, there was nothing at all wrong with Arturo Bandini; why, he had a passion like six men, that boy, he had felt it coming to the surface: some guy, mighty writer, mighty lover; right with the world, right with his prose.”

John Fante book Ask the Dust

Ask the Dust (1939)

Men , World , Guy , Boy

“Balzac has often provided us with the tragic spectacle of an old man in love. Obliged now to obtain with gifts and favors what his personal charm won for him in his earlier days, the aged lover will ruin himself for every young woman clever enough to waken a crazy hope in his breast. Chateaubriand, who knew only too well what such suffering was like, left a terrible manuscript entitle Amour et Vieillesse; it is the long and grievous lament of a lover who does not know hot to grow old. "Those who have loved women a great deal will always love them; that is their punishment." And women who have loved many men are punished by hearing the younger among them say with genuine surprise: "I'm told she was once very beautiful."”

André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer

Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Growing Old

Love , Women , Men , Age

“But now if any one hath a mind to come over to their sect, he is not immediately admitted, but he is prescribed the same method of living which they use for a year, while he continues excluded'; and they give him also a small hatchet, and the fore-mentioned girdle, and the white garment. And when he hath given evidence, during that time, that he can observe their continence, he approaches nearer to their way of living, and is made a partaker of the waters of purification; yet is he not even now admitted to live with them; for after this demonstration of his fortitude, his temper is tried two more years; and if he appear to be worthy, they then admit him into their society. And before he is allowed to touch their common food, he is obliged to take tremendous oaths, that, in the first place, he will exercise piety towards God, and then that he will observe justice towards men, and that he will do no harm to any one, either of his own accord, or by the command of others; that he will always hate the wicked, and be assistant to the righteous; that he will ever show fidelity to all men, and especially to those in authority, because no one obtains the government without God's assistance; and that if he be in authority, he will at no time whatever abuse his authority, nor endeavor to outshine his subjects either in his garments, or any other finery; that he will be perpetually a lover of truth, and propose to himself to reprove those that tell lies; that he will keep his hands clear from theft, and his soul from unlawful gains; and that he will neither conceal anything from those of his own sect, nor discover any of their doctrines to others, no, not though anyone should compel him so to do at the hazard of his life. Moreover, he swears to communicate their doctrines to no one any otherwise than as he received them himself; that he will abstain from robbery, and will equally preserve the books belonging to their sect, and the names of the angels [or messengers]. These are the oaths by which they secure their proselytes to themselves.”

Josephus on the Essenes

Jewish War

Life , Men , God , Hate

“Why to mute fish should'st thou thyself discover
And not to me, thy no less silent lover?”

Abraham Cowley Bathing in the River

Bathing in the River.

Fish

“But who, if he be called upon to face
Some awful moment to which Heaven has joined
Great issues, good or bad for human kind,
Is happy as a Lover.”

William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Romantic poet

Source: Character of the Happy Warrior http://www.bartleby.com/145/ww302.html (1806), Line 48.

Happiness

“They were both more than twenty-seven in those enthusiastic years of nineteen hundred and thirty-five, yet neither had as much as ever kissed a girl. Not that kissing was much in favour in that district. Reading about lovers kissing, Tarry often reflected on the fact that he had never seen anyone kissing anyone, except poor old Peter Toole whom he once saw kissing a corpse in a wakehouse in the hope of getting a couple of glasses of whiskey.”

Patrick Kavanagh (1904–1967) poet

p11
Prose, Tarry Flynn (1948)

Hope , Girl , Kiss , Reading

“I've been worrying about God a little bit lately. It seems as if he's been lashing out, you know, destroying cities, annihilating places. It seems like he's been in a bad mood. And I think it has to do with the quality of lovers he's been getting. If you look at the people who love God now, you know, if I was God, I'd need to destroy something.”

Salman Rushdie (1947) British Indian novelist and essayist

Real Time with Bill Maher TV show (7 October 2005)

Love , God , People , Mood

“Marriage is rarely bliss
But, surely it would be worse
As particles to pelt
At thousands of miles per sec
About a universe
In which a lover's kiss
Would either not be felt
Or break the loved one's neck.”

W. H. Auden (1907–1973) Anglo-American poet

After Reading a Child's Guide to Modern Physics (1961), lines 9–16

Love , Marriage , Kiss , Universe

“I’m a vegetarian. Eight years ago it was something that I really wanted to try but I was nervous, I was scared. And my reasonings for wanting to try it is, being the animal lover and activist that I am, I felt like a hypocrite not being a vegetarian. So, I actually went to an Amanda Foundation (animal rescue) event and I walked away going, ‘Okay! Tonight’s the night!’ And I just did it. And I was amazed at how much easier it was than I thought it was going to be. Spiritually, I just felt so great that I was doing something I wanted to do.”

Kelly Packard

"In-Depth with Loving the Silent Tears MC: Kelly Packard", GodsDirectContact.org (2012) http://www.godsdirectcontact.org.tw/eng/news/211/sr_47.htm.

Animals , Night

“He is Karna, whom the world has abandoned. Karna Alone. Condemned goods. A prince raised in poverty. Born to die unfairly, unarmed and alone at the hands of his brother. Majestic in his complete despair. Praying on the banks of the Ganga. Stoned out of his skull.
Then Kunti appeared. She too was a man, but a man grown soft and womanly, a man with breasts, from doing female parts for years. Her movements were fluid. Full of women. Kunti, too, was stoned. High on the same shared joints. She had come to tell Karna a story.
Karna inclined his beautiful head and listened.
Red-eyed, Kunti danced for him. She told him of a young woman who had been granted a boon. A secret mantra that she could use to choose a lover from among the gods. Of how, with the imprudence of youth, the woman decided to test it to see if it really worked. How she stood alone in an empty field, turned her face to the heavens and recited the mantra. The words had scarcely left her foolish lips, Kunti said, when Surya, the God of Day, appeared before her. The young woman, bewitched by the beauty of the shimmering young god, gave herself to him. Nine months later she bore him a son. The baby was born sheathed in light, with gold earrings in his ears and a gold breastplate on his chest, engraved with the emblem of the sun.
The young mother loved her first-born son deeply, Kunti said, but she was unmarried and couldn't keep him. She put him in a reed basket and cast him away in a river. The child was found downriver by Adhirata, a charioteer. And named Karna.
Karna looked up to Kunti. Who was she? Who was my mother? Tell me where she is. Take me to her.
Kunti bowed her head. She's here, she said. Standing before you.
Karna's elation and anger at the revelation. His dance of confusion and despair. Where were you, he asked her, when I needed you the most? Did you ever hold me in your arms? Did you feed me? Did you ever look for me? Did you wonder where I might be?
In reply Kunti took the regal face in her hands, green the face, red the eyes, and kissed him on his brow. Karna shuddered in delight. A warrior reduced to infancy. The ecstasy of that kiss. He dispatched it to the ends of his body. To his toes. His fingertips. His lovely mother's kiss. Did you know how much I missed you? Rahel could see it coursing through his veins, as clearly as an egg travelling down an ostrich's neck.
A travelling kiss whose journey was cut short by dismay when Karna realised that his mother had revealed herself to him only to secure the safety of her five other, more beloved sons - the Pandavas - poised on the brink of their epic battle with their one hundred cousins. It is them that Kunti sought to protect by announcing to Karna that she was his mother. She had a promise to extract.
She invoked the Love Laws.”

Arundhati Roy book The God of Small Things

pages 232-233.
The God of Small Things (1997)

Love , Women , God , Secret

“Hilariously florid — sometimes referred to as "Lust in the Dust." This Wagnerian western features Gregory Peck and Jennifer Jones as lovers so passionate they kill each other. She's Pearl Chavez, a half-breed wench, and so, by Hollywood convention, uncontrollably sexy, and Peck actually manages to bestir himself enough to play a hunk of egotistical hot stuff — maybe the name Lewt McCanles got to him, or maybe the producer, David O. Selznick, used electric prods. Peck clangs his spurs and leers, while Jones heaves her chest; when they kiss, lightning blazes.”

Pauline Kael (1919–2001) American film critic

"Duel in the Sun," p. 206.
5001 Nights at the Movies (1982)

Kiss , Passion

“Lovers have a way of using this word "nothing" which implies exactly the opposite.”

Honoré de Balzac book Une fille d'Ève

Il y a une manière de dire ce mot rien entre amants, qui signifie tout le contraire.
Source: A Daughter of Eve (1839), Ch. 7: Suicide.

Way

“Drink, my jolly lads, drink with discerning,
Wedlock's a lane where there is no turning;
Never was owl more blind than a lover,
Drink and be merry, lads, half seas over.”

Dinah Craik (1826–1887) English novelist and poet

"Magnus and Morna", in Thirty Years, Poems New and Old (1880)

Drink , Sea

“Man is by nature a pragmatic materialist, a mechanic, a lover of gadgets and gadgetry; and these are the qualities that characterize the "establishment" which regulates modern society: pragmatism, materialism, mechanization, and gadgetry. Woman, on the other hand, is a practical idealist, a humanitarian with a strong sense of noblesse oblige, an altruist rather than a capitalist.”

Elizabeth Gould Davis book The First Sex

The First Sex, ch. 22 - Woman in the Aquarian Age, Putnam (1971).

Nature , Sense , Strong

“Take courage, lover!
Could you endure such pain
At any hand but hers?”

Robert Graves (1895–1985) English poet and novelist

"Symptoms of Love" from More Poems (1961).
Poems

Pain , Courage

“There are readers—and I am one of them—whose reading is rather like a series of intoxications. We fall in love with a book; it is our book, we feel, for life; we shall not need another. We cram-throat our friends with it in the cruellest fashion; make it a Gospel, which we preach in a spirit of propaganda and indignation, putting a woe on the world for a neglect of which last week we were equally guilty.
I am not at all sorry that I have never been cured of this form of youthful susceptibility; one may after all become the victim of more inadvisable forms of folly. My infatuations have at least one advantage; they may lead to satiety, but they do not often end in disillusion. I have, of course (who hasn’t?), my Bluebeard’s closet of dead loves, abandoned for ever; but for the most part I find that the objects of my former adoration are quite capable of awakening my old affection. My experiences of love at first sight, being followed by love at second or third or fourth sight, I enjoy the bliss of both the constant and the inconstant lover. Indeed, these returns to old books—as I have just now returned to Montaigne’s Essays—have often proved, in a life of desultory reading, to be among the pleasantest experiences of that pleasant scheme of existence.”

Logan Pearsall Smith (1865–1946) British American-born writer

“Montaigne,” p. 1
Reperusals and Recollections (1936)

Love , Life , Books , Youth

“And what fastens attention, in the intercourse of life, like any passage betraying affection between two parties? Perhaps we never saw them before, and never shall meet them again. But we see them exchange a glance, or betray a deep emotion, and we are no longer strangers. We understand them, and take the warmest interest in the development of the romance. All mankind love a lover.”

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

Love
1840s, Essays: First Series (1841)

Love , Life , Understanding

“We've had our short walk together,
this joy. Let's hope we meet early
in the next life, as young lovers.”

Tsangyang Gyatso, 6th Dalai Lama (1683–1706) sixth Dalai Lama of Tibet

Source: Attributed, Poems of Sadness: The Erotic Verse of the Sixth Dalai Lama Tsangyang Gyatso tr. Paul Williams 2004, p.62

Life , Hope , Joy

“The presence of a thought is like the presence of a lover.”

Arthur Schopenhauer book Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life

Die Gegenwart eines Gedankens ist wie die Gegenwart einer Geliebten.
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851), Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life

“Let the blessing of St. Peter's Master be…upon all that are lovers of virtue, and dare trust in his Providence, and be quiet and go a-angling.”

Izaak Walton book The Compleat Angler

Part I, ch. 21.
The Compleat Angler (1653-1655)

“if the subject of art
will be a broken jug
a small broken soul
with a great self-pity

what will remain of us
will be like tears of lovers
in a small dirty hotel
when wallpapers dawn”

Zbigniew Herbert (1924–1998) Polish writer

Quoes

Art , Soul , Tear

“"God is love"
"Love is blind"
If these be true, then God is blind: Simple logic would appear to have escaped the theologians. Res ipsa loquitur, love is not blind, neither God's love nor man's, though we all wish at times to escape God's eye, and though it must at times appear that the lover cannot see what we see—unless, of course, we are ourselves that lover.
Like God, the lover sees but forgives.”

Gene Wolfe book Home Fires

Home Fires (2011), Reflection 2
Fiction

Love , God , Forgiveness , Appearance

“Farewell, false love, I took you for
The woman that I lost last year
Forever as I think:
I loved her but I will not see
Her any more in Germany.
O Milky Way, sister in whiteness
To Canaan's rivers and the bright
Bodies of lovers drowned,
Can we follow toilsomely
Your path to other nebulae?”

Guillaume Apollinaire book Alcools

Adieu faux amour confondu
Avec la femme qui s'éloigne
Avec celle que j'ai perdue
L'année dernière en Allemagne
Et que je ne reverrai plus
Voie lactée ô sœur lumineuse
Des blancs ruisseaux de Chanaan
Et des corps blancs des amoureuses
Nageurs morts suivrons-nous d’ahan
Ton cours vers d'autres nébuleuses
"La Chanson du Mal-Aimé" (Song of the Poorly Loved), line 56; translation by William Meredith, from Francis Steegmuller Apollinaire: Poet Among the Painters (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973) p. 95.
Alcools (1912)

Love , Way , Thinking , Sister

“And then, all of a sudden, it was as though through those dark eyes an electrical circuit had been struck. She sat fascinated. Snake-and-bird fascinated. Afterwards she could not recall the details of what he had said. She remembered only that she had been absorbed, rapt, lost, for over ten minutes by the clock. She had perceived images conjured up from the dead past: a hand trailed in clear river water, deliciously cool, while the sun smiled and a shoal of tiny fishes darted between her fingers; the crisp flesh of a ripe apple straight from the tree, so juicy it ran down her chin; grass between her bare toes, the turf like springs so that she seemed not to bear the whole of her weight on her soles but to be floating, dreamlike, in slow motion, instantly transported to the moon; the western sky painted with vast heart-tearing slapdash streaks of red below the bright steel-blue of clouds, and stars coming snap-snap into view against the eastern dark; wind gentle in her hair and on her cheeks, bearing flower perfumes, dusting her with petals; snow cold to the palm as it was shaped into a ball; laughter echoing from a dark lane where only lovers walked, not thieves and muggers; butter like an ingot of soft gold; ocean spray sharp and clean as the edge of an axe; with the same sense of safe, provided rightly used; round pebbles polychrome beside a pool; rain to which a thirsty mouth could open, distilling the taste of a continent of air... And under, and through, and in, and around all this, a conviction: “Something can be done to get that back!”
She was crying. Small tears like ants had itched their paths down her cheeks. She said, when she realized he had fallen silent, “But I never knew that! None of it! I was born and raised right here in New York!””

John Brunner book The Sheep Look Up

”But don’t you think you should have known it?” Austin Train inquired gently.
September “MINE ENEMIES ARE DELIVERED INTO MY HAND”
The Sheep Look Up (1972)

Smile , Star , Spring , Flowers

“You, Honor, you first veiled
The fountains of delight,
Denying those waves to the thirsting lovers.”

Torquato Tasso Aminta

Tu prima, Onor, velasti
La fonte dei diletti,
Negando l'onde a l'amorosa sete.
Act I, Choro, line 358.
Aminta (1573)

“I’ve always been an animal-lover and when I was about twelve I became a vegetarian. My mom subscribed to PETA’s magazine and I just started looking at the level of what it was. And I just thought it was unkind, so I made my personal choice — which at that point had nothing to do with the global scale of the situation. And so I know it was really early, but I made up my mind then to become an entertainer primarily because I thought I could help. I noticed that all my friends respected entertainers and knew more entertainers names than politicians names, so that was my turning point from possibly doing politics to entertainment … So that was one of the reasons I went into this field. And then the more I kept going career-wise, the more I’ve been able to use that vehicle — that megaphone. And that was exciting — the only exciting part, personally, about being a celebrity. I don’t think there’s anything good about it, except the ability to make positive change.”

Persia White (1972) American actress and singer

"Ecorazzi Celebrates Vegetarian Awareness Month With Actress/Musician Persia White", interview with Ecorazzi (20 October 2008) http://www.ecorazzi.com/2008/10/20/ecorazzi-celebrates-vegetarian-awareness-month-with-actressmusician-persia-white/.

Moms , Thinking , Change , Help

“.. human faces are for me only suggestions to see something else in them – the life of colour, seized with a lover's passion.”

Alexej von Jawlensky (1864–1941) Russian painter

Quote of Jawlensky from a letter to his brother Dimitri, circa 1917/18; as cited in Clemens Weiler, op. cit., 1971, p. 12
1900 - 1935

Life , Passion

“In our spiritual forthbringing He useth more tenderness of keeping, without any likeness: by as much as our soul is of more price in His sight. He kindleth our understanding, He directeth our ways, He easeth our conscience, He comforteth our soul, He lighteneth our heart, and giveth us, in part, knowing and believing in His blissful Godhead, with gracious mind in His sweet Manhood and His blessed Passion, with reverent marvelling in His high, overpassing Goodness; and maketh us to love all that He loveth, for His love, and to be well-pleased with Him and all His works. And when we fall, hastily He raiseth us by His lovely calling and gracious touching. And when we be thus strengthened by His sweet working, then we with all our will choose Him, by His sweet grace, to be His servants and His lovers lastingly without end.”

Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress

Summations, Chapter 61

Love , Way , Soul , Understanding

“I'll never have to write my memoirs now after reading this. She had six husbands, at least six lovers - why, my life is so dull compared to hers! I've had one husband, one daughter, one house and no lovers.”

Irene Dunne (1898–1990) American actress

Everyone Loved Irene, by William Frye http://www.irenedunnesite.com/press/vanity-fair-march-2004/ Vanity Fair, 2004]

Life , Reading , Housing , Daughters

“I am a lover of my own liberty and so I would do nothing to resist yours.”

Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) pre-eminent leader of Indian nationalism during British-ruled India

As quoted Quote in Justice and Democracy (1997), edit., Ron Bontekoe and Marietta Stepaniants, University of Hawai’i Press, p. 233.
1930s

“Sir Henry Wotton was a most dear lover and a frequent practiser of the Art of Angling; of which he would say, "'T was an employment for his idle time, which was then not idly spent, a rest to his mind, a cheerer of his spirits, a diverter of sadness, a calmer of unquiet thoughts, a moderator of passions, a procurer of contentedness;" and "that it begat habits of peace and patience in those that professed and practised it."”

Izaak Walton book The Compleat Angler

Part I, ch. 1.
The Compleat Angler (1653-1655)

Sadness , Peace , Art , Passion

“In their first passion, women love their lovers; in all the others, they love love.”

François de La Rochefoucauld book Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims

Dans les premières passions les femmes aiment l'amant, et dans les autres elles aiment l'amour.
Maxim 471. Compare: "In her first passion woman loves her lover: In all the others, all she loves is love", Lord Byron, Don Juan, Canto iii, Stanza 3.
Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665–1678)

Love , Women , Passion

“She never liked the constant presence of her husbands or lovers and did not like, she soon found out, to be alone — a dilemma in one shape or another common to most of mankind.”

Elizabeth Hardwick (1916–2007) Novelist, short story writer, literary critic

"Katherine Anne Porter" (p. 302)
American Fictions (1999)

“… who cares for a general compliment more than a general lover.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

The Monthly Magazine

“There are lessons to life
That the lovers got to learn
There are corners out there
You know they're waitin' somewhere
And you've got to be prepared to turn
There are callouses that come
That the lovers got to earn
In the years of your youth
You can't be fire proof
You know you've got to get burned.”

Harry Chapin (1942–1981) American musician

If You Want to Feel
Song lyrics, Living Room Suite (1978)

Life , Youth , Learning

“I have always been an animal lover. I had a hard time disassociating the animals I cuddled with—dogs and cats, for example—from the animals on my plate, and I never really cared for the taste of meat. I always loved my Brussels sprouts!”

Kristen Bell (1980) American actress

Responding to the question "What prompted you to go vegetarian?", in "peta2 Chats With Kristen Bell", in peta2.com (18 July 2011) http://www.peta2.com/heroes/peta2-chats-with-kristen-bell/

Love , Dogs , Cats , Time

“Cupid draw back your bow
And let your arrow go
Straight to my lover's heart for me
For me…
Cupid please hear my cry
And let your arrow fly
Straight to my lover's heart for me.”

Sam Cooke (1931–1964) American singer-songwriter and entrepreneur

Cupid (1961)
Song lyrics, Singles

Heart , Drawing , Cry , Flying

“Light is the left hand of darkness
and darkness the right hand of light.
Two are one, life and death, lying
together like lovers in kemmer,
like hands joined together,
like the end and the way.”

Ursula K. Le Guin Hainish Cycle

Source: Hainish Cycle, The Left Hand of Darkness (1969), Chapter 16 “Between Drumner and Dremegole” (p. 233)

Life , Death , Way , Lying

“Satan's design in instigating the French revolution was to create an alarm throughout Europe, especially among the influential class, unfavorable to liberty, and so illustrate in France the theory that, were the superstitions of Rome to be overthrown and liberty to be given full sway, all law and order would speedily end. This was a master-stroke of policy, worthy of its author, and designed, as the prophet shows, to overwhelm the "woman" (the reformed Church), and to drive all conservatives and peace-lovers - rulers and ruled - back to union and harmony with Papacy. The failure of the scheme was not due to lack of craftiness in its designer, but to the overruling power of God, whereby he is able to cause all things to work together for good.”

Charles Taze Russell (1852–1916) Founder of the Bible Student Movement

Source: Milennial Dawn, Vol. III: Thy Kingdom Come (1891), p. 66.

God , Peace , Law , Failure

“A lover who promises eternal fidelity is more likely to be believed if he believes his promise himself; he is no more likely to keep the promise.”

John Gray book Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals

The Human: Truth and Consequences (p. 27)
Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals (2002)

“I'm not an animal lover if that means you think things are nice if you can pet them, but I am intoxicated by animals.”

David Attenborough (1926) British broadcaster and naturalist

Interview in Metro 29 Jan 2013

Thinking , Animals

“I was not in full control of myself, and it seemed that I knew her name from before. The evil in her eyes, her color, her scent and her movements were all familiar to me. It was as though my souls, in the life before this, in the world of imagination, had bordered on her soul and that both souls, of the same essence and substance, were destined for union. I must have lived this life very close to her. I had no desire to touch her; the invisible beams that emanated from our bodies and mingled were sufficient for me. Isn't this terrifying experience which seemed so familiar to met quite the same as the feelings of two lovers who feel that they have known each other before and that a mysterious relationship has previously existed between them? Was it possible that someone else could affect me? The dry, repulsive and ominous laughter of the old man, however, tore our bonds asunder.”

Sadegh Hedayat book The Blind Owl

The Blind Owl

Life , World , Color , Feeling

“You can verbalize what happens to these animals a thousand times, but [when] you see it, it definitely clicks in—and it did for me. … I’m an animal lover. I was definitely one of those people who wore fur years ago. I was looking online and I [saw] how these animals are tortured and skinned, and you don’t really realize the hurt and the pain they go through just for fashion. I want to be a voice for them. I think that parents should show what’s done to these animals. People who do wear fur, I would like for them to do the research for themselves.”

Evelyn Lozada (1975) American reality show participant, model, spokesmodel.

"Cross Fur off Your Shopping List With Evelyn Lozada" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBiicjOS80A, video interview with PETA (11 December 2012).

Pain , People , Fashion , Thinking

“De Bellaigue is at pains to portray Mossadegh as — in the words of the jacket copy — “one of the first liberals of the Middle East, a man whose conception of liberty was as sophisticated as any in Europe or America.” But the trouble is, there is nothing in Mossadegh’s career — spanning half a century, as provincial governor, cabinet minister, and finally prime minister — to portray him as even remotely a lover of liberty. De Bellaigue quotes Mossadegh as saying that a trusted leader is “that person whose every word is accepted and followed by the people.” To which de Bellaigue adds: “His understanding of democracy would always be coloured by traditional ideas of Muslim leadership, whereby the community chooses a man of outstanding virtue and follows him wherever he takes them.” Word for word, that could have been the late Ayatollah Khomeini’s definition of a true leader. Mossadegh also made a habit of appearing in his street meetings with a copy of the Koran in hand. According to de Bellaigue, Mossadegh liked to say that “anyone forgetting Islam is base and dishonourable, and should be killed.” During his premiership, Mossadegh demonstrated his dictatorial tendency to the full: Not once did he hold a full meeting of the council of ministers, ignoring the constitutional rule of collective responsibility. He dissolved the senate, the second chamber of the Iranian parliament, and shut down the Majlis, the lower house. He suspended a general election before all the seats had been decided and chose to rule with absolute power. He disbanded the high council of national currency and dismissed the supreme court. During much of his tenure, Tehran lived under a curfew while hundreds of his opponents were imprisoned. Toward the end of his premiership, almost all of his friends and allies had broken with him. Some even wrote to the secretary general of the United Nations to intervene to end Mossadegh’s dictatorship. But was Mossadegh a man of the people, as de Bellaigue portrays him? Again, the author’s own account provides a different picture. A landowning prince and the great-great-grandson of a Qajar king, Mossadegh belonged to the so-called thousand families who owned Iran. He and all his children were able to undertake expensive studies in Switzerland and France. The children had French nannies and, when they fell sick, were sent to Paris or Geneva for treatment. (De Bellaigue even insinuates that Mossadegh might have had a French sweetheart, although that is improbable.) On the one occasion when Mossadegh was sent to internal exile, he took with him a whole retinue, including his cook… As a model of patriotism, too, Mossadegh is unconvincing. According to his own memoirs, at the end of his law studies in Switzerland, he had decided to stay there and acquire Swiss citizenship. He changed his mind when he was told that he would have to wait ten years for that privilege. At the same time, Farmanfarma secured a “good post” for him in Iran, tempting him back home.”

Amir Taheri (1942) Iranian journalist

"Myths of Mossadegh" https://www.nationalreview.com/nrd/articles/302213/myths-mossadegh/page/0/1, National Review (June 25, 2012).

Pain , Children , People , Family

“You are responsible for all of your successes, and the lack thereof. And that is the essential point that failure, your ever-faithful friend, wants to make: that your failure could not exist without you—without your stupidity, without your lies, without your mistakes, your uselessness, your lack of faith, your ineptitude, your unjustifiable confidence in your alleged abilities, you stupid loser—failure is your only friend. Failure is your only lover. Failure is your only hope.”

John S. Hall (1960) Poet, author, singer, lawyer

"Failure"
Lyrics, Failure (1998)

Stupidity , Faith , Hope , Confidence

“Religion exalts mystery as an unknowable secret that must be sealed in glass like the corpse of an enchanted princess and fearfully worshipped from afar. Initiation, on the other hand, requires direct participation and demands each of us to smash the casket and press mad lips to mystery, wooing her as a lover who will offer up her treasurers in a succession of sweet surrenders. This she will do, but only in exact ratio to our evolving ability and worthiness to receive them.”

Lon Milo DuQuette (1948) American occult writer

Source: Angels, Demons, & Gods of the New Millennium (1997), Chapter 5

Secret , Religion , Success , Princess

“Forget the damned motor car and build the cities for lovers and friends.”

Lewis Mumford (1895–1990) American historian, sociologist, philosopher of technology, and literary critic

My Works and Days (1979)

Cars , Forgetting

“No dream his life was—but a fight!
Could any Beatrice see
A lover in that anchorite?”

Thomas William Parsons (1819–1892) American writer

Life , Dreams , Fight

“Too often in the past, we have thought of the artist as an idler and dilettante and of the lover of arts as somehow sissy and effete. We have done both an injustice. The life of the artist is, in relation to his work, stern and lonely. He has labored hard, often amid deprivation, to perfect his skill. He has turned aside from quick success in order to strip his vision of everything secondary or cheapening. His working life is marked by intense application and intense discipline.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

"LOOK Magazine Article 'The Arts in America' (552)" (18 December 1962) http://www.jfklibrary.org/Research/Research-Aids/Ready-Reference/JFK-Quotations.aspx
1962

Life , Art , Success , Past

“The epithet beautiful is used by surgeons to describe operations which their patients describe as ghastly, by physicists to describe methods of measurement which leave sentimentalists cold, by lawyers to describe cases which ruin all the parties to them, and by lovers to describe the objects of their infatuation, however unattractive they may appear to the unaffected spectators.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

Preface to Ellen Terry and Bernard Shaw: A Correspondence (1931)
1940s and later

Beauty , Appearance

“Here’s a pot with a cot in a park
In a park where the peach-blossoms blew,
Where the lovers eloped in the dark,
Lived, died and were changed into two
Bright birds that eternally flew
Through the boughs of the may, as they sang;
’T is a tale was undoubtedly true
In the reign of the Emperor Hwang.”

Andrew Lang (1844–1912) Scots poet, novelist and literary critic

Ballades in Blue China (1880)

Bird , Change

“His helmet now shall make a hive for bees,
And lovers’ songs be turned to holy psalms;
A man-at-arms must now serve on his knees,
And feed on prayers, which are old age’s alms.”

George Peele (1556–1596) English translator and poet

Polyhymnia (1590), reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Age , Bee

“Listen! You will hear mothers' lullabies, madmen's shrieks, love-croonings, cries of agonized terror, hymns of Christ, the roaring of lynch mobs, the kisses of lovers, the curses of pirates.”

Frank Crane (1861–1928) American Presbyterian minister

Four Minute Essays Vol. 5 (1919), The Human Heart

Love , Kiss , Christ

“(Sylvia at typewriter) A lady never offers a new lover a complimentary tooth brush, razor and sewing kit the next morning.”

Nicole Hollander (1939) Cartoonist

Source: Sylvia cartoon strip, p. 123

“A wail in the wind is all I hear;
A voice of woe for a lover's loss.”

William Ellery Channing (poet) (1818–1901) American writer

Tears in Spring, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Loss

“But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:”

Samuel Taylor Coleridge Kubla Khan

Kubla Khan (1797 or 1798)

“The heart of the jealous knows the best and most satisfying love, that of the other’s bed, where the rival perfects the lover’s imperfections.”

Djuna Barnes book Nightwood

Source: Nightwood (1936), Ch. 5 : Watchman, What of the Night?

Love , Heart , Perfection

“It is a gem which hath the power to show
If plighted lovers keep their faith or no :
If faithful, it is like the leaves of spring;
If faithless, like those leaves when withering.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

The Emerald Ring — a Superstition from The London Literary Gazette (28th December 1822) Fragments in Rhyme XI
The Improvisatrice (1824)

Faith , Spring

“Love is best when mixed with anguish.
In our town,
we won't call you a Lover
if you escape the pain.
Look for Love in this way,
welcome it to your soul,
and watch you spirit fly away in ecstasy.”

Rumi (1207–1273) Iranian poet

Hush, Don't Say Anything to God: Passionate Poems of Rumi (2000)

Love , Pain , Way , Soul

“As with respect to viewers, I must say that gallery-viewing is increasingly becoming more of a fashion than a love. Many of the openings have turned into exhibitions of pompousness. Also, there are groups of viewers that enter galleries with their already formed judgments. Amidst all these there are also groups that show absolutely no reaction towards the works, these are the worst. They are neither approving nor disapproving. A smaller percentage constitutes honest art-lovers who ask questions, and their views are worthwhile and they inspire real energy in an artist.”

Guity Novin (1944) artist

Tamasha (1973), No 114. Third year, Thursday June 14th, 1973.

Love , Art , Fashion , Question

“I would advise you not to expect too much happiness, even from the fulfillment of all your wishes. The moment you have distinguished yourself you become an object of envy and malice; men whom you believed to be lovers of knowledge you will then find to be lovers only of fame, and haters of all knowledge that has not come from themselves. You will find that a life of science has in it no superiority to any other, unless it is pursued from a higher principle than the mere ambition of notoriety, and that demagogue or a philosopher differ only in the objects of their selfishness. As you will now have experienced how unsatisfying even the pursuit of knowledge is when insulated from higher objects, I hope, if you have not been fortunate enough to begin the study earlier, that you will devote yourself to the most extraordinary of all subjects, one which infinitely surpasses the mechanism of the heavens or the chemistry of the material world, the revelation of your duty and the destiny of man as contained in The Bible — a book which occupied the best hours of the manhood of Newton, of Locke, and of Euler.”

David Brewster (1781–1868) British astronomer and mathematician

In a 1830 letter to James David Forbes, as found in Life and letters of James David Forbes, p. 40.

Life , Men , Books , World

“A woman whose lover resigns her, and as if for her own sake, though without consulting her, is placed in a most awkward situation. What can she do? Take him at his word? That is easy to say, but hard to do, when all the hopes and affections are garnered in his love.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

The Monthly Magazine

Love , Hope

“And I want you to be my acrobat, I want you to be my lover.
Oh there were others who would treat you cruel,
But oh Jeannie, I will always be your fool.”

Elton John (1947) English rock singer-songwriter, composer and pianist

Little Jeannie, written by Elton John and Gary Osborne
Song lyrics, 21 at 33 (1980)

Fools

“The laughter came
When the tears stopped falling.
Now all I do is just call your name
(When I say lover)
You walked in and my heart discovered
That my life would never be the same.
Oh, you are my destiny.
You are my one and only.
You gave that joy to me
When my whole life was lonely.”

Lionel Richie (1949) American singer-songwriter, musician, record producer and actor

My Destiny.
Song lyrics, Back to Front (1992)

Life , Tear , Laughter , Heart

“Oh for some honest lover's ghost,
Some kind unbodied post
Sent from the shades below!
I strangely long to know
Whether the nobler chaplets wear
Those that their mistress' scorn did bear,
Or those that were used kindly.”

John Suckling (1609–1642) English poet

Oh! For some honest lover's ghost.
Other poems

“Choice of subject, like choice of lover, is an intimate decision.”

Jeanette Winterson (1959) English writer

Weight (2005)

Decision

“I wanna be your lover
I wanna be the only one that makes you come running
I wanna be your lover
I wanna turn you on, turn you out, all night long, make you shout
Oh, lover! Yeah.
I wanna be the only one you come for.”

Prince (1958–2016) American pop, songwriter, musician and actor

I Wanna Be Your Lover
Song lyrics, Prince (1979)

Night

“Even the most blockheaded bureaucrat,
Provided he loves peace,
Is a greater lover of the arts
Than any so-called art-lover
Who loves the arts of war.”

Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956) German poet, playwright, theatre director

"Freedom for Whom", as translated in Brecht on Brecht : An Improvisation (1967) by George Tabori, p. 18
Context: Firebugs dragging their gasoline bottles
Are approaching the Academy of Arts, with a grin.
And so, instead of embracing them, Let us demand the freedom of the elbow
To knock the bottles out of their filthy hands.
Even the most blockheaded bureaucrat,
Provided he loves peace,
Is a greater lover of the arts
Than any so-called art-lover
Who loves the arts of war.

Love , War , Peace , Art

“The lover widens his experience as the non-lover cannot. He adds to the mass of his idea-world, and acquires thereby enhanced power to appreciate all things. Is not this the sufficient solution of that long-standing difficulty between 'egoism and altruism?”

William Ernest Hocking (1873–1966) American philosopher

Source: The Meaning of God in Human Experience (1912), Ch. XI : Idea in Organic Union with Feeling, p. 135.
Context: Love and sympathy are the activity of the idea. And in their exercise, the idea is enlarged. The lover widens his experience as the non-lover cannot. He adds to the mass of his idea-world, and acquires thereby enhanced power to appreciate all things. Is not this the sufficient solution of that long-standing difficulty between 'egoism and altruism?' The altruist alone can accumulate that treasure of idea through which all things must be enjoyed that are enjoyed. No one has, or can have, any 'egoistic' satisfaction except as a consequence of so much effective love of reality as there is in him by birth or acquisition.

World , Idea

“Adieu, Francoise, my trusted wife;
Without you I'd have had a lonely life.
You cheated lots of times but then,
I forgave you in the end
Though your lover was my friend. Adieu, Francoise, it's hard to die
When all the birds are singing in the sky.”

Rod McKuen (1933–2015) American poet, songwriter, composer, and singer

Seasons in the Sun" (1961), as translated from the Jacques Brel song "Le Moribond"· McKuen performance http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MY__eaedtOA · Beach Boys performance http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzjIra9pheU
Goodbye, Michelle, my little one;
You gave me love and helped me find the sun,
And every time that I was down
You would always come around
And get my feet back on the ground. Goodbye, Michelle, it's hard to die
When all the birds are singing in the sky;
Now that the spring is in the air,
With the flowers everywhere,
I wish that we could both be there!
As adapted in the Terry Jacks version (1974)
Translations and adaptations
Context: Adieu, Francoise, my trusted wife;
Without you I'd have had a lonely life.
You cheated lots of times but then,
I forgave you in the end
Though your lover was my friend. Adieu, Francoise, it's hard to die
When all the birds are singing in the sky.
Now that spring is in the air
With your lovers ev'rywhere,
Just be careful; I'll be there.

Life , Bird , Singing , Time

“The Greek word for philosopher (philosophos) connotes a distinction from sophos. It signifies the lover of wisdom (knowledge) as distinguished from him who considers himself wise in the possession of knowledge. This meaning of the word still endures: the essence of philosophy is not the possession of the truth but the search for truth.”

Karl Jaspers (1883–1969) German psychiatrist and philosopher

Way to Wisdom: An Introduction to Philosophy (1951) as translated by Ralph Mannheim, Ch. 1, What is Philosophy?, p. 12
Variant translation: It is the search for the truth, not possession of the truth which is the way of philosophy. Its questions are more relevant than its answers, and every answer becomes a new question.
Context: The Greek word for philosopher (philosophos) connotes a distinction from sophos. It signifies the lover of wisdom (knowledge) as distinguished from him who considers himself wise in the possession of knowledge. This meaning of the word still endures: the essence of philosophy is not the possession of the truth but the search for truth. … Philosophy means to be on the way. Its questions are more essential than its answers, and every answer becomes a new question.

Wisdom , Truth , Search , Knowledge

“Whoever does not see in a good light is a bad painter, a bad friend, a bad lover. Whoever does not see in a good light has not been able to lift his mind up to what is there or his heart to what is good.”

Joseph Joubert (1754–1824) French moralist and essayist

Context: Whoever does not see his friends in a good light loves them little. To see in a good light. — Whoever does not see in a good light is a bad painter, a bad friend, a bad lover. Whoever does not see in a good light has not been able to lift his mind up to what is there or his heart to what is good.

Light , Heart

“He willeth that in all things we have our beholding and our enjoying in Love. And of this knowing are we most blind. For some of us believe that God is Almighty and may do all, and that He is All-Wisdom and can do all; but that He is All-Love and will do all, there we stop short. And this not-knowing it is, that hindereth most God’s lovers, as to my sight.”

Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress

The Sixteenth Revelation, Chapter 73
Context: For help of this, full meekly our Lord shewed the patience that He had in His Hard Passion; and also the joying and the satisfying that He hath of that Passion, for love. And this He shewed in example that we should gladly and wisely bear our pains, for that is great pleasing to Him and endless profit to us. And the cause why we are travailed with them is for lack in knowing of Love. Though the three Persons in the Trinity be all even in Itself, the soul took most understanding in Love; yea, and He willeth that in all things we have our beholding and our enjoying in Love. And of this knowing are we most blind. For some of us believe that God is Almighty and may do all, and that He is All-Wisdom and can do all; but that He is All-Love and will do all, there we stop short. And this not-knowing it is, that hindereth most God’s lovers, as to my sight.

Love , Wisdom , God

“God is the only lover and He loves in different forms - parents, husband, wife, friend, children, animals. All are His forms and He, Himself, has no form.”

Baba Hari Dass (1923–2018) master yogi, author, builder, commentator of Indian spiritual tradition

Source: Silence Speaks, from the chalkboard of Baba Hari Dass, 1977, p.9

Love , God , Children , Parent

“Lovers of God do not belong to any caste. … A brāhmin without this love is no longer a brāhmin. And a pariah with the love of God is no longer a pariah. Through bhakti an untouchable becomes pure and elevated.”

Ramakrishna (1836–1886) Indian mystic and religious preacher

Source: The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna (1942), p. 155

God

“Tonight the lilacs magnify
The easy passion, the ever-ready love
Of the lover that lies within us and we breathe

An odor evoking nothing, absolute.
We encounter in the dead middle of the night
The purple odor, the abundant bloom.”

Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) American poet

Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction (1942), It Must Change

Passion , Night , Dead , Love

“Someday we'll find it, the rainbow connection,
The lovers, the dreamers and me.”

Paul Williams (songwriter) (1940) American composer, singer, songwriter and actor

"Rainbow Connection" (1979) (co-written with Kenneth Ascher) - The Muppet Movie opening http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSFLZ-MzIhM - The Muppet Show performance http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRvhRhWWE44 by ‪Debbie Harry & Kermit the Frog‬ - Video performance http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=deebKNI-dTE by Willie Nelson.
Context: Why are there so many songs about rainbows
And what's on the other side?
Rainbows are visions, but only illusions,
And rainbows have nothing to hide.
So we've been told and some choose to believe it
I know they're wrong, wait and see.
Someday we'll find it, the rainbow connection,
The lovers, the dreamers and me.

“Adieu, Francoise, my trusted wife;
Without you I'd have had a lonely life.
You cheated lots of times but then,
I forgave you in the end
Though your lover was my friend.”

Jacques Brel (1929–1978) Belgian singer-songwriter

Seasons in the Sun" (1961), as translated by Rod McKuen from Brel's song "Le Moribond" · McKuen performance http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MY__eaedtOA · Beach Boys performance http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzjIra9pheU
Goodbye, Michelle, my little one;
You gave me love and helped me find the sun,
And every time that I was down
You would always come around
And get my feet back on the ground.Goodbye, Michelle, it's hard to die
When all the birds are singing in the sky;
Now that the spring is in the air,
With the flowers everywhere,
I wish that we could both be there!
As adapted in the Terry Jacks version (1974)
Context: p> Adieu, Francoise, my trusted wife;
Without you I'd have had a lonely life.
You cheated lots of times but then,
I forgave you in the end
Though your lover was my friend.Adieu, Francoise, it's hard to die
When all the birds are singing in the sky.
Now that spring is in the air
With your lovers ev'rywhere,
Just be careful; I'll be there.</p

Life , Time , Cheating

“And it was grief that made Mankind your lover,
And it was grief that made you love Mankind.”

Joyce Kilmer (1886–1918) American poet, editor, literary critic, soldier

Main Street and Other Poems (1917), In Memory
Context: Your eyes, that looked on glory, could discover
The angry scar to which the world was blind:
And it was grief that made Mankind your lover,
And it was grief that made you love Mankind.

Love

“That emptiness gnaws and hurts worse than anything else in life; we take up knives to carve our skin just to escape it, or run into the arms of a lover to smother it, but it doesn't go away. It grows. It is death at work, emptiness causing decay. No matter how much we feed it SIN, it will never fill up.”

Sean Sellers (1969–1999) American murderer

Open Letter To Satanists
Context: To be a Satanist is not to be liberated. It is to be bonded to death. The freedom it offers is an illusion. And this is something I know every Satanist knows, because I was there. In the dark and quiet, all alone, without the buzz of alcohol or drugs, or the rhythm of music to drown out the sounds, there is an empty echo inside us. A vacancy. A feeling of loss and cold and turmoil and hunger. That emptiness gnaws and hurts worse than anything else in life; we take up knives to carve our skin just to escape it, or run into the arms of a lover to smother it, but it doesn't go away. It grows. It is death at work, emptiness causing decay. No matter how much we feed it SIN, it will never fill up.

Life , Death , Hurt

“An irresistible passion that would induce me to believe in innate ideas, and the truth of prophecy, has decided my career. I have always loved liberty with the enthusiasm which actuates the religious man with the passion of a lover, and with the conviction of a geometrician.”

Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette (1757–1834) French general and politician

Letter to the Bailli de Ploën, as quoted in Recollections of the Private Life of General Lafayette (1835) by Jules Germain Cloquet, Vol. I, p. 24
Context: An irresistible passion that would induce me to believe in innate ideas, and the truth of prophecy, has decided my career. I have always loved liberty with the enthusiasm which actuates the religious man with the passion of a lover, and with the conviction of a geometrician. On leaving college, where nothing had displeased me more than a state of dependance, I viewed the greatness and the littleness of the court with contempt, the frivolities of society with pity, the minute pedantry of the army with disgust, and oppression of every sort with indignation. The attraction of the American revolution transported me suddenly to my place. I felt myself tranquil only when sailing between the continent whose powers I had braved, and that where, although our arrival and our ultimate success were problematical, I could, at the age of nineteen, take refuge in the alternative of conquering or perishing in the cause to which I had devoted myself.

Love , Truth , Idea , Passion

“A man sometimes starts up a patriot, only by disseminating discontent, and propagating reports of secret influence, of dangerous counsels, of violated rights, and encroaching usurpation. This practice is no certain note of patriotism. To instigate the populace with rage beyond the provocation, is to suspend publick happiness, if not to destroy it. He is no lover of his country, that unnecessarily disturbs its peace.”

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

The Patriot (1774)
Context: A man sometimes starts up a patriot, only by disseminating discontent, and propagating reports of secret influence, of dangerous counsels, of violated rights, and encroaching usurpation. This practice is no certain note of patriotism. To instigate the populace with rage beyond the provocation, is to suspend publick happiness, if not to destroy it. He is no lover of his country, that unnecessarily disturbs its peace. Few errours and few faults of government, can justify an appeal to the rabble; who ought not to judge of what they cannot understand, and whose opinions are not propagated by reason, but caught by contagion. The fallaciousness of this note of patriotism is particularly apparent, when the clamour continues after the evil is past.

Secret , Peace , Rage , Country

“There is no country…where there are not somewhere lovers of freedom who look to this country to carry the torch and keep it burning bright until such time as they may again be able to light their extinguished torches at our flame. We owe it not only to our own people but to the world to preserve our soul for that.”

Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech at University of Durham to the Ashridge Fellowship, as quoted in The Times (3 December 1934); also in Christian Conservatives and the Totalitarian Challenge, 1933-40 by Philip Williamson, in The English Historical Review, Vol. 115, No. 462 (June 2000)
1934

People , World , Soul , Freedom

“You're a wonderful lover.”

Dylan Moran (1971) Irish actor and comedian

Other

“My first goal is to create an attractive, interactive website that forms a community of chess lovers. I want to keep it light and keep people coming back ⎯ heavy on photos, humor, and simple chess tactics and strategies.”

Jennifer Shahade (1980) chess player

Gothamist interview (2006)
Context: My first goal is to create an attractive, interactive website that forms a community of chess lovers. I want to keep it light and keep people coming back ⎯ heavy on photos, humor, and simple chess tactics and strategies. I want to promote our top players to increase their visibility and their chances to make a living at chess.

People , Photo , Communication , Light

“Yet their hands shall not tremble, their feet shall not falter;
The void shall not weary, the fear shall not alter
These lips and these eyes of the loved and the lover.”

William Morris (1834–1896) author, designer, and craftsman

Love is Enough (1872), Song I : Though the World Be A-Waning
Context: Love is enough: though the World be a-waning
And the woods have no voice but the voice of complaining,
Though the sky be too dark for dim eyes to discover
The gold-cups and daisies fair blooming thereunder,
Though the hills be held shadows, and the sea a dark wonder,
And this day draw a veil over all deeds passed over,
Yet their hands shall not tremble, their feet shall not falter;
The void shall not weary, the fear shall not alter
These lips and these eyes of the loved and the lover.

Love , Fear

“For it giveth unto all lovers courage, that lusty month of May.”

Thomas Malory book Le Morte d'Arthur

Book XVIII, ch. 25
Le Morte d'Arthur (c. 1469) (first known edition 1485)
Context: The month of May was come, when every lusty heart beginneth to blossom, and to bring forth fruit; for like as herbs and trees bring forth fruit and flourish in May, in likewise every lusty heart that is in any manner a lover, springeth and flourisheth in lusty deeds. For it giveth unto all lovers courage, that lusty month of May.

Courage

“I had a lover’s quarrel with the world.”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

The Lesson for Today (1942)
Context: I may have wept that any should have died
Or missed their chance, or not have been their best,
Or been their riches, fame, or love denied;
On me as much as any is the jest.
I take my incompleteness with the rest.
God bless himself can no one else be blessed.

I hold your doctrine of Memento Mori.
And were an epitaph to be my story
I’d have a short one ready for my own.
I would have written of me on my stone:
I had a lover’s quarrel with the world.

World

Quotes about lovers page 9

Quotes about lovers
page 9