“Love that stammers, that stutters, is apt to be the love that loves best.”
Gabriela Mistral (1889–1957) Chilean poet-diplomat, writer, educator and feminist.
Relationship quotes page 2
“I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen.”
Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist
“The love we give away is the only love we keep.”
Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915) American writer, publisher, artist, and philosopher fue el escritor del jarron azul
“What does it matter how many lovers you have if none of them gives you the universe?”
Jacques Lacan (1901–1981) French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist
“Death ends a life, not a relationship”
Morrie Schwartz (1916–1995) American sociologist
“Women cannot complain about men anymore until they start getting better taste in them.”
Bill Maher (1956) American stand-up comedian
Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) French-German physician, theologian, musician and philosopher
Variant: Sometimes our light goes out but is blown again into flame by an encounter with another human being. Each of us owes the deepest thanks to those who have rekindled this inner light.
“The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.”
Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist
“The only time a woman really succeeds in changing a man is when he's a baby.”
Natalie Wood (1938–1981) American actress
“The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge.”
Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist
1920s, What I Believe (1925)
Source: Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Value
“When someone shows you who they are believe them; the first time.”
Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet
“The simple lack of her is more to me than others' presence.”
Edward Thomas (1878–1917) Poet and journalist
Source: "The Unknown", line 16, cited from Collected Poems (London: Selwyn & Blount, 1920), p. 116.
“A man who wants to make a relationship work will move mountains to keep the
woman he loves”
Greg Behrendt (1963) American comedian
Source: He's Just Not That Into You: The No-Excuses Truth to Understanding Guys
“The secret of success in life is for a man to be ready for his opportunity when it comes.”
Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister
“Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other’s eyes for an instant?”
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist
“You are stronger than you seem,
Braver than you believe,
and smarter than you think you are.”
A.A. Milne book Winnie-the-Pooh
Variant: You are braver than you believe,
Stronger than you seem,
And smarter than you think(:
Source: Winnie-the-Pooh
Elizabeth Gilbert book Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage
Source: Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage
“You are my heart, my life, my one and only thought.”
Arthur Conan Doyle book The White Company
The White Company (1891)
Helen Schucman (1909–1981) Clinical Psychologist
Jesus' Course in Miracles (2000) by Helen Schucman and William Thetford, Ch. 16 The Forgiveness of Illusions, p. 162
“Life is partly what we make it, and partly what it is made by the friends we choose.”
Tennessee Williams (1911–1983) American playwright
Actually by the Chinese philosopher, educator and popular lecturer Dr. Tehyi Hsieh, Chinese epigrams inside out, and proverbs, 1948.
Misattributed
Variant: Life is partly what we make it, and partly what it is made by the friends we choose.
“A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person.”
Mignon McLaughlin (1913–1983) American journalist
The Complete Neurotic's Notebook (1981), Marriage
“One word
Frees us of all the weight and pain of life:
That word is love.”
Source: Oedipus at Colonus, Line 1616–18
“To live is to not know that one is living”
Florbela Espanca (1894–1930) Portuguese poet
Diary (20 April, 1930), quoted in Afinado desconcerto (2002), p. 262
Context: Sometimes I start looking at the mirror and examining myself, feature by feature: eyes, mouth, shape of the forehead, eyelids curve, the face line... And this vulgar and hideous-looking, grotesque and miserable amalgam, would it know how to do verses? Oh, no! There is something else … but what? After all, why think? To live is to not know that one is living... Why don't I forget that I am living... to live?
My Day (1935–1962)
Context: It takes courage to love, but pain through love is the purifying fire which those who love generously know. We all know people who are so much afraid of pain that they shut themselves up like clams in a shell and, giving out nothing, receive nothing and therefore shrink until life is a mere living death. (1 April 1939)
“Love does not consist of gazing at each other, but in looking together in the same direction.”
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1900–1944) French writer and aviator
“To get the full value of joy you must have someone to divide it with.”
Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist
“One of the most beautiful qualities of true friendship is to understand and to be understood.”
Seneca the Younger (-4–65 BC) Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, and dramatist
“Love cures people - both the ones who give it and the ones who receive it.”
Karl Menninger (1893–1990) American psychiatrist
“We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit.”
Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) French-German physician, theologian, musician and philosopher
Cornel West (1953) African-American philosopher and political/civil rights activist
Source: Breaking Bread: Insurgent Black Intellectual Life
Thomas Merton (1915–1968) Priest and author
Variant: The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves, the resolution not to twist them to fit our own image.
Source: The Way of Chuang Tzu
“And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.”
Paul McCartney (1942) English singer-songwriter and composer
"The End"; The last full song track of Abbey Road (1969) the last Beatles album to be recorded before the band broke up. (Let It Be was the last album released, but had been recorded earlier.)
Lyrics, The Beatles
Source: The Beatles Illustrated Lyrics
“Far too many people are looking for the right person, instead of trying to be the right person.”
Gloria Steinem (1934) American feminist and journalist
Jane Austen (1775–1817) English novelist
Variant: In vain I have struggled. It will not do. My feelings will no longer be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.
Source: Pride And Prejudice
Nicholas Sparks book The Choice
Travis Parker, Chapter 13, p. 166
Variant: conversation was the lyrics, laughter was the music, making time spent together a melody that could be replayed over and over without getting stale.
Source: 2000s, The Choice (2007)
Context: Finding a woman with a sense of humor had been the one piece of advice his father had given him when he'd first begun to get serious about dating, and he finally understood why his dad had considered it important. If conversation was the lyrics, laughter was the music, making time spent together a melody that could be replayed over and over without getting stale.
“What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult to each other?”
George Eliot book Middlemarch
Middlemarch (1871)
Context: What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult to each other? I cannot be indifferent to the troubles of a man who advised me in my trouble, and attended me in my illness.
“Man may have discovered fire, but women discovered how to play with it.”
Candace Bushnell book Sex and the City
Source: Sex and the City
“Love is when you meet someone who tells you something new about yourself.”
André Breton (1896–1966) French writer
Source: Mad Love
Patti Callahan Henry American writer
Source: Between The Tides
“Everyone sees what you appear to be, few experience what you really are.”
Niccolo Machiavelli book The Prince
Variant trans: Everybody sees what you seem, but few know what thou art.
Ch. 18
Variant: Every one sees what you appear to be, few really know what you are
Source: The Prince (1513)
Context: Every one sees what you appear to be, few really know what you are, and those few dare not oppose themselves to the opinion of the many, who have the majesty of the state to defend them.
“Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive.”
Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica
Lucille Ball (1911–1989) American actress and businesswoman
Variant: Love yourself first and everything else falls into line. Your really have to love yourself to get anything done in this world.
“I like you very much. Just as you are.”
Helen Fielding book Bridget Jones's Diary
Source: Bridget Jones's Diary
Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850–1919) American author and poet
Variant: We flatter those we scarcely know,
We please the fleeting guest;
And deal full many a thoughtless blow,
To those who love us best.
Leo Buscaglia (1924–1998) Motivational speaker, writer
LOVE (1972)
Variant: Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest accomplishment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.
Jane Austen book Pride and Prejudice
Variant: It's a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.
Source: Pride and Prejudice (1813)
“There is greatness in doing something you hate for the sake of someone you love.”
Shmuley Boteach (1966) American Orthodox rabbi and writer
“Love takes off the masks we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.”
James Baldwin (1924–1987) (1924-1987) writer from the United States
Sam Keen (1931) author, professor, and philosopher
Variant: Love isn't finding a perfect person. It's seeing an imperfect person perfectly.
Source: To Love and Be Loved
“All a girl really wants is for one guy to prove to her that they are not all the same.”
Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962) American actress, model, and singer
Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica
March 1937
Diary entries (1914 - 1974)
Source: The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 1: 1931-1934
“Long-term relationships--the ones that matter--are all about weathering the peaks and valleys.”
Nicholas Sparks book Safe Haven
Jo, Chapter 33, p. 259
Source: 2009, Safe Haven (2010)
“The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and let it come in”
Morrie Schwartz (1916–1995) American sociologist
Source: Morrie: In His Own Words
“The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and to let it come in.”
Mitch Albom Tuesdays with Morrie
Source: Tuesdays with Morrie (1997)
“The way her body existed only where he touched her. The rest of her was smoke.”
Arundhati Roy book The God of Small Things
Source: The God of Small Things
“People change and forget to tell each other.”
Lillian Hellman (1905–1984) American dramatist and screenwriter
“Have enough courage to trust love one more time and always one more time.”
Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet
“loving people live in a loving world. hostile people live in a hostile world. same world.”
Wayne W. Dyer (1940–2015) American writer
“He who cannot forgive breaks the bridge over which he himself must pass.”
George Herbert (1593–1633) Welsh-born English poet, orator and Anglican priest
Pietro Aretino (1492–1556) Italian author, playwright, poet, satirist, and blackmailer
Source: The Works of Aretino: Biography: de Sanctis. The letters, 1926, p. 152