“Too often in my life, love has been defined as "humiliation with occasional roses".”

Memoirs of J. Casanova de Seingalt (1894)

Source: The Akhmatova Journals, Volume I: 1938-1941

Source: The Captain is Out to Lunch and the Sailors Have Taken Over the Ship

I've Been Loving You Too Long, co-written with Jerry Butler.
Song lyrics, Otis Blue: Otis Redding Sings Soul (1965)

"Juanita".
In Classic Shades, and Other Poems (1890)
Context: p>O, the sea of lights for streaming
When the thousand flags are furled—
When the gleaming bay lies dreaming
As it duplicates the world!You will come my dearest, truest!
Come my sovereign queen often;
My blue skies will then be bluest;
My white rose be whitest then:Then the song! Ah, then the sabre
Flashing up the walls of night!
Hate of wrong and love of neighbor
Rhymes of battle for the Right!</p

New York Times (July 2, 2004)

L'amour a toujours été pour moi la plus grande des affaires ou plutôt la seule.
La Vie d'Henri Brulard (1890)
Variant translation: Love has always been the most important business in my life, or rather the only one.

As quoted in Japan-zone http://www.japan-zone.com/modern/tezuka_osamu.shtml