“What a great thing, to be loved! What a greater thing still, to love! The heart becomes heroic though passion…if no one loved, the sun would go out.”

— Victor Hugo , book Les Misérables

Source: Les Misérables

Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Victor Hugo 308

French poet, novelist, and dramatist 1802–1885

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“What a grand thing, to be loved! What a grander thing still, to love!”

Victor Hugo (1802–1885) French poet, novelist, and dramatist

“What is the main thing in love? To know and to hide. To know about the one you love and to hide that you love. At times the hiding (shame) overpowers the knowing (passion). The passion for the hidden — the passion for the revealed.”

Marina Tsvetaeva (1892–1941) Russian poet and writer

The House at Old Pimen, ch. 2 (1934).

“And though love has brought me down
Love is still around
Finding all its ways to those whose hearts are brave enough to try
Coz love is always ready to defy,
All unwilling things that this life may bring.
Though at times may seem to lose its faith
And die when things turn wrong
But love is still my reason to go on.”

Sophia Montecarlo (1986) Filipino musician

Reason to go on, 2004
Song Quotations

“Don't look for big things, just do small things with great love…. The smaller the thing, the greater must be our love.”

Matka Tereza (1910–1997) Roman Catholic saint of Albanian origin

As quoted in Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light (2007) by Brian Kolodiejchuk
2000s

“If one of two lovers is loyal, and the other jealous and false, how may their friendship last, for Love is slain! But sweetly and discreetly love passes from person to person, from heart to heart, or it is nothing worth. For what the lover would, that would the beloved; what she would ask of him that should he go before to grant. Without accord such as this, love is but a bond and a constraint. For above all things Love means sweetness, and truth, and measure.”

Marie de France medieval poet

Se l'uns des amans est loiax,
E li autre est jalox è faus,
Si est amors entr'ex fausée,
Ne puet avoir lunge durée.
Amors n'a soing de compagnun,
Boin amors n'est se de Dex nun,
De cors en cors, de cuer en cuer,
Autrement n'est prex à nul fuer.
Tulles qui parla d'amistié,
Dist assés bien en son ditié,
Que vent amis, ce veut l'amie
Dunt est boine la compaignie,
S'ele le veut è il l'otreit.
Dunt la druerie est à dreit,
Puisque li uns l'autre desdit,
N'i a d'amors fors c'un despit;
Assés puet-um amors trover,
Mais sens estuet al' bien garder,
Douçour è francise è mesure.
"Graelent", line 85; pp. 149-50.
Misattributed

“What is this thing called love?
This funny thing called love?”

Cole Porter (1891–1964) American composer and songwriter

"What Is This Thing Called Love?" from Wake Up and Dream (1929)
Context: What is this thing called love?
This funny thing called love?
Just who can solve this mystery?
Why should it make a fool of me?

“Fanatic secularism is as dangerous to the world as fanatic religion. Love is the heart of all religions; the theme of all classical works of art and literature; the song of all devotees. Scientists know only what love does, not what love is. Love is to human hearts what the sun is to flowers.”

Chinmayananda Saraswati (1916–1993) Indian spiritual teacher

Quotations from Gurudev’s teachings, Chinmya Mission Chicago

“So, we'll go no more a roving
So late into the night,
Though the heart be still as loving,
And the moon be still as bright.”

George Gordon Byron (1788–1824) English poet and a leading figure in the Romantic movement

St. 1.
So, We'll Go No More A-Roving (1817)

“If only we try to live sincerely, it will go well with us, even though we are certain to experience real sorrow, and great disappointments, and also will probably commit great faults and do wrong things, but it certainly is true, that it is better to be high-spirited, even though one makes more mistakes, than to be narrow-minded and all too prudent. It is good to love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love, is well done.”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)

Quote of Vincent's letter to Theo, from Amsterdam, 3 April 1878; a cited in The Letters of Vincent van Gogh to his Brother, 1872-1886 (1927) Constable & Co
As quoted in Wisdom for the Soul : Five Millennia of Prescriptions for Spiritual Healing (2006) by Larry Chang, p. 483
1870s
Variant: Love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is done well.

“Love is at first not anything that means merging, giving over and uniting with another (for what would a union be of something unclarified and unfinished, still subordinate?), it is a high inducement to the individual to ripen, to become world, to become world for himself for another's sake. It is a great exacting claim upon him, something that chooses him out and calls him to vast things.”

Rainer Maria Rilke book Letters to a Young Poet

Letter Seven (14 May 1904)
Letters to a Young Poet (1934)

“What a great thing, to be loved! What a greater thing still, to love! The heart becomes heroic though passion…if no one loved, the sun would go out.”

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Victor Hugo 308

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