“There is no such thing as an age for love … because the man capable of loving — in the complex and modern sense of love as a sort of ideal exaltation — never ceases to love.”

— Paul Bourget

Pierre Fauchery, as quoted by the character "Jules Labarthe"
The Age for Love
Context: There is no such thing as an age for love... because the man capable of loving — in the complex and modern sense of love as a sort of ideal exaltation — never ceases to love. I will go further; he never ceases to love the same person. You know the experiment that a contemporary physiologist tried with a series of portraits to determine in what the indefinable resemblances called family likeness consisted? He took photographs of twenty persons of the same blood, then he photographed these photographs on the same plate, one over the other. In this way he discovered the common features which determined the type. Well, I am convinced that if we could try a similar experiment and photograph one upon another the pictures of the different women whom the same man has loved or thought he had loved in the course of his life we should discover that all these women resembled one another. The most inconsistent have cherished one and the same being through five or six or even twenty different embodiments.

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Paul Bourget 44

French writer 1852–1935

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“Knowledge can last, principles can last, habits can last; but feelings come and go… But, of course, ceasing to be "in love" need not mean ceasing to love. Love in this second sense—love as distinct from "being in love"—is not merely a feeling.”

Clive Staples Lewis book Mere Christianity

Book III, Chapter 6, "Christian Marriage"
Mere Christianity (1952)
Context: Being in love is a good thing, but it is not the best thing. There are many things below it, but there are also things above it. You cannot make it the basis of a whole life. It is a noble feeling, but it is still a feeling... Knowledge can last, principles can last, habits can last; but feelings come and go... But, of course, ceasing to be "in love" need not mean ceasing to love. Love in this second sense—love as distinct from "being in love"—is not merely a feeling. It is a deep unity, maintained by the will and deliberately strengthened by habit; reinforced by (in Christian marriages) the grace which both partners ask, and receive, from God... "Being in love" first moved them to promise fidelity: this quieter love enables them to keep the promise. It is on this love that the engine of marriage is run: being in love was the explosion that started it.

“Never gonna fall for
Modern love — walks beside me.
Modern love — walks on by.
Modern love — gets me to the church on time.
Church on time — terrifies me.
Church on time — makes me party.
Church on time — puts my trust in God and man.
God and man — no confessions.
God and man — no religion.
God and man — don't believe in modern love.”

David Bowie (1947–2016) British musician, actor, record producer and arranger

Modern Love — YouTube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xt8vhgGpKu4
Song lyrics, Let's Dance (1983)

“For man holds his ground only by surpassing himself, in the same sense in which it is said that one ceases to love if one does not love increasingly everyday.”

Jean Paul Sartre book Saint Genet

Source: Saint Genet, Actor and Martyr (1952), p. 238

“When you were in love, you were capable of learning everything and of knowing things you had never dared even to think, because love was the key to understanding all of the mysteries.”

Paulo Coelho book Brida

Variant: When you’re in love, you’re capable of learning everything and knowing things you had never dared even to think, because love is the key to understanding of all the the mysteries.
Source: Brida

“The world is complex. That complexity is beautiful. I love trying to understand how things work. But that's because there's something to be learned from mastering that complexity.”

Ward Cunningham (1949) American computer programmer who developed the first wiki

A Conversation with Ward Cunningham (2003), The Simplest Thing that Could Possibly Work
Context: The complexity that we despise is the complexity that leads to difficulty. It isn't the complexity that raises problems. There is a lot of complexity in the world. The world is complex. That complexity is beautiful. I love trying to understand how things work. But that's because there's something to be learned from mastering that complexity.

“Love is a great thing. It is not by chance that in all times and practically among all cultured peoples love in the general sense and the love of a man for his wife are both called love. If love is often cruel or destructive, the reason lies not in love itself, but in the inequality between people.”

Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) Russian dramatist, author and physician

Note-Book of Anton Chekhov (1921)

“And you can't find "love" because in order to find "love" you have to be capable of dishing it out. In order to be capable of giving "love", your own life has to be in harmony with everything else, and that's not attainable…”

Jacque Fresco (1916–2017) American futurist and self-described social engineer

“" Love is the most greatest thing on earth that everlast, love from God to his word, from his words, to a man, from a man to his world. " -Abah Sule, P. E LOVE IS THE ONLY FORCE CAPABLE OF TRANSFORMING AN ENEMY INTO A FRIEND."”

Engr.Abah Sule

“In itself, homosexuality is as limiting as heterosexuality: the ideal should be to be capable of loving a woman or a man; either, a human being, without feeling fear, restraint, or obligation.”

Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) French writer, intellectual, existentialist philosopher, political activist, feminist, and social theorist

As quoted in Bisexual Characters in Film: From Anaïs to Zee (1997) by Wayne M. Bryant, p. 143
Attributed

“I have never ceased to be young, if being young is always loving… Humanity is not a vain word. Our life is made of love, and to love no longer is to live no longer.”

George Sand (1804–1876) French novelist and memoirist; pseudonym of Lucile Aurore Dupin

“There is no such thing as an age for love … because the man capable of loving — in the complex and modern sense of love as a sort of ideal exaltation — never ceases to love.”

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Paul Bourget 44

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