Quotes about lover (1001 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

“That apartment was everything those two lovers needed, locked up by their own will in a space and time, paradoxically, of absolute freedom.”

José Baroja book El curioso caso de la sombra que murió como un recuerdo y otros cuentos

Time , Freedom , Lovers

“This is how, without the consent of the two lovers, of its two main characters, of the only ones who were originally worth anything in this short story, the narrator decided to incorporate two more words into the plot: “doubt” and “uncertainty.””

José Baroja book El curioso caso de la sombra que murió como un recuerdo y otros cuentos

Lovers

“This life is what you make it. No matter what, you're going to mess up sometimes, it's a universal truth. But the good part is you get to decide how you're going to mess it up. Girls will be your friends - they'll act like it anyway. But just remember, some come, some go. The ones that stay with you through everything - they're your true best friends. Don't let go of them. Also remember, sisters make the best friends in the world. As for lovers, well, they'll come and go too. And baby, I hate to say it, most of them - actually pretty much all of them are going to break your heart, but you can't give up because if you give up, you'll never find your soulmate. You'll never find that half who makes you whole and that goes for everything. Just because you fail once, doesn't mean you're gonna fail at everything. Keep trying, hold on, and always, always, always believe in yourself, because if you don't, then who will, sweetie? So keep your head high, keep your chin up, and most importantly, keep smiling, because life's a beautiful thing and there's so much to smile about.”

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

Heartbreaking , Inspirational , love , Life

“Take a lover who looks at you like maybe you are magic.”

Frida Kahlo (1907–1954) Mexican painter

Variant: Take a lover who looks at you like maybe you are a bourbon biscuit.

Relationship , Wedding , Lovers

“Our love affair ended in tears but a deep bond grew out of it, and that's something nobody can take away from us. It's unreachable … All my lovers ask me why they can't replace her, but it's simply impossible.
I don't feel jealous of her lovers because. of course, she has a life to lead, and so do I. Basically, I try to make sure she's happy with whoever she's with and she tries to do the same for me.
We look after each other and that's a wonderful form of love. I might have all the problems in the world, but I have Mary and that gets me through.”

Freddie Mercury (1946–1991) British singer, songwriter and record producer

On his relationship with Mary Austin, as quoted in "Rock On Freddie" (1985).

Happiness , Tear , Problem , Lovers

“Those who hate to be socially involved, they are in love with their loneliness and those who feel alone in their company are the true lovers of social acceptance. Either way, life must be balanced between love and hate.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Hate , Loneliness , Lovers , Way

“Consciousness expresses itself through creation. This world we live in is the dance of the Creator. Dancers come and go in the twinkling of an eye but the dance lives on. On many an occasion when I am dancing, I have felt touched by something sacred. In those moments, I felt my spirit soar and become one with everything that exists. I become the stars and the moon. I become the lover and the beloved. I become the victor and the vanquished. I become the master and the slave. I become the singer and the song. I become the knower and the known. I keep on dancing and then, it is the eternal dance of creation. The Creator and the creation merge into one wholeness of joy. I keep on dancing — until there is only … the dance.”

Michael Jackson (1958–2009) American singer, songwriter and dancer

"The Dance" - from inlay sleeve of Dangerous (1991)

World , Star , Lovers , Joy

“Our imagination is struck only by what is great; but the lover of natural philosophy should reflect equally on little things.”

Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859) Prussian geographer, naturalist and explorer

Equinoctial Regions of America (1814-1829)

Imagination , Lovers , Nature

“Romantic love, in pornography as in life, is the mythic celebration of female negation. For a woman, love is defined as her willingness to submit to her own annihilation…. The proof of love is that she is willing to be destroyed by the one whom she loves, for his sake. For the woman, love is always self-sacrifice, the sacrifice of identity, will, and bodily integrity, in order to fulfill and redeem the masculinity of her lover.”

Andrea Dworkin (1946–2005) Feminist writer

Speech at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge (September 26, 1975). "The Root Cause", ch. 9, Our Blood (1976).

Love , Life , Lovers

“There are lots of women who are attracted to tyrannical men. Like moths to a flame. And there are some women who do not need a hero or even a stormy lover but a friend. Just remember that when you grow up. Steer clear of the tryant lovers, and try to locate the ones who are looking for a man as a friend, not because they are feeling empty themselves but because they enjoy making you full too. And remember that friendship between a woman and a man is something much more precious and rare than love: love is actually something quite gross and even clumsy compared to friendship. Friendship includes a measure of sensitivity, attentiveness, generosity, and a finely tuned sense of moderation.”

Amos Oz book A Tale of Love and Darkness

Source: A Tale of Love and Darkness

Love , Women , Men , Friendship

“incurable lover of the grotesque”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

Lovers

“What is man’s life but love, love of self;
Man is dust, dust as his passion, dust as the beloved.Death, it is your great act of piety for man –
You take him to your house or he’d be left to himself.Death is a covenant between the lover and the beloved;
Death is a secret wedlock between being and non-being.Death harbors the hidden port of life’s ocean;
Death is helpless and a vision of beauty to itself.Death is the only witness of my life and your grace,
And O strange lord, of night and the crescent.”

Ghani Khan (1914–1996) Pakistani poet

Death, st. 8-12

Love , Life , Death , Secret

“To Love is to reach God.
Never will a Lover's chest
feel any sorrow.
Never will a Lover's robe
be touched by mortals.
Never will a Lover's body
be found buried in the earth.
To Love is to reach God.”

Rumi (1207–1273) Iranian poet

Hush Don't Say Anything to God (1999)

Love , God , Feeling , Lovers

“It is common opinion among us in regard to beauty and wisdom that there is an honourable and a shameful way of bestowing them. For to offer one’s beauty for money to all comers is called prostitution; but we think it virtuous to become friendly with a lover who is known to be a man of honour. So is it with wisdom. Those who offer it to all comers for money are known as sophists, prostitutors of wisdom.”

Xenophon (-430–-354 BC) ancient Greek historian and philosopher

Words spoken by Socrates to Antiphon in Memorabilia, 1.6.11.

Wisdom , Money , Beauty , Way

“Why do you sow where the field is eager to destroy the fruit? Where there are medicines of sterility? Where there is murder before birth? You do not even let a harlot remain a harlot, but you make her a murderess as well. Do you see that from drunkenness comes fornication, from fornication adultery, from adultery murder? Indeed, it is something worse than murder and I do not know what to call it; for she does not kill what is formed but prevents its formation. What then? Do you contemn the gift of God, and fight with His laws? What is a curse, do you seek as though it were a blessing? Do you make the anteroom of birth the anteroom of slaughter? Do you teach the woman who is given to you for the procreation of offspring to perpetrate killing? That she may always be beautiful and lovable to her lovers, and that she may rake in more money, she does not refuse to do this, heaping fire on your head; and even if the crime is hers, you are the cause. Hence also arise idolatries. To look pretty many of these women use incantations, libations, philtres, potions, and innumerable other things. Yet after such turpitude, after murder, after idolatry, the matter still seems indifferent to many men–even to many men having wives. In this indifference of the married men there is greater evil filth; for then poisons are prepared, not against the womb of a prostitute, but against your injured wife. Against her are these innumerable tricks, invocations of demons, incantations of the dead, daily wars, ceaseless battles, and unremitting contentions.”

John Chrysostom (349–407) important Early Church Father

St. John Chrysostom, Homily 24 on the Epistle to the Romans [PG 60:626-27] https://www.patheos.com/blogs/davearmstrong/2017/10/contraception-early-church-teaching-william-klimon.html

Money , God , Law , Dead

“All my lovers asked me why they couldn't replace Mary, but it's simply impossible. The only friend I've got is Mary and I don't want anybody else. To me, she was my common-law wife. To me, it was a marriage. We believe in each other, that's enough for me.”

Freddie Mercury (1946–1991) British singer, songwriter and record producer

On Mary Austin, a long time companion, and the inheritor of most of his estate, as quoted in "For A Song : The Mercury that's rising in rock is Freddie the satiny seductor of Queen" by Fred Hauptfuhrer, in People magazine (5 December 1977) http://www.queenarchives.com/index.php?title=Group_-_12-05-1977_-_People

Marriage , Law , Lovers

“True love is so strong and at the same time confusing to understand—Perhaps, the force that move the planets is the same force that moves two lovers. Only God knows!”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

God , Time , Understanding , Strong

“Call on Me…
Call on Me..
Call on Me.

I am the Lover you dreamt about in your Angel filled Dreams.

I have sat awaiting your love for an eternity.

Please do not shun Me for I shall die.

My entire existance is the pure essence of You, My dear.

How you have entrapped Me like a Siren.

If I had known what I know now..

If only I had known what I know now.

I do not wish to exhibit My Undying Love for You, My dear.

However it is completely Transparent.

Awaken

and see me.

I am your Destiny.”

Stephie Pahlavi Zan

Lovers , Dreams , Angels , Love

“I begin to long for some little language such as lovers use, broken words, inarticulate words, like the shuffling of feet on pavement.”

Virginia Woolf book The Waves

Source: The Waves

Lovers

“A wise lover values not so much the gift of the lover as the love of the giver.”

Thomas à Kempis book The Imitation of Christ

Source: The Imitation of Christ

Love , Lovers

“Jesus has now many lovers of the heavenly kingdom but few bearers of His cross.”

Thomas à Kempis (1380–1471) German canon regular

Source: Imitation Of Christ

Lovers

“The role of the artist is exactly the same as the role of the lover. If I love you, I have to make you conscious of the things you don’t see.”

James Baldwin (1924–1987) (1924-1987) writer from the United States

Love , Lovers

“The flower bloomed and faded. The sun rose and sank. The lover loved and went. And what the poets said in rhyme, the young translated into practice.”

Virginia Woolf book Orlando: A Biography

Source: Orlando

Love , Flowers , Lovers , Sun

“And you wish to be a poet; and you wish to be a lover.”

Virginia Woolf book The Waves

Source: The Waves

Lovers

“I was a rebellious child, a rebellious lover, a rebellious couturière — a real devil.”

Coco Chanel (1883–1971) French fashion designer

As quoted in Paris, Paris : Journey Into the City of Light‎ (2005) by David Downie, p. 93

Lovers

“My lover's gone off to some foreign country, sopping wet at our doorway
I watch the clouds rupture.
Mira says, nothing can harm him.
This passion has yet to be slaked.”

Meera Bai Hindu mystic poet

Mīrābāī, in For love of the Dark One: songs of Mirabai http://books.google.co.in/books?id=oLFjAAAAMAAJ, p. 55

Lovers , Passion , Country

“One day, to pass the time away, we read
of Lancelot—how love had overcome him.
We were alone, and we suspected nothing.
And time and time again that reading led
our eyes to meet, and made our faces pale,
and yet one point alone defeated us.
When we had read how the desired smile
was kissed by one who was so true a lover,
this one, who never shall be parted from me,
while all his body trembled, kissed my mouth.
A Gallehault indeed, that book and he
who wrote it, too; that day we read no more.”

Dante Alighieri book Inferno

Canto V, lines 127–138 (tr. Mandelbaum).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Inferno

Love , Books , Smile , Lovers

“Billie Jean is not my lover,
She's just a girl who claims that I am the one,
But the kid is not my son.”

Michael Jackson (1958–2009) American singer, songwriter and dancer

Billie Jean
Thriller (1982)

Girl , Lovers

“Being a lover of freedom, when the revolution came in Germany, I looked to the universities to defend it, knowing that they had always boasted of their devotion to the cause of truth; but, no, the universities immediately were silenced. Then I looked to the great editors of the newspapers whose flaming editorials in days gone by had proclaimed their love of freedom; but they, like the universities, were silenced in a few short weeks. Then I looked to individual writers who, as literary guides of Germany, had written much and often concerning the place of freedom in modern life; but they, too, were mute.Only the church stood squarely across the path of Hitler's campaign for suppressing truth. I never had any special interest in the church before, but now I feel a great affection and admiration because the church alone has had the courage and persistence to stand for intellectual truth and moral freedom. I am forced thus to confess that what I once despised I now praise unreservedly.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Attributed in “The Conflict Between Church And State In The Third Reich”, by S. Parkes Cadman, La Crosse Tribune and Leader-Press (28 October 1934), viewable online on p. 9 of the issue here http://newspaperarchive.com/us/wisconsin/la-crosse/la-crosse-tribune-and-leader-press/1934/10-28/ (double-click the page to zoom). The quote is preceded by “In this connection it is worth quoting in free translation a statement made by Professor Einstein last year to one of my colleagues who has been prominently identified with the Protestant church in its contacts with Germany.” [Emphasis added.] While based on something that Einstein said, Einstein himself stated that the quote was not an accurate record of his words or opinion. After the quote appeared in Time magazine (23 December 1940), p. 38 http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,765103,00.html, a minister in Harbor Springs, Michigan wrote to Einstein to check if the quote was real. Einstein wrote back “It is true that I made a statement which corresponds approximately with the text you quoted. I made this statement during the first years of the Nazi-Regime — much earlier than 1940 — and my expressions were a little more moderate.” (March 1943) http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/roadshow/archive/200706A19.html
In a later letter to Rev. Cornelius Greenway of Brooklyn, who asked if Einstein would write out the statement in his own hand, Einstein was more vehement in his repudiation of the statement (14 November 1950) http://books.google.com/books?id=T5R7JsRRtoIC&pg=PA94: <blockquote><p>The wording of the statement you have quoted is not my own. Shortly after Hitler came to power in Germany I had an oral conversation with a newspaper man about these matters. Since then my remarks have been elaborated and exaggerated nearly beyond recognition. I cannot in good conscience write down the statement you sent me as my own.</p><p> The matter is all the more embarrassing to me because I, like yourself, I am predominantly critical concerning the activities, and especially the political activities, through history of the official clergy. Thus, my former statement, even if reduced to my actual words (which I do not remember in detail) gives a wrong impression of my general attitude.</p></blockquote>
: In his original statement Einstein was probably referring to the actions of the Emergency Covenant of Pastors organized by Martin Niemöller, and the Confessing Church which he and other prominent churchmen such as Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer established in opposition to Nazi policies.
: Einstein also made some scathingly negative comments about the behavior of the Church under the Nazi regime (and its behavior towards Jews throughout history) in a 1943 conversation with William Hermanns recorded in Hermanns' book Einstein and the Poet (1983). On p. 63 http://books.google.com/books?id=QXCyjj6T5ZUC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA63#v=onepage&q&f=false Hermanns records him saying "Never in history has violence been so widespread as in Nazi Germany. The concentration camps make the actions of Ghengis Khan look like child's play. But what makes me shudder is that the Church is silent. One doesn't need to be a prophet to say, 'The Catholic Church will pay for this silence.' Dr. Hermanns, you will live to see that there is moral law in the universe. . . .There are cosmic laws, Dr. Hermanns. They cannot be bribed by prayers or incense. What an insult to the principles of creation. But remember, that for God a thousand years is a day. This power maneuver of the Church, these Concordats through the centuries with worldly powers . . . the Church has to pay for it. We live now in a scientific age and in a psychological age. You are a sociologist, aren't you? You know what the Herdenmenschen (men of herd mentality) can do when they are organized and have a leader, especially if he is a spokesmen for the Church. I do not say that the unspeakable crimes of the Church for 2000 years had always the blessings of the Vatican, but it vaccinated its believers with the idea: We have the true God, and the Jews have crucified Him. The Church sowed hate instead of love, though the Ten Commandments state: Thou shalt not kill." And then on p. 64 http://books.google.com/books?id=QXCyjj6T5ZUC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA64#v=onepage&q&f=false: "I'm not a Communist but I can well understand why they destroyed the Church in Russia. All the wrongs come home, as the proverb says. The Church will pay for its dealings with Hitler, and Germany, too." And on p. 65 http://books.google.com/books?id=QXCyjj6T5ZUC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA65#v=onepage&q&f=false: "I don't like to implant in youth the Church's doctrine of a personal God, because that Church has behaved so inhumanely in the past 2000 years. The fear of punishment makes the people march. Consider the hate the Church manifested against the Jews and then against the Muslims, the Crusades with their crimes, the burning stakes of the Inquisition, the tacit consent of Hitler's actions while the Jews and the Poles dug their own graves and were slaughtered. And Hitler is said to have been an alter boy! The truly religious man has no fear of life and no fear of death—and certainly no blind faith; his faith must be in his conscience. . . . I am therefore against all organized religion. Too often in history, men have followed the cry of battle rather than the cry of truth." When Hermanns asked him "Isn't it only human to move along the line of least resistance?", Einstein responded "Yes. It is indeed human, as proved by Cardinal Pacelli, who was behind the Concordat with Hitler. Since when can one make a pact with Christ and Satan at the same time? And he is now the Pope! The moment I hear the word 'religion', my hair stands on end. The Church has always sold itself to those in power, and agreed to any bargain in return for immunity. It would have been fine if the spirit of religion had guided the Church; instead, the Church determined the spirit of religion. Churchmen through the ages have fought political and institutional corruption very little, so long as their own sanctity and church property were preserved."
Misattributed

Love , Life , Truth , Feeling

“Hay smells different to lovers and horses.”

Stanisław Jerzy Lec book Unkempt Thoughts

p, 125
Unkempt Thoughts (1957)

Lovers , Horse

“Music has been my outlet, my gift to all of the lovers in this world. Through it — my music, I know I will live forever.”

Michael Jackson (1958–2009) American singer, songwriter and dancer

On his musical work
Ebony interview (2007)

World , Music , Lovers

“It is only if everyone becomes a vegetarian that reincarnation becomes possible and acceptable. Otherwise, steak lovers cannot be trusted with those who reincarnate as animals.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Animals , Lovers

“Animal lovers are a special breed of humans, generous of spirit, full of empathy, perhaps a little prone to sentimentality, and with hearts as big as a cloudless sky”

John Grogan (1958) American journalist

Source: Marley & Me: Life and Love with the World's Worst Dog

Lovers , Heart , Animals

“If a society permits one portion of its citizenry to be menaced or destroyed, then, very soon, no one in that society is safe. The forces thus released in the people can never be held in check, but run their devouring course, destroying the very foundations which it was imagined they would save.

But we are unbelievably ignorant concerning what goes on in our country--to say nothing of what goes on in the rest of the world--and appear to have become too timid to question what we are told. Our failure to trust one another deeply enough to be able to talk to one another has become so great that people with these questions in their hearts do not speak them; our opulence is so pervasive that people who are afraid to lose whatever they think they have persuade themselves of the truth of a lie, and help disseminate it; and God help the innocent here, that man or womn who simply wants to love, and be loved. Unless this would-be lover is able to replace his or her backbone with a steel rod, he or she is doomed. This is no place for love. I know that I am now expected to make a bow in the direction of those millions of unremarked, happy marriages all over America, but I am unable honestly to do so because I find nothing whatever in our moral and social climate--and I am now thinking particularly of the state of our children--to bear witness to their existence. I suspect that when we refer to these happy and so marvelously invisible people, we are simply being nostalgic concerning the happy, simple, God-fearing life which we imagine ourselves once to have lived. In any case, wherever love is found, it unfailingly makes itself felt in the individual, the personal authority of the individual. Judged by this standard, we are a loveless nation. The best that can be said is that some of us are struggling. And what we are struggling against is that death in the heart which leads not only to the shedding of blood, but which reduces human beings to corpses while they live.”

James Baldwin (1924–1987) (1924-1987) writer from the United States

Source: nothing personal

Love , Life , Death , God

“She is so naked and singular
She is the sum of yourself and your dream.
Climb her like a monument, step after step.
She is solid.
As for me, I am a watercolor.
I wash off.

(For My Lover, Returning To His Wife)”

Anne Sexton (1928–1974) poet from the United States

Source: Selected Poems

Dreams , Lovers

“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 , Romantic

“Another lover hits the universe. The circle is broken. But with death comes rebirth. And like all lovers and sad people, I am a poet.”

Allen Ginsberg (1926–1997) American poet

Death , People , Sadness , Lovers

“I believe that love--not imitation--is the sincerest form of flattery. Your imitator thinks that you can be duplicated; your lover knows you can't.”

Marilyn vos Savant (1946) US American magazine columnist, author and lecturer

Love , Lovers , Thinking

“lovers alone wear sunlight”

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

91
95 poems (1958)

Lovers

“I have loved in life and I have been loved.
I have drunk the bowl of poison from the hands of love as nectar,
and have been raised above life's joy and sorrow.
My heart, aflame in love, set afire every heart that came in touch with it.
My heart has been rent and joined again;
My heart has been broken and again made whole;
My heart has been wounded and healed again;
A thousand deaths my heart has died, and thanks be to love, it lives yet.
I went through hell and saw there love's raging fire,
and I entered heaven illumined with the light of love.
I wept in love and made all weep with me;
I mourned in love and pierced the hearts of men;
And when my fiery glance fell on the rocks, the rocks burst forth as volcanoes.
The whole world sank in the flood caused by my one tear;
With my deep sigh the earth trembled, and when I cried aloud the name of my beloved,
I shook the throne of God in heaven.
I bowed my head low in humility, and on my knees I begged of love,
"Disclose to me, I pray thee, O love, thy secret."
She took me gently by my arms and lifted me above the earth, and spoke softly in my ear,
"My dear one, thou thyself art love, art lover,
and thyself art the beloved whom thou hast adored.”

Hazrat Inayat Khan (1882–1927) Indian Sufi

Source: The Dance of the Soul

Love , Life , Death , Men

“my kingdom for a kiss upon your shoulder"
lover you should have come over-”

Jeff Buckley (1966–1997) American singer, guitarist and songwriter

Lovers , Kiss

“Anni, amori e bicchieri di vino, nun se contano mai.”’ ‘“Years, lovers and glasses of wine; these things must not be counted.”

Anthony Capella (1962) British writer

Source: The Food of Love

Lovers , Wine

“I'm awaiting a lover. I have to be rent and pulled apart and live according to the demons and the imagination in me. I'm restless. Things are calling me away. My hair is being pulled by the stars again.”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

Source: Fire: From A Journal of Love - The Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin

Imagination , Star , Lovers

“In this present life, I reckon that we make the nearest approach to knowledge when we have the least possible concern or interest in the body, and are not saturated with the bodily nature, but remain pure until the hour when God himself is pleased to release us. And then the foolishness of the body will be cleared away and we shall be pure and hold converse with othe pure souls, and know of ourselves the clear light everywhere; and this is surely the light of truth. For no impure thing is allowed to approach the pure. These are the sort of words, Simmias, which the true lovers of wisdom cannot help saying to one another, and thinking.”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

Plato, Phaedo

Life , Wisdom , God , Truth

“So it's gonna be forever
Or it's gonna go down in flames.
You can tell me when it's over
If the high was worth the pain.
Got a long list of ex-lovers,
They'll tell you I'm insane.
'Cause you know I love the players,
And you love the game.”

Taylor Swift (1989) American singer-songwriter

Blank Space
Song lyrics, 1989 (2014)

Love , Pain , Game , Lovers

“You whisper, "You have loved enough,
Now let me be the Lover."”

Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) Canadian poet and singer-songwriter

"You Have Loved Enough"
Ten New Songs (2001)

Love , Lovers

“Whatever things may be done by one of the lovers to the other, the same should be returned by the other, if she strikes him he should also strike her in return.”

Vātsyāyana book Kama Sutra

Source: Kama Sutra, p. 29

Lovers

“I think the essence of romantic love for women is being the special one, and that's an absolutely terrible trap. If the lover treats certain other people badly, you will be treated that badly, too.”

Andrea Dworkin (1946–2005) Feminist writer

Norah Vincent, Sex, Love and Politics: Andrea Dworkin, in New York Press, vol. 11, no. 5, Feb. 4–10, 1998, p. 40, col. 4 (main title and subtitle may have been in either order, per id., p. [1]).

Love , Women , People , Lovers

“He who is a philosopher or lover of learning, and is entirely pure at departing, is alone permitted to reach the gods. And this is the reason, Simmias and Cebes, why the true votaries of philosophy abstain from all fleshly lusts, and endure and refuse to give themselves up to them—not because they fear poverty or ruin of their families, like the lovers of money, and the world in general; nor like the lovers of power and honor, because they dread the dishonor or disgrace of evil deeds.”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

Plato, Phaedo

Money , God , World , Fear

“And you kissed me
shy as though I'd
never been your lover”

Leonard Cohen book The Spice-Box of Earth

"Song", The Spice-Box of Earth (1961)

Lovers , Kiss

“The understanding that truth is not neutral, but is instead blissful, is something only meditators and lovers trust.”

Lama Ole Nydahl (1941) Danish lama

Buddha & Love: Timeless Wisdom for Modern Relationships (2012)

Truth , Lovers , Understanding

“A jealous lover of human liberty, deeming it the absolute condition of all that we admire and respect in humanity, I reverse the phrase of Voltaire, and say that, if God really existed, it would be necessary to abolish him.”

Mikhail Bakunin book God and the State

Amoureux et jaloux de la liberté humaine, et la considérant comme la condition absolue de tout ce que nous adorons et respectons dans l'humanité, je retourne la phrase de Voltaire, et je dis : Si Dieu existait réellement, il faudrait le faire disparaître.
Source: God and the State (1871; publ. 1882), Ch. II; Variants or variant translations of this statement have also been attributed to Bakunin:
The first revolt is against the supreme tyranny of theology, of the phantom of God. As long as we have a master in heaven, we will be slaves on earth.
A boss in Heaven is the best excuse for a boss on earth, therefore If God did exist, he would have to be abolished.

God , Lovers

“Of these the first is "melting," which is opposed to freezing. For things that are frozen, are closely bound together, so as to be hard to pierce. But it belongs to love that the appetite is fitted to receive the good which is loved, inasmuch as the object loved is in the lover…Consequently the freezing or hardening of the heart is a disposition incompatible with love: while melting denotes a softening of the heart, whereby the heart shows itself to be ready for the entrance of the beloved.”

Thomas Aquinas book Summa Theologica

I-II, q. 28, art. 5
Summa Theologica (1265–1274)
Context: it is to be observed that four proximate effects may be ascribed to love: viz. melting, enjoyment, languor, and fervor. Of these the first is "melting," which is opposed to freezing. For things that are frozen, are closely bound together, so as to be hard to pierce. But it belongs to love that the appetite is fitted to receive the good which is loved, inasmuch as the object loved is in the lover... Consequently the freezing or hardening of the heart is a disposition incompatible with love: while melting denotes a softening of the heart, whereby the heart shows itself to be ready for the entrance of the beloved.

Love , Lovers , Heart

“What you most want,
what you travel around wishing to find,
lose yourself as lovers lose themselves,
and you'll be that.”

Attar of Nishapur (1145–1230) Persian Sufi poet

"Looking For Your Own Face" as translated by Coleman Barks in The Hand of Poetry: Five Mystic Poets of Persia
Context: Don't be dead or asleep or awake.
Don't be anything.
What you most want,
what you travel around wishing to find,
lose yourself as lovers lose themselves,
and you'll be that.

Travel , Lovers

“There is the heat of Love,
the pulsing rush of Longing, the lover's whisper,
irresistible—magic to make the sanest man go mad.”

Homér Iliad

XIV. 216–217 (tr. Robert Fagles).
Alexander Pope's translation:
: In this was every art, and every charm,
To win the wisest, and the coldest warm:
Fond love, the gentle vow, the gay desire,
The kind deceit, the still reviving fire,
Persuasive speech, and more persuasive sighs,
Silence that spoke, and eloquence of eyes.
Iliad (c. 750 BC)
Source: The Iliad

Love , Lovers , Madness

“Every lover is a soldier.”
Militat omnis amans

Ovid book Amores

Book I; ix, line 1
Source: Amores (Love Affairs)

Lovers

“The lunatic, the lover, and the poet, are of imagination all compact.”

William Shakespeare A Midsummer Night's Dream

Source: A Midsummer Night's Dream

Imagination , Lovers

“Every artist is an unhappy lover. And unhappy lovers want to tell their story.”

Iris Murdoch book The Black Prince

Source: The Black Prince

Lovers

“Here is the repeated image of the lover destroyed.”

Richard Siken (1967) American poet

Source: Crush

Lovers

“If any such lover be in earth which is continually kept from falling, I know it not: for it was not shewed me. But this was shewed: that in falling and in rising we are ever preciously kept in one Love.”

Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress

The Sixteenth Revelation, Chapter 82
Context: If any such lover be in earth which is continually kept from falling, I know it not: for it was not shewed me. But this was shewed: that in falling and in rising we are ever preciously kept in one Love. For in the Beholding of God we fall not, and in the beholding of self we stand not; and both these be sooth as to my sight. But the Beholding of our Lord God is the highest soothness. Then are we greatly bound to God that He willeth in this living to shew us this high soothness. And I understood that while we be in this life it is full speedful to us that we see both these at once. For the higher Beholding keepeth us in spiritual solace and true enjoying in God; that other that is the lower Beholding keepeth us in dread and maketh us ashamed of ourself. But our good Lord willeth ever that we hold us much more in the Beholding of the higher, and leave not the knowing of the lower, unto the time that we be brought up above, where we shall have our Lord Jesus unto our meed and be fulfilled of joy and bliss without end.

Love , Lovers

“Great lovers will always be unhappy, because, for them, love is of supreme importance. Consequently they demand of their beloved the same intensity of thought as they have for her, otherwise they feel betrayed.”

Cesare Pavese (1908–1950) Italian poet, novelist, literary critic, and translator

This Business of Living (1935-1950)

Love , Feeling , Lovers

“He is not a lover who does not love forever.”

Euripidés (-480–-406 BC) ancient Athenian playwright

Sad , love , Heartbreaking , Cute

“You are a lover. Borrow Cupid's wings
and soar with them above a common bound.”

William Shakespeare book Romeo and Juliet

Source: Romeo and Juliet

Lovers

“A mermaid found a swimming lad,
Picked him up for her own,
Pressed her body to his body,
Laughed; and plunging down
Forgot in cruel happiness
That even lovers drown.”

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright

Lovers , Happiness

“You study, you learn, but you guard the original naiveté. It has to be within you, as desire for drink is within the drunkard or love is within the lover.”

Henri Matisse (1869–1954) French artist

In 'Time' magazine (26 June 1950)
1950s

Love , Lovers , Drink , Study

“Anyone who falls in love is searching for missing pieces of themselves. So anyone who's in love gets sad when they think of their lover. It's like stepping back inside a room you have fond memories of, one you haven't seen in a long time. It's just a natural feeling. You're not the person who discovered that feeling, so don't go trying to patent it, okay?”

Haruki Murakami book Kafka on the Shore

Kafka on the Shore (2002)

Love , Sadness , Feeling , Search

“It is not when truth is dirty, but when it is shallow, that the lover of knowledge is reluctant to step into its waters.”

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

Truth , Lovers , Knowledge , Water

“But to die as lovers may - to die together, so that they may live together.”

J. Sheridan Le Fanu book Carmilla

Source: Carmilla

Lovers

“And therefore, — since I cannot prove a lover,
To entertain these fair well-spoken days, —
I am determined to prove a villain,
And hate the idle pleasures of these days.”

William Shakespeare Richard III

Source: Richard III

Hate , Pleasure , Lovers

“Stronger than lover's love is lover's hate. Incurable, in each, the wounds they make.”

Euripidés Medea

Source: Medea

Love , Hate , Lovers

“I want to make Romeo jealous! I want the dead lovers of the world to hear our laughter, and grow sad. I want a breath of our passion to stir their dust into consciousness, to wake their ashes into pain.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

Pain , World , Sadness , Lovers

“I love love. I love having a lover and being one. The insularity of passion. I love it. I love the way it blurs the distinction between everyone who isn't one's lover.”

Tom Stoppard The Real Thing

Source: The Real Thing

Love , Way , Lovers , Passion

“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

Relationship , Lovers , Universe

“It is my soul that calls upon my name;
How silver-sweet sound lovers' tongues by night,
like softest music to attending ears!
-Romeo”

William Shakespeare book Romeo and Juliet

Source: Romeo and Juliet

Music , Soul , Lovers , Night

“A book is really like a lover. It arranges itself in your life in a way that is beautiful.”

Maurice Sendak (1928–2012) American illustrator and writer of children's books

Life , Books , Beauty , Way

“One of the most poisonous of all Satan’s whispers is simply, “Things will never change.” That lie kills expectation, trapping our heart forever in the present. To keep desire alive and flourishing, we must renew our vision for what lies ahead. Things will not always be like this. Jesus has promised to “make all things new.” Eye has not seen, ear has not heard all that God has in store for his lovers, which does not mean “we have no clue so don’t even try to imagine,” but rather, you cannot outdream God. Desire is kept alive by imagination, the antidote to resignation. We will need imagination, which is to say, we will need hope.”

John Eldredge

Source: The Sacred Romance Drawing Closer To The Heart Of God

God , Lie , Hope , Imagination

“Be a lover of the world, it is the only way to survive in it.”

Janosch (1931) German author

World , Way , Lovers

“Love brings to light a lover's noble and hidden qualities-his rare and exceptional traits: it is thus liable to be deceptive of his normal qualities.”

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

Love , Lovers , Light

“The greatest feminists have also been the greatest lovers. I'm thinking not only of Mary Wollstonecraft and her daughter Mary Shelley, but of Anais Nin, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and of course Sappho. You cannot divide creative juices from human juices. And as long as juicy women are equated with bad women, we will err on the side of being bad.”

Erica Jong (1942) Novelist, poet, memoirist, critic

Women , Lovers , Thinking , Daughters

“I’m a lover of what is, not because I’m a spiritual person, but because it hurts when I argue with reality.”

Byron Katie (1942) American spiritual writer

Source: Loving What Is: Four Questions That Can Change Your Life (2002)

Lovers , Reality , Hurt , Personality

“…(hot, opalescent, thick tears that poets and lovers shed)…”

Vladimir Nabokov book Lolita

Source: Lolita

Lovers , Tear

“Ninety-nine percent of the world's lovers are not with their first choice. That's what makes the jukebox play.”

Willie Nelson (1933) American country music singer-songwriter.

World , Lovers

“Captain of our fairy band,
Helena is here at hand,
And the youth, mistook by me,
Pleading for a lover's fee.
Shall we their fond pageant see?
Lord, what fools these mortals be!”

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) English playwright and poet

Youth , Fools , Lovers

“For if a lover's face survives emblazoned on your heart, the world is still your home.”

Orhan Pamuk (1952) Turkish novelist, screenwriter, and Nobel Prize in Literature recipient

Source: My Name is Red

World , Home , Lovers , Heart

“The people who know God well—mystics, hermits, prayerful people, those who risk everything to find God—always meet a lover, not a dictator.”

Richard Rohr (1943) American spiritual writer, speaker, teacher, Catholic Franciscan priest

Source: Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer

God , People , Lovers

“love is blind
and lovers cannot see
the pretty follies
that themselves commit”

William Shakespeare The Merchant of Venice

Source: The Merchant of Venice

Love , Lovers

“Journeys end in lovers meeting.”

William Shakespeare Twelfth Night

Variant: Journeys end in lovers meeting,
Every wise man's son doth know.
Source: Twelfth Night

Lovers

“If you want a lover
I'll do anything you ask me to.
And if you want another kind of love
I'll wear a mask for you.”

Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) Canadian poet and singer-songwriter

"I'm Your Man"
I'm Your Man (1988)

Love , Lovers

“You must find a boy your own age. Someone mild and beautiful to be your lover. Someone who will tremble for your touch, offer you a marguerite by its long stem with his eyes lowered. Someone whose fingers are a poem.”

Janet Fitch book White Oleander

Source: White Oleander

Age , Beauty , Boy , Lovers

“When lovers kiss on the cheeks, it is because they are searching, feeling for one another's lips. Lovers are made by a kiss.”

Emile Zola book The Fortune of the Rougons

Source: The Fortune of the Rougons

Feeling , Search , Lovers , Kiss

“A lady who sets her heart upon a lad in uniform must prepare to change lovers pretty quickly, or her life will be but a sad one.”

William Makepeace Thackeray (1811–1863) novelist

Source: The Memoirs of Barry Lyndon, Esq. written by himself

Life , Sadness , Lovers , Change

“Lovers and madmen have such seething brains
Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend
More than cool reason ever comprehends.”

William Shakespeare A Midsummer Night's Dream

Source: A Midsummer Night's Dream

Lovers

“Lovers … when you raise yourselves and press
your mouths together—drink upon drink:
strange how each of you drinks your way past the other.”

Rainer Maria Rilke book Duino Elegies

Liebende … [w]enn ihr einer dem andern
euch an den Mund hebt und ansetzt –: Getränk an Getränk:
o wie entgeht dann der Trinkende seltsam der Handlung.
Second Elegy (as translated by Lee Siegel)
Duino Elegies (1922)

Way , Lovers , Drink , Past

“The vicious lover is the follower of earthly Love who desires the body rather than the soul; his heart is set on what is mutable and must therefore be inconstant. And as soon as the body he loves begins to pass the first flower of its beauty, he "spreads his wings and flies away," giving the lie to all his pretty speeches and dishonoring his vows, whereas the lover whose heart is touched by moral beauties is constant all his life, for he has become one with what will never fade.”

Plato (-427–-347 BC) Classical Greek philosopher

183e, M. Joyce, trans, Collected Dialogues of Plato (1961), p. 537
The Symposium

Love , Life , Lie , Beauty

“I feel there is sensuality … eroticism in the primary things that move, like animals and insects. Being able to inspire the movement to still images … gives me the joy of the creator that breathes life into things that do not have life. The movement must be sufficiently round and sweet … so express its eroticism. In creating cartoons I always think of an ideal, but … half the finish to doubt the rightness of what I'm doing. So I put all my expectations always work next. * * […] I often say jokingly that comics are my true wife and that the cartoons are my lover. The fact that I am fully dedicated to animation, my lover … is because it allows me to express in a sublime … the interesting metamorphosis of a changing body. For me, the greatest fun, no doubt, lies in the draw and give movement to change processes. Always look in my cartons this metamorphosis.”

Osamu Tezuka (1928–1989) Japanese cartoonist and animator

From Interview to the author , in Osamu Tezuka, Jumping ; quoted in AA.VV., Osamu Tezuka: A Manga Biography , vol. 4, translated by Marta Fogato, Coconino Press, Bologna, 2001, p. 178. ISBN 8888063188

Life , Feeling , Lovers , Thinking