“If one didn't have love, was it better, then, to be alone?”

" Love Me Like That http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/michellebranch/lovemelikethat.html"
2000s, Hotel Paper (2003)

Mussolini in conversation with the Austrian ambassador to Italy in 1932 over the then-predicted rise of Adolf Hitler to power in Germany. As quoted in Esau's Tears: Modern Anti-Semitism and the Rise of the Jews, Albert S. Lindemann, Cambridge University Press (1997), p. 466
1930s

Hope, Faith, and Love (c. 1786); also known as "The Words of Strength", as translated in The Common School Journal Vol. IX (1847) edited by Horace Mann, p. 386
Context: There are three lessons I would write, —
Three words — as with a burning pen,
In tracings of eternal light
Upon the hearts of men. Have Hope. Though clouds environ now,
And gladness hides her face in scorn,
Put thou the shadow from thy brow, —
No night but hath its morn. Have Faith. Where'er thy bark is driven, —
The calm's disport, the tempest's mirth, —
Know this: God rules the hosts of heaven,
The habitants of earth. Have Love. Not love alone for one,
But men, as man, thy brothers call;
And scatter, like the circling sun,
Thy charities on all. Thus grave these lessons on thy soul, —
Hope, Faith, and Love, — and thou shalt find
Strength when life's surges rudest roll,
Light when thou else wert blind.

The Milwaukee Sentinel Princess Grace finds relaxation in her gardens Jan. 1, 1981

Homecoming saga, The Ships Of Earth (1994)

"Love is a Two-Person Thing" ["Aşk İki Kişiliktir"] (1994)
Variant translations:
The only thing experienced alone is death 
Love requires two people
I've Learned Some Things (2008)

Source: The Lovely Bones