Romantic quotes

A collection of quotes on the topic of valentine's day, romantic, love, love.

Best romantic quotes

“Let the beauty of what you love be what you do.”

Rumi (1207–1273) Iranian poet

As quoted in Path for Greatness : Spiritualty at Work (2000) by Linda J. Ferguson, p. 51

“There is only one happiness in life, to love and be loved.”

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

“Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.”

William Shakespeare All's Well That Ends Well

Variant: Love all, trust a few.
Source: All's Well That Ends Well

“If I know what love is, it is because of you.”

Hermann Hesse book Narcissus and Goldmund

Narcissus and Goldmund (1930)

“Love is so short and forgetting is so long.”

Pablo Neruda book Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair

Es tan corto el amor y tan largo el olvido.
"Tonight I Can Write" (Puedo Escribir), XX, p. 51.
Variant: Love is so short, forgetting is so long.
Source: Veinte Poemas de Amor y una Canción Desesperada (Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair) (1924)

“You will always love, and you will always be loved.”

Oscar Wilde book The Picture of Dorian Gray

Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray

“We accept the love we think we deserve.”

Stephen Chbosky book The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Source: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“There is no remedy for love but to love more.”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist

Variant: The only remedy for love is to love more.

“If you have to do it, you can do it.”

James M. Cain book Mildred Pierce

Mildred Pierce

“A life without love is like a tree without fruit.”

Stephen King book Doctor Sleep

Source: Doctor Sleep

F. Scott Fitzgerald quote: “I love her and that's the beginning of everything…”

Romantic quotes

“Just don’t give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don’t think you can go wrong.”

Ella Fitzgerald (1917–1996) American jazz singer

Success , love , Wise , For women

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

'Where Do We Go From Here?" as published in Where Do We Go from Here : Chaos or Community? (1967), p. 62; many statements in this book, or slight variants of them, were also part of his address Where Do We Go From Here?" which has a section below. A common variant appearing at least as early as 1968 has "Returning violence for violence multiplies violence..." An early version of the speech as published in A Martin Luther King Treasury (1964), p. 173, has : "Returning hate for hate multiplies hate..."
1960s
Source: A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches
Context: The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. So it goes. … Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.

Motivational , Inspirational , Attitude , Success

“He's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

Variant: Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same
Source: Wuthering Heights

love , Cute , Wedding , For Her

“A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is reality.”

Yoko Ono (1933) Japanese artist, author, and peace activist

A line written by Ono many years before, and quoted by Lennon in December 1980, as quoted in All We Are Saying : The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono (2000) by John Lennon, Yōko Ono, David Sheff, p. 16.
Source: Grapefruit: A Book of Instructions and Drawings

Relationship , For Him , Dreams , Reality

“I love you not only for what you are, but for what I am when I am with you. I love you not only for what you have made of yourself, but for what you are making of me. I love you for the part of me that you bring out.”

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861) English poet, author

love , Cute , Anniversary , For Her

“Love does not begin and end the way we seem to think it does. Love is a battle, love is a war; love is a growing up.”

James Baldwin book Nobody Knows My Name

"In Search of a Majority: An Address" (Feb 1960); reprinted in Baldwin, "Nobody Knows My Name: More Notes of a Native Son" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobody_Knows_My_Name (1961)

love , Wise , Relationship , Cute

“You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.”

Dr. Seuss (1904–1991) American children's writer and illustrator, co-founder of Beginner Books

Variant: You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.

For Wife , love , Relationship , Cute

“I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.”

Pablo Neruda (1904–1973) Chilean poet

Variant: I love you as one loves certain dark things, secretly, between the shadow and the soul.
Source: 100 Love Sonnets

love , Good Night , Cute , Anniversary

“If I had a flower for every time I thought of you, I could walk through my garden forever.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) British poet laureate

For Wife , love , Missing You , Relationship

“Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down.”

Oprah Winfrey (1954) American businesswoman, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist

Variant: Everyone wants to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down.

For Wife , love , Happy , Family

“You can be in love and not be in a relationship.”

Gandolfo – (RJ Intindola)

1979

Sad , Attitude , For Wife , love

“So, I love you because the entire universe conspired to help me find you.”

Paulo Coelho book The Alchemist

Source: The Alchemist

love , Relationship , Cute , Anniversary

“Love is not what you do. Love is what you are.”

Sadhguru (1957) Yogi, mystic, visionary and humanitarian

Beauty , For Wife , love , Friendship

“Love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.”

Khalil Gibran book The Prophet

The Prophet (1923)

Heartbreaking , Sad , Hurtful , Missing You

“Grow old with me! The best is yet to be.”

Robert Browning (1812–1889) English poet and playwright of the Victorian Era

Birthday , For Wife , love , Cute

“I am catastrophically in love with you.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Princess

Source: Clockwork Princess

love , For Her , Love

“I am good, but not an angel. I do sin, but I am not the devil. I am just a small girl in a big world trying to find someone to love.”

Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962) American actress, model, and singer

love , For women , Love , World

“It's easy to fall in love. The hard part is finding someone to catch you.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

love , Relationship , Cute , For Her

“There are all kinds of love in this world but never the same love twice.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) American novelist and screenwriter

Wedding , Love , World

“To live is to love, to love is to live.”

Libba Bray Going Bovine

Source: Going Bovine

Deep , Attitude , Beauty , Courageous

“It's one thing to fall in love. It's another to feel someone else falling in love with you, and to feel a responsibility toward that love.”

David Levithan book Every Day

Variant: It's one thing to fall in love. It's another to feel someone else fall in love with you, and to feel a responsibility toward that love.
Source: Every Day

Love , Feeling

“Morning without you is a dwindled dawn.”

Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) American poet

For Wife , Good Morning , Father's Day , For Him

“It was love at first sight, at last sight, at ever and ever sight.”

Vladimir Nabokov book Lolita

Source: Lolita

love , Cute , Anniversary , Valentine's Day

“Life is not breaths you take, but the moments that take your breath away.”

George Strait (1952) American country music singer, actor and music producer

Variant: Life is not the breaths you take but the moments that take your breath away.

For Wife , love , Goodbye , Cute

“To lose balance sometimes for love is part of living a balanced
life.”

Elizabeth Gilbert (1969) American writer

Source: Eat, pray, love: one woman's search for everything

love , Cute , Heart Touching , For Her

“It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.”

André Gide (1869–1951) French novelist and essayist

Frequently misattributed to Marilyn Monroe or Kurt Cobain.
Source: https://books.google.com/books?id=xUtdDnEhkMMC&pg=PT12&lpg=PT12#v=onepage&q&f=false
Source: Autumn Leaves, Philosophical eLibrary, 2012, (Feuillets d'automne, 1941, trans. Jeanine Parisier Plottel)

Sad , love , Wise , Courageous

“We can only learn to love by loving.”

Iris Murdoch book The Bell

The Bell (1958), ch. 19; 2001, p. 219.

love , Cute , For Her , For Him

“Sometimes things fall apart so that better things can fall together.”

Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962) American actress, model, and singer

Variant: Sometimes good things fall apart so that better things can fall together.

Heartbreaking , Sad , love , Cute

“Life is the flower for which love is the honey.”

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

Deep , For Wife , love , Motivational

“To love is to will the good of the other.”

Thomas Aquinas book Summa Theologica

II-II, q. 26, art. 6
Summa Theologica (1265–1274)

Courageous , For Wife , Sad , love

“All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.”

Edgar Allan Poe book A Dream Within a Dream

"A Dream Within a Dream" (1849).
Context: You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

Dreams

“It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”

Paulo Coelho book Manuscript Found in Accra

Manuscript Found in Accra (2012), Love has always passed me by

Love , Heartbreaking , Sad , love

“Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence.”

Erich Fromm (1900–1980) German social psychologist and psychoanalyst

Relationship , Love , Problem

“Kiss me, and you will see how important I am.”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

Variant: Kiss me and you will see how important I am.
Source: The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

For Him , For Boyfriend , Kiss

“I love you not only for what you are, but for what I am when I am with you”

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861) English poet, author

For Wife , love , Good Night , Cute

“Love is a promise, love is a souvenir, once given never forgotten, never let it disappear.”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter

frequently attributed to Lennon, but entirely unsourced
Disputed

love , Relationship , Cute , Valentine's Day

“You are what you love, not what loves you.”

Charlie Kaufman (1958) American screenwriter

For women , Beauty , Sad , love

“There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends. I have no notion of loving people by halves, it is not my nature.”

Jane Austen book Northanger Abbey

Source: Northanger Abbey

love , Friendship , Relationship , Valentine's Day

“Love meant jumping off a cliff and trusting that a certain person would be there to catch you at the bottom.”

Jodi Picoult book Second Glance

Source: Second Glance

Wedding , Love , Personality

“I love you, and I will love you until I die, and if there’s a life after that, I’ll love you then.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Glass

Jace to Clary, pg. 331
Variant: There is no pretending, I love you, and I will love you until I die, and if there is life after that, I'll love you then.
Source: The Mortal Instruments, City of Glass (2009)

love , Relationship , Cute , Anniversary

“We are asleep until we fall in Love!”

Leo Tolstoy book War and Peace

Source: War and Peace

love , Relationship , Love

“There are no have-to's, just choices”

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States

Courageous , Sad , Relationship , Good Morning

“No matter where you go, there you are”

Yogi Berra (1925–2015) American baseball player, manager, coach

Source: When You Come to a Fork in the Road, Take It!: Inspiration and Wisdom from One of Baseball's Greatest Heroes

For women , Deep , Happy , For Team

“We’re all a little weird. And life is a little weird. And when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall into mutually satisfying weirdness—and call it love—true love.”

Robert Fulghum (1937) American writer

Variant: You want my opinion? We're all a little weird. And life is a little weird. And when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall into mutually satisfying weirdness — and call it love — true love.
Source: True Love (1998)

love , Wise , Relationship , Cute

“Love has nothing to do with what you are expecting to get - only with what you are expecting to give - which is everything”

Katharine Hepburn (1907–2003) film, stage, and television actress

Source: Me: Stories of My Life

For Wife , love , Relationship , Cute

“Without love, there's nothing without love.”

Jon Bon Jovi (1962) American singer and musician

Without Love
Music, Slippery When Wet (1986)

For Wife , love , Hope , Cute

“Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. ”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) British poet laureate

Heartbreaking , love , Wise , Hurtful

“All you need is love. But a little chocolate now and then doesn’t hurt.”

Charles M. Schulz (1922–2000) American cartoonist

love , Funny , Positive , Relationship

“The heart has its reasons which reason knows not of.”

Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer, and Christian philosopher

Heart , love , Cute , Valentine's Day

“If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day so I never have to live without you.”

A.A. Milne (1882–1956) British author

For Wife , love , Friendship , Relationship

“Before you marry a person you should first make them use a computer with slow internet to see who they really are.”

Will Ferrell (1967) American actor, writer, and comedian

Personality , Funny , love , Happy

“There is, in the end, the letting go.”

Marya Hornbacher book Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia

Source: Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia

Sad , love , Wise , Heartbreaking

“The best love is the kind that awakens the soul and makes us reach for more, that plants a fire in our hearts and brings peace to our minds.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Notebook

Source: The Notebook

love , Relationship , Good Night , Good Morning

“Doubt thou the stars are fire;
Doubt that the sun doth move;
Doubt truth to be a liar;
But never doubt I love.”

William Shakespeare Hamlet

Variant: Doubt thou the stars are fire
Doubt thou the sun doth move
Doubt truth to be a liar
But never doubt I love
Source: Hamlet

love , Valentine's Day , Wedding , For Him

“Women are meant to be loved, not to be understood.”

Oscar Wilde book Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories

Source: Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories

love , Cute , For Her , Love

“Anyone can love a thing. That's as easy as putting a penny in your pocket.
But to love something. To know the flaws and love them too. That is rare and pure and perfect.”

Patrick Rothfuss book The Wise Man's Fear

Source: The Wise Man's Fear (2011)
Context: We love what we love. Reason does not enter into it. In many ways, unwise love is the truest love. Anyone can love a thing because. That's as easy as putting a penny in your pocket. But to love something despite. To know the flaws and love them too. That is rare and pure and perfect.

Relationship , Love , Perfection

“If you are not long, I will wait for you all my life.”

Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest

Gwendolen, Act III.
The Importance of Being Earnest (1895)
Variant: If you are not too long, I will wait here for you all my life.

For Her , Life , Waiting

“The real lover is the man who can thrill you by kissing your forehead or smiling into your eyes or just staring into space.”

Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962) American actress, model, and singer

love , Cute , Heart Touching , Valentine's Day

“Never love anyone who treats you like you're ordinary.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

love , Valentine's Day , Love

“I love her and that's the beginning of everything…”

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) American novelist and screenwriter

Variant: I love her, and that's the beginning and end of everything.
Source: Dear Scott, Dearest Zelda: The Love Letters of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald

love , Relationship , Cute , Valentine's Day

“The reason it hurts so much to separate is because our souls are connected.”

Nicholas Sparks (1965) American writer and novelist

Sad , Heartbreaking , Hurtful , Missing You

“I have loved another with all my heart, and for me that has always been enough.”

Nicholas Sparks (1965) American writer and novelist

Love , Heart

“My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
My love as deep; the more I give to thee,
The more I have, for both are infinite.”

William Shakespeare book Romeo and Juliet

Source: Romeo and Juliet

love , Wedding , Love , Sea

“Love is when the other person's happiness is more important than your own.”

H. Jackson Brown, Jr. (1940) American writer

love , Happy , Relationship , Cute

“Love is the condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Stranger in a Strange Land

"Jubal Harshaw" in the first edition (1961); the later 1991 "Uncut" edition didn't have this line, because it was one Heinlein had added when he went through and trimmed the originally submitted manuscript on which the "Uncut" edition is based. Heinlein also later used a variant of this in The Cat Who Walks Through Walls where he has Xia quote Harshaw: "Dr. Harshaw says that 'the word "love" designates a subjective condition in which the welfare and happiness of another person are essential to one's own happiness.'"
Source: Stranger in a Strange Land (1961; 1991)

love , Wise , Happy , Relationship

“There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

love , Relationship , Cute , Valentine's Day

“You are -- your life, and nothing else.”

Jean Paul Sartre No Exit

Source: No Exit

love , Hurtful , Relationship , Cute

“I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;”

Pablo Neruda (1904–1973) Chilean poet

Source: 100 Love Sonnets

love , Relationship , Cute , Anniversary

“We love the things we love for what they are.”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

"Hyla Brook" (1920)
1920s

love , Relationship , Cute , For Her

“We are each of us angels with only one wing, and we can only fly by embracing one another.”

Luciano De Crescenzo (1928–2019) Italian writer

Flying , Angels

“Ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.”

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) English playwright and poet

Heartbreaking , Hurtful , Missing You , Relationship

“You know what charm is: a way of getting the answer 'yes' without having asked any clear question.”

Albert Camus book The Fall

The Fall (1956)

Way , Question

“The greatest thing you'll ever learn
Is just to love and be loved in return.”

Eden ahbez (1908–1995) American songwriter and recording artist

"Nature Boy" (1948)
The greatest thing you'll ever learn is to love and be loved, just to love and be loved.
His assertion to Joe Romersa, of how his lyrics should be corrected, saying that "To be loved in return, is too much of a deal, and that has nothing to do with love."
Context: While we spoke of many things
Fools and kings
This he said to me:
"The greatest thing you'll ever learn
Is just to love and be loved in return."

love , Happy , Relationship , Love

“Love life more than the meaning of it.”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky book Los hermanos Karamazov

Source: The Brothers Karamazov (Bratři Karamazovi)

For Wife , love , For Her , For Him

“Let us be grateful to people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.”

Marcel Proust (1871–1922) French novelist, critic, and essayist

Soul , Happiness , People , Happy

“When love is not madness it is not love.”

Pedro Calderón de la Barca (1600–1681) Spanish dramatist

Love , Madness , For Wife , love

“The giving of love is an education in itself.”

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States

love , Cute , Valentine's Day , Wedding

“Love is a choice you make from moment to moment.”

Barbara De Angelis (1951) American psychologist

love , Cute , For Her , Love

“If music be the food of love, play on.”

William Shakespeare Twelfth Night

Orsino, Act I, scene i.
Variant: Music, moody food
Of us that trade in love.
Source: Twelfth Night (1601)

Wedding , For Him , For Boyfriend , Love

“You never lose by loving, you lose by holding back.”

Barbara De Angelis (1951) American psychologist

Variant: You never lose by loving. You always lose by holding back.
Source: Chicken Soup for the Couple's Soul

love , For women , Relationship , Cute

“Love involves a peculiar unfathomable combination of understanding and misunderstanding”

Diane Arbus (1923–1971) American photographer and author

Variant: Love involves a peculiar unfathomable combination of understanding and misunderstanding.

Relationship , Love , Understanding

“You can't force love, I realized. It's there or it isn't. If it's not there, you've got to be able to admit it. If it is there, you've got to do whatever it takes to protect the ones you love.”

Richelle Mead book Frostbite

Source: Frostbite

Love

“Pleasure of love lasts but a moment, Pain of love lasts a lifetime.”

Bette Davis (1908–1989) film and television actress from the United States

Heartbreaking , Sad , love , Cute

“Love is never lost. If not reciprocated, it will flow back and soften and purify the heart.”

Washington Irving (1783–1859) writer, historian and diplomat from the United States

Attributed to Irving as early as 1883. [Hit and miss : a story of real life, Angie Stewart, Manly, Chicago, J.L. Regan, 1883, i, http://hdl.handle.net/2027/osu.32435018229575?urlappend=%3Bseq=7] However, it does not seem to appear in Irving's known works. Other citations from the same year leave the quotation unattributed. [Henry S. (ed.), Clubb, The Peacemaker and Court of Arbitration, Volume 1, Universal Peace Union, 1883, 125, Philadelphia, https://books.google.com/books?id=Uu84AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA125] [The Australian Women's Magazine and Domestic Journal, Vol. 2 No. 2 (May 1883), 1883, Melbourne, 435, https://books.google.com/books?id=mq0sAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA435]. A similar passage is found in a pseudonymous novel published two years earlier in 1881: "Julia knew that sacrifices to patience are not in vain. Although they often do not produce the happiness for which they are made, they will, always, flow back and soften and purify the heart of the one who makes them". [Illma, Or, Which was Wife?, Miss, M.L.A., Cornwell & Johnson, 1881, 239, New York, http://hdl.handle.net/2027/osu.32435017658592?urlappend=%3Bseq=245]
Disputed

Heartbreaking , love , Relationship , Cute