quotations about love
No distance can keep anxious lovers long asunder.
GEORGE WASHINGTON
letter to the Marquis de Lafayette, Sep. 30, 1779
O, wicked love ... that has so many unnamed components.
ANNE RICE
Beauty's Punishment
Love's a bully, pushing and shoving
In the belly of a woman.
Heavy rhythm taking over
To stick together a man and a woman
Stick together man and a woman
Stick together.
U2
"Do You Feel Loved", Pop
Love had a thousand shapes.
VIRGINIA WOOLF
To the Lighthouse
Love life seems to be that factor which requires the largest quantity of magical tinkering.
ISAAC ASIMOV
Foundation and Empire
We should like those whom we love to receive all their happiness, or, if this were impossible, all their unhappiness from our hands.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of the Affections", Les Caractères
Jean de La Bruyère (16 August 1645 - 11 May 1696) was a French philosopher and moralist noted for his satire. His Caractères, which appeared in 1688, captures the psychological, social, and moral profile of French society of his time.
Love is limitless and gender fluid.
PRATIMA SHANTAVEERESH
"Love is limitless and gender fluid", New Indian Express, August 25, 2016
Love is eternal as long as it lasts.
VINICIUS DE MORAIS
attributed, The New York Times Biographical Service, 1991
True love is like a coin, changeless and pure,
Bright from the mint of virtuous affection,
Whose solid worth lies in its gold secure
Stamped with the soul's reflection;
Though Time may mar with rude and hasty hands
Its brilliancy and beauty,
Its gold unspoiled beneath the surface stands
Alloyed with common duty.
MARTHA LAVINIA HOFFMAN
"Love's Counterfeits"
It isn't enough to love people because they're good to you, or because in some way or other you're going to get something by it. We have to love because we love loving.
JOHN GALSWORTHY
A Bit O' Love
Love, the hidden spring of life, and soul's desire.
Celestial gold, secreted, laid by fire
In every heart, in every thing that lives,
In every thought that human impulse gives.
The coin of heaven, the treasure of the earth,
The rarest gift, and joy of largest worth.
EDWIN LEIBFREED
"Love"
Edwin Leibfreed published several books of poetry, including A Garland of Verse (1910), A Soliloquy of Life (1915), and The Man of a Thousand Loves (1932).
I try to keep deep love out of my stories because, once that particular subject comes up, it is almost impossible to talk about anything else. Readers don't want to hear about anything else. They go gaga about love. If a lover in a story wins his true love, that's the end of the tale, even if World War III is about to begin, and the sky is black with flying saucers.
KURT VONNEGUT
The Paris Review, spring 1977
Love is the kiss
in the quiet nest
while the leaves are trembling,
mirrored in the water.
FEDERICO GARCIA LORCA
The Butterfly's Evil Spell
Some people, right away, do know each other deeply. Love gives them insight into each other. Love makes them pledge themselves to each other. Love makes them inventive. Yes, it also makes them ridiculous. But that's just another of love's glories. It makes being ridiculous permissible.
JAMES KUZNER
"Should we scoff at the idea of love at first sight?", The Conversation, August 30, 2018
James Kuzner is Associate Professor of English at Brown University. With a specialty in early modern literature, his research tends to focus on the relationship between literature, selfhood, and political imagination.
Sometimes it seems ... as though only intelligent people are stupid enough to fall in love & only stupid people are intelligent enough to let themselves be loved.
ELIZABETH BISHOP
One Art: Letters
Love is divine only and difficult always. If you think it is easy you are a fool. If you think it is natural you are blind. It is a learned application without reason or motive except that it is God.
TONI MORRISON
Paradise
Love's never a fair trade.
MARGARET ATWOOD
The Year of the Flood
Margaret Atwood (born November 18, 1939) is a Canadian poet, novelist, literary critic, essayist, teacher, environmental activist, and inventor. Her works encompass a variety of themes including gender and identity, religion and myth, the power of language, climate change, and "power politics".
But now I know that there is no killing
A thing like Love, for it laughs at Death.
There is no hushing, there is no stilling
That which is part of your life and breath.
You may bury it deep, and leave behind you
The land, the people that knew your slain;
It will push the sods from its grave, and find you
On wastes of water or desert plain.
ELLA WHEELER WILCOX
"From the Grave"
Not all men are worthy of love.
SIGMUND FREUD
Civilization and Its Discontents
It's easier to avoid the snares of love than to escape once you are in that net.
LUCRETIUS
De Rerum Natura