Romantic quotes
page 2

Nicholas Sparks photo
John Keats photo

“Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard, are sweeter”

John Keats Ode on a Grecian Urn

Stanza 2
Poems (1820), Ode on a Grecian Urn
Variant: Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on.
Source: Ode on a Grecian Urn and Other Poems
Context: Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter: therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear’d,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone.
Context: Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter: therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear’d,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone.
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal — yet, do not grieve;
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

Nicholas Sparks photo
Nicholas Sparks photo

“Every great love starts with a great story…”

Nicholas Sparks book The Notebook

Source: The Notebook

Paulo Coelho photo
Judy Garland photo
Robert Frost photo

“Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired.”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

As quoted in a review of A Swinger of Birches (1957) by Sydney Cox in Vermont History, Vol. 25 (1957), p. 355
1950s

Hunter S. Thompson photo

“As you were, I was. As I am, you will be.”

Hunter S. Thompson (1937–2005) American journalist and author

Source: Hell's Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga

Bob Marley photo
Lenny Bruce photo
Joan Crawford photo

“Love is a fire. But whether it is going to warm your hearth or burn down your house, you can never tell.”

Joan Crawford (1904–1977) American actress

Interview, Hollywood Reporter (1954)

Haruki Murakami photo
Maya Angelou photo

“Love is like a virus. It can happen to anybody at any time.”

Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet

Variant: Love is like a virus. It can happen to anybody at any time.

Edward Thomas photo

“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.

Benjamin Disraeli photo
Borís Pasternak photo
Cassandra Clare photo
Helen Keller photo

“Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.”

Helen Keller (1880–1968) American author and political activist

"Helen and Teacher: The Story of Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan Macy", Joseph P. Lash (1980) http://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/04/21/together/

A.A. Milne photo

“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

Martin Luther King, Jr. photo

“I have decided to stick to love… Hate is too great a burden to bear.”

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

Source: A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches

Elizabeth Gilbert photo
Oscar Wilde photo

“The very essence of romance is uncertainty.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

Variant: The very essence of romance is uncertainty.
Source: The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays

Arthur Conan Doyle photo
Fernando Pessoa photo

“That's not my love; that's just your life.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Ibid.
The Book of Disquiet
Original: Isso não é o meu amor; é apenas a sua vida.

Common (rapper) photo

“Granted we known each other for some time
but it don't take a whole day to recognize sunshine”

Common (rapper) (1972) American rapper, actor and author from Illinois

"The Light" (Track 7)
Albums, Like Water for Chocolate (2000)

Bram van Velde photo

“The important thing is to be nothing.”

Bram van Velde (1895–1981) Dutch painter

1960's, Conversations with Samuel Beckett and Bram van Velde' (1965 - 1969)

“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

Diana, Princess of Wales photo

“If you find someone you love in your life, then hang on to that love.”

Diana, Princess of Wales (1961–1997) First wife of Charles, Prince of Wales

"Princess Diana: 10 most inspiring quotes from the 'people's princess'", Hello Magazine, Daily News (1 July 2015)

Sophocles photo

“One word
Frees us of all the weight and pain of life:
That word is love.”

Sophocles Oedipus at Colonus

Source: Oedipus at Colonus, Line 1616–18

Florbela Espanca photo

“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?

Axel Munthe photo

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

Axel Munthe (1857–1949) Swedish physician

Source: supanet.com/find/famous-quotes-by/axel-munthe/a-man-can-stand-a-lot-as-fqb50991/

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry photo
John Keats photo
Nicholas Sparks photo

“If we'd never met, I think I would have known my life wasn't complete. And I would have wandered the world in search of you, even if I didn't know who I was looking for”

Nicholas Sparks book The Longest Ride

Variant: If we'd never met, I think I would have known my life wasn't complete. And I would have wandered the world in search of you, even if I didn't know who I was looking for.
Source: The Longest Ride

Drew Barrymore photo

“Kisses, even to the air, are beautiful.”

Drew Barrymore (1975) American actress, director and producer

Elizabeth Barrett Browning photo

“I love thee to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach.”

Elizabeth Barrett Browning book Sonnets from the Portuguese

No. LXIII
Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850)
Variant: How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach
Context: How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
Context: How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints,—I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! —and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

Charles Kingsley photo
Paul McCartney photo

“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

Jane Austen photo
E.E. Cummings photo
Jane Austen photo

“In vain have I struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.”

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

Victor Hugo photo

“To love or have loved, that is enough. Ask nothing further. There is no other pearl to be found in the dark folds of life.”

Victor Hugo book Les Misérables

Variant: To love or have loved is all-sufficing. We must not ask for more. No other pearl is to be found in the shadowfolds of life. To love is an accomplishment.
Source: Les Misérables

Patrick Rothfuss photo
Dylan Thomas photo

“Though lovers be lost, love shall not; And death shall have no dominion.”

Dylan Thomas (1914–1953) Welsh poet and writer

Variant: Though lovers be lost love shall not.

Agatha Christie photo

“It is a curious thought, but it is only when you see people looking ridiculous that you realize just how much you love them.”

Agatha Christie (1890–1976) English mystery and detective writer

Source: An Autobiography

E.E. Cummings photo

“You are my sun,
my moon, and
all my stars.”

E.E. Cummings (1894–1962) American poet

Variant: Yours is the light by which my spirit's born: - you are my sun, my moon, and all my stars.

Ralph Waldo Emerson photo

“We must be our own before we can be another's.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

André Breton photo

“Love is when you meet someone who tells you something new about yourself.”

André Breton (1896–1966) French writer

Source: Mad Love

George Harrison photo

“With our love, we could save the world.”

George Harrison (1943–2001) British musician, former member of the Beatles

Maya Angelou photo
Toni Morrison photo
Charlie Chaplin photo
Jenny Han photo

“It's not like in the movies. It's better, because it's real.”

Jenny Han book To All the Boys I've Loved Before

Source: To All the Boys I've Loved Before

“You can be right or you can be happy.”

Gerald G. Jampolsky (1925) American writer and psychiatrist

Source: Love Is Letting Go of Fear

Elizabeth Gilbert photo
Jane Austen photo
Suzanne Collins photo
Ani DiFranco photo

“I know there is strength in the differences between us,
And I know there is comfort where we overlap.”

Ani DiFranco (1970) musician and activist

Overlap
Song lyrics

Christopher Marlowe photo

“Come live with me and be my Love,
And we will all the pleasures prove”

Christopher Marlowe (1564–1593) English dramatist, poet and translator

Source: The Complete Plays and Poems

Henry David Thoreau photo
F. Scott Fitzgerald photo

“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

Elizabeth Barrett Browning photo

“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.”

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

Source: Selected Poems

Mitch Albom photo
Ann Brashares photo

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

Ann Brashares book Sisterhood Everlasting

Gwendolen, Act III
The Importance of Being Earnest (1895)
Source: Sisterhood Everlasting

Jane Austen photo
Richelle Mead photo
Anaïs Nin photo
William Goldman photo
Margaret Mitchell photo

“You should be kissed and often, by someone who knows how.”

Margaret Mitchell book Vom Winde verweht (1937 German edition)

Variant: You should be kissed and by someone who knows how.
Source: Gone with the Wind

Nicholas Sparks photo
Nicholas Sparks photo
Nicholas Sparks photo
Diana Gabaldon photo
Baz Luhrmann photo

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

Baz Luhrmann (1962) Australian film director, screenwriter and producer

Source: Moulin Rouge!: The Splendid Book That Charts the Journey of Baz Luhrmann's Motion Picture

Carl Sagan photo

“For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love.”

Carl Sagan book Contact

Source: Contact (1985), Chapter 24 (p. 430)

Percy Bysshe Shelley photo

“Familiar acts are beautiful through love.”

Percy Bysshe Shelley Prometheus Unbound

The Earth, Act IV, l. 403
Prometheus Unbound (1818–1819; publ. 1820)

Elizabeth Gilbert photo

“People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that's what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that is holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life.”

Elizabeth Gilbert book Eat, Pray, Love

Source: Eat, Pray, Love (2006)
Context: People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that's what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that is holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life.
A true soul mate is probably the most important person you'll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever? Nah. Too painful. Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then leave.
A soul mates purpose is to shake you up, tear apart your ego a little bit, show you your obstacles and addictions, break your heart open so new light can get in, make you so desperate and out of control that you have to transform your life, then introduce you to your spiritual master…

François Lelord photo

“Happiness is feeling useful to others.”

François Lelord book Hector and the Search for Happiness

Source: Hector and the Search for Happiness