Quotes about lover
page 5

Margaret Atwood photo
Susan Saint James photo
Ayumi Hamasaki photo

“The lovers, appearing happy,
walk, holding hands.
Though it appears everything is perfect,
only they know the truth.”

Ayumi Hamasaki (1978) Japanese recording artist, lyricist, model, and actress

Appears
Lyrics, Loveppears

Smokey Robinson photo
John Dryden photo
George Lyttelton, 1st Baron Lyttelton photo

“The lover in the husband may be lost.”

George Lyttelton, 1st Baron Lyttelton (1709–1773) British politician

Source: Advice to a Lady (1731), Line 112.

Kakinomoto no Hitomaro photo

“This morning I will not
Comb my hair.
It has lain
Pillowed on the hand of my lover.”

Kakinomoto no Hitomaro (662–710) Japanese poet

XX, p. 22
Kenneth Rexroth's translations, One Hundred Poems from the Japanese (1955)

Arundhati Roy photo

“It didn't matter that the story had begun, because kathakali discovered long ago that the secrets of the Great Stories is that they have no secrets. The Great Stories are the ones that you have heard and want to hear again. The ones you can enter anywhere and inhabit comfortably. They don't deceive you with thrills and trick endings. They don't surprise you with the unforeseen. They are as familiar as the house you live in. Or the smell of your lover's skin. You know how they end, yet you listen as though you don't. In the way that although you know that one day you will die, you live as though you won't. In the Great Stories you know who lives, who dies, who finds love, who doesn't. And yet you want to know again.
That is their mystery and their magic.”

page 229.
The God of Small Things (1997)
Variant: It didn't matter that the story had begun, because kathakali discovered long ago that the secrets of the Great Stories is that they have no secrets. The Great Stories are the ones that you have heard and want to hear again. The ones you can enter anywhere and inhabit comfortably. They don't deceive you with thrills and trick endings. They don't surprise you with the unforeseen. They are as familiar as the house you live in. Or the smell of your lover's skin. You know how they end, yet you listen as though you don't. In the way that although you know that one day you will die, you live as though you won't. In the Great Stories you know who lives, who dies, who finds love, who doesn't. And yet you want to know again.
That is their mystery and their magic.

Lawrence Durrell photo
Florbela Espanca photo

“My love! My lover! Beloved Friend!
Grab this wondrous, fleeting moment,
Drink it inside me,
Let’s drink it together to the end!
[…]
And upon returning, love…
Taking mysterious paths along the meadows
On grassy carpets on the forest floor,
We will make a star of our two shadows.”

Florbela Espanca (1894–1930) Portuguese poet

Meu amor! Meu amante! Meu amigo!
Colhe a hora que passa, hora divina,
Bebe-a dentro de mim, bebe-a comigo!
Sinto-me alegre e forte! Sou menina!
[...]
E à volta, Amor... tornemos, nas alfombras
Dos caminhos selvagens e escuros,
Num astro só as nossas duas sombras!...
Quoted in Florbela Espanca (1995), p. 81
Translated by John D. Godinho
The Flowering Heath (1931), "Passeio ao Campo"

“The anger of lovers renews the strength of love.”

Publilio Siro Latin writer

Maxim 24
Sentences, The Moral Sayings of Publius Syrus, a Roman Slave

John Fante photo
Robert Frost photo
George Herbert photo

“477. A poore beauty finds more lovers than husbands.”

George Herbert (1593–1633) Welsh-born English poet, orator and Anglican priest

Jacula Prudentum (1651)

Elton John photo

“And I guess that's why they call it the blues.
Time on my hands could be time spent with you,
Laughing like children, living like lovers,
Rolling like thunder under the covers.
And I guess that's why they call it the blues.”

Elton John (1947) English rock singer-songwriter, composer and pianist

I Guess That's Why They Call It the Blues
Song lyrics, Too Low for Zero (1983)

William Lane Craig photo

“And therefore, even though animals are in pain, they aren't aware of it. They don't have this third order pain awareness. They are not aware of pain, and therefore they do not suffer as human beings do. Now, this is a tremendous comfort to those of us who are animal lovers, like myself, or to pet owners. Even though your dog or your cat may be in pain, it isn't really aware of being in pain, and therefore it doesn't suffer as you would when you are in pain.”

William Lane Craig (1949) American Christian apologist and evangelist

"Does God Exist?" debate vs Stephen Law, Westminster Central Hall, London, , quoted in * 2012-10-04
William Lane Craig argues that animals can’t feel pain
Jerry
Coyne
Jerry Coyne
Why Evolution Is True
http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2012/10/04/william-lane-craig-argues-that-animals-cant-feel-pain/
2013-03-07

Sri Aurobindo photo
Ralph Waldo Emerson photo

“A ruddy drop of manly blood
The surging sea outweighs;
The world uncertain comes and goes,
The lover rooted stays.”

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

Epigraph to Friendship
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919), Essays, First Series
Variant: A ruddy drop of manly blood
The surging sea outweighs;
The world uncertain comes and goes,
The lover rooted stays.

Manmohan Acharya photo
Clive Barker photo
Sidney Lanier photo
Maurice de Vlaminck photo

“The thought of becoming a painter never as much as occurred to me. I would have laughed out loud if someone had suggested that I choose painting as a career. To be a painter is not a business, no more than to be an artist, lover, racer, dreamer, or prizefighter. It is a gift of Nature, a gift..”

Maurice de Vlaminck (1876–1958) French painter

Quote of De Vlaminck; as cited in Vlaminck, Klaus G. Perls, The Hyperion Press, New York 1941, p. 51
To support his family of four, De Vlaminck had to find other means by which to earn a living, and ended up taking several other jobs, including working as a billiards players, a writer, a general worker, and even a cyclist
Quotes undated

Mary Wortley Montagu photo
William Blake photo

“The look of love alarms
Because 'tis filled with fire;
But the look of soft deceit
Shall win the lover's hire.”

William Blake (1757–1827) English Romantic poet and artist

No. 2, The Look of Love
1790s, Poems from Blake's Notebook (c. 1791-1792), Several Questions Answered

Stevie Wonder photo

“Call up, ring once, hang up the phone,
To let me know you made it home,
Don't want nothing to be wrong,
With part-time lover.”

Stevie Wonder (1950) American musician

Part-Time Lover
Song lyrics, In Square Circle (1985)

Happy Rhodes photo

“The two former lovers finally looked at each other, their faces crawling with the crabs of conflicting emotion.”

Source: From the Notebooks of Dr. Brain (2007), Chapter 9 “Paranoia: It Can Destroy Ya” (p. 283)

William Ernest Henley photo

“From the winter’s gray despair,
From the summer’s golden languor,
Death, the lover of Life,
Frees us for ever.”

William Ernest Henley (1849–1903) English poet, critic and editor

Source: In Hospital (1908), p. 20

Julian of Norwich photo
Anne Rice photo
Alexander McCall Smith photo
Henry Suso photo

“Suffering is the ancient law of love; there is no quest without pain; there is no lover who is not also a martyr.”

Henry Suso (1295–1366) Dominican friar and mystic

Quoted in Evelyn Underhill, Mysticism: A Study in the Nature and Development of Man's Spiritual Consciousness (1912), p. 152

Clive Barker photo
Robert Hayne photo

“Sir, there have existed, in every age and every country, two distinct orders of men—the lovers of freedom, and the devoted advocates of power.”

Robert Hayne (1791–1839) American politician

Hayne's Speech on Mr. Foot's Resolution, January 21, 1830, page 16.

Zadie Smith photo
Sophie B. Hawkins photo

“Damn I wish I was your lover
I'll rock you till the daylight comes
Make sure you are smiling and warm.”

Sophie B. Hawkins (1967) American musician

Tongues and Tails (1992), Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover

Adrianne Wadewitz photo

“For me, one of the most empowering outcomes of my year of climbing has been the new narrative I can tell about myself. I am no longer “Adrianne: scholar, book lover, pianist, and Wikipedian”. I am now “Adrianne: scholar, book lover, pianist, Wikipedian, and rock climber”.”

Adrianne Wadewitz (1977–2014) academic and Wikipedian

Wadewitz, Adrianne. (August 12, 2013). "What I learned as the worst student in the class" http://www.hastac.org/blogs/wadewitz/2013/08/12/what-i-learned-worst-student-class. HASTAC: Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Alliance Collaboratory. — reprinted and cited in: "How Adrianne Wadewitz learnt to embrace failure" http://www.smh.com.au/world/how-adrianne-wadewitz-learnt-to-embrace-failure-20140425-zqzgx.html. The Sydney Morning Herald. April 25, 2014. Retrieved April 25, 2014. — and also cited in: Woo, Elaine (April 23, 2014). "Adrianne Wadewitz dies at 37; helped diversify Wikipedia" http://www.latimes.com/obituaries/la-me-adrianne-wadewitz-20140424,0,1077455.story. Los Angeles Times.

Robert Graves photo

“Lovers to-day and for all time
Preserve the meaning of my rhyme:
Love is not kindly nor yet grim
But does to you as you to him.”

Robert Graves (1895–1985) English poet and novelist

"Advice To Lovers"
Country Sentiment (1920)

Jeffrey Tucker photo

“If the GOP’s “big tent” is destined to collapse, there’s no one better to be standing under it than Kemp. If the party does not collapse-and it elites continue to ignore the views of its grass roots-it will be too left-wing for any true freedom lover to support.”

Jeffrey Tucker (1963) American writer

Source: "Jack Kemp, American Socialist" by Jeffrey Tucker, The Rothbard-Rockwell Report, September 1996, UNZ.org, 2016-05-22 http://www.unz.org/Pub/RothbardRockwellReport-1996sep-00001,

E.E. Cummings photo

“The whole truth…
sings only —and all lovers are the song”

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

91
95 poems (1958)

Wallace Stevens photo
John Major photo

“Fifty years on from now, Britain will still be the country of long shadows on county grounds, warm beer, invincible green suburbs, dog lovers and pools fillers and, as George Orwell said, 'Old maids bicycling to holy communion through the morning mist' and, if we get our way, Shakespeare will still be read even in school.”

John Major (1943) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

David Butler and Gareth Butler, "Twentieth Century British Political Facts", p. 296
Speech to the Conservative Group for Europe, 22 April 1993. http://www.johnmajor.co.uk/page1086.html The reference to George Orwell is to his 1941 essay "The Lion and the Unicorn".
1990s, 1993

“Lovers lie around in it
Broken glass is found in it
Grass
I like that stuff”

Adrian Mitchell (1932–2008) British writer

"Stufferation", from Adrian Mitchell's Greatest Hits (1991).
Other stanzas follow this pattern. Roger McGough wrote a version with the refrain "I like that stuff".

Daniel Kahneman photo
Justin D. Fox photo
Mike Oldfield photo
Thomas Eakins photo
Paramahansa Yogananda photo
François de La Rochefoucauld photo

“Lovers never get tired of each other, because they are always talking about themselves.”

Ce qui fait que les amants et les maîtresses ne s'ennuient point d'être ensemble, c'est qu'ils parlent toujours d'eux-mêmes.
Variant translation: What makes lovers and their mistresses never weary of being together is that they are always talking about themselves.
Maxim 312.
Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665–1678)

“The holiness of the real
Is always there, accessible
In total immanence. The nodes
Of transcendence coagulate
In you, the experiencer,
And in the other, the lover.”

Kenneth Rexroth (1905–1982) American poet, writer, anarchist, academic and conscientious objector

"Time Is the Mercy of Eternity" - The title of this poem is derived from a line by William Blake : "Time is the mercy of Eternity; without Time's swiftness Which is the swiftest of all things, all were eternal torment.")
In Defense of the Earth (1956)

“Instead of being on display on the cliff for a thousand years
I'd rather have a hearty cry on my lover's shoulder for a single night.”

Shu Ting (1952) Chinese writer

"Goddess Peak" [神女峰, Shennü feng], in The Cambridge History of Chinese Literature, Volume II: From 1375 (Cambridge University Press, 2010), p. 649

Rembrandt van Rijn photo

“I am most astonished by what has been written about the [painting] 'Alexander', which is so well done that I must suppose there are not many lovers of art [amatori] at Messina. I am also surprised that Your Lordship [Don Antonio Ruffo] should complain as much about the price as about the canvas, but if Your Lordship wishes to return it as he did the sketch [schizzo] of Homer, I will do another Alexander... If Your Lordship likes the Alexander as is, very well. If he does not want to keep it, six hundred florins remain outstanding. And for the Homer [painting] five hundred florins plus the expenses of canvas, it being understood that everything is at Your Lordship's expense. Having agreed to it, would he kindly send me his desired measurements. Awaiting the response to settle the matter.”

Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–1669) Dutch 17th century painter and etcher

Quote of Rembrandt's letter, Nov/Dec. 1662, to buyer Don Antonio Ruffo from Messina, Sicily (location: RD, 1662/12, 509); as quoted in Rembrandt's Eyes, Simon Schama, Alfred A. Knopf, Borzoi Books, NEW YORK 1999, p. 591, & notes 32-36
Rembrant's reaction after complaints of Don Antonio Ruffo, dispatched through the Dutch consul in Messina, Jan van den Broeck, who was on his way to Amsterdam. Once there he was to inform Isaac Just (presumably the intermediary between Rembrandt and the Messina patrician), of the intense dissatisfaction at the work, which Don Ruffo had received. 'The Alexander', he complained, being unacceptably stitched together from four separate pieces, showed seams which were 'too horrible for words.'..g with so many defects.. (Don Ruffo already bought Rembrandt's painting Aristotle with a Bust of Homer c. 1655 and still existing: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rembrandt_-_Aristotle_with_a_Bust_of_Homer_-_WGA19232.jpg, but 'The Alexander' of Rembrandt is lost).
1640 - 1670

“Every woman I knew secretly longed to have many lovers but she stopped herself for so many reasons. I had the capacity to love many at a time and for this had been called shallow and wayward and a good-time girl…”

Protima Bedi (1948–1998) Indian model and dancer

She wrote in "Timepass: The Memoir of Protima Bedi" quoted in She had a lust for life, 5 February 2000, The Tribune http://www.tribuneindia.com/2000/20000205/windows/above.htm,

Carl Sandburg photo

“Tell me if the lovers are losers… tell me if any get more than the lovers.”

Carl Sandburg (1878–1967) American writer and editor

"Cool Tombs" (1918)

John Oldham (poet) photo

“Curse on the man who business first designed,
And by't enthralled a freeborn lover's mind!”

John Oldham (poet) (1653–1683) English satirical poet and translator

Complaining of Absence, 11; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922).

“The human heart is a lonely lane in the evening, and two lovers are walking down it, whispering and lingering.”

Frank Crane (1861–1928) American Presbyterian minister

Four Minute Essays Vol. 5 (1919), The Human Heart

Arthur Symons photo
Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo

“True silence is the speech of lovers. For only love knows its beauty, completeness and utter joy.”

Catherine Doherty (1896–1985) Religious order founder; Servant of God

Source: Poustinia (1975), Ch. 1

Honoré de Balzac photo

“It is easier to be a lover than a husband, for the same reason that it is more difficult to be witty every day, than to say bright things from time to time.”

Il est plus facile d'être amant que mari, par la raison qu'il est plus difficile d'avoir de l'esprit tous les jours que de dire de jolies choses de temps en temps.
Part I, Meditation V: Of the Predestined, aphorism LXIX.
Physiology of Marriage (1829)

Julian of Norwich photo
Cesare Pavese photo

“Love has the faculty of making two lovers seem naked, not in each other's sight, but in their own.”

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

This Business of Living (1935-1950)

Thom Yorke photo
Russell Conwell photo

“Love is the grandest thing on God's earth, but fortunate the lover who has plenty of money.”

Russell Conwell (1843–1925) American academic administrator

Acres of Diamonds (1915)

Alexej von Jawlensky photo
Iris DeMent photo
André Maurois photo
Plautus photo

“You miss the point? The lady that spares her lover spares herself too little.”

Asinaria, Act I, scene 3.
Asinaria (The One With the Asses)

Farrokh Tamimi photo
Thomas Malory photo
Conrad Aiken photo
Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson photo
Arthur Symons photo
William Kingdon Clifford photo
Joe Haldeman photo
Marguerite de Navarre photo

“I have heard much of these languishing lovers, but I never yet saw one of them die for love.”

First Day, Novel VIII (trans. W. K. Kelly)
L'Heptaméron (1558)

Ursula K. Le Guin photo

“The bond between true lovers is as close as we come to what endures forever.”

Ursula K. Le Guin (1929–2018) American writer

Source: Earthsea Books, The Other Wind (2001), Chapter 4 “Dolphin” (p. 231)

Wallace Stevens photo

“Place honey on the altars and die,
You lovers that are bitter at heart.”

Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) American poet

The Man With the Blue Guitar (1937)

Edward Bellamy photo
Adam Smith photo
Walter Scott photo

“Her blue eyes sought the west afar,
For lovers love the western star.”

Canto III, stanza 24.
The Lay of the Last Minstrel (1805)

George Henry Lewes photo
George Meredith photo

“The actors are, it seems, the usual three:
Husband and wife and lover.”

George Meredith (1828–1909) British novelist and poet of the Victorian era

St. 25.
Modern Love http://www.ev90481.dial.pipex.com/Meredith/modern_love.htm (1862)

Thomas Carlyle photo
Isaac D'Israeli photo

“The negroes are lovers of ludicrous actions, and hence all their ceremonies seem farcical.”

Isaac D'Israeli (1766–1848) British writer

Modes of Salutation, and Amicable Ceremonies, Observed in Various Nations.
Curiosities of Literature (1791–1834)

Vanna Bonta photo

“Romantically speaking, the idea of lovers experiencing the ultimate orgasmic rapture while floating in zero gravity is a metaphor.”

Vanna Bonta (1958–2014) Italian-American writer, poet, inventor, actress, voice artist (1958-2014)

Vanna Bonta Talks Sex in Space (Interview - Femail magazine)

Robert Jordan photo
Julian of Norwich photo
Donovan photo
Propertius photo

“Woever he was who first depicted Amor as a boy, don’t you think it was a wonderful touch? He was the first to see that lovers live without sense.”
Quicumque ille fuit, puerum qui pinxit Amorem nonne putas miras hunc habuisse manus? is primum vidit sine sensu vivere amantes

Propertius (-47–-16 BC) Latin elegiac poet

II, xii, 1-3; translation by A. S. Kline
Elegies

Paul Theroux photo