quotations about love
We, unaccustomed to courage
exiles from delight
live coiled in shells of loneliness
until love leaves its high holy temple
and comes into our sight
to liberate us into life.
MAYA ANGELOU
A Brave and Startling Truth
When you've lost all your play, guess what love becomes. Work. Work that gets harder every hour.
MARTIN AMIS
House of Meetings
Love enters the heart unawares: takes precedence of all the emotions--or, at least, will be second to none--and even reflection becomes its accomplice. While it lives, it renders blind; and when it has struck its roots deep only itself can shake them. It reminds one of hospitality as practiced among the ancients. The stranger was received upon the threshold of the half-open door, and introduced into the sanctuary reserved for the Penates. Not until every attention had been lavished upon him did the host ask his name; and the question was sometimes deferred till the very moment of departure.
MADAME SWETCHINE
"Airelles", The Writings of Madame Swetchine
The true coronation of character is love. The true test of love is self-sacrifice. He knows not how to love who knows not how to suffer for love's sake. The love that costs nothing is worth--what it costs.
LYMAN ABBOTT
Old Testament Shadows of New Testament Truths
Love is an immortal wound that cannot be closed up. A person loses something, a part of her soul, when she loves someone. And she goes about looking for that lost part of her soul, for she knows that otherwise she is incomplete and cannot be at rest. It is only when she is with the person she loves that she becomes complete again in herself; but the moment he leaves, she loses that part which he has taken with him and knows no rest till she has found him once more.
LIN YUTANG
Moment in Peking
Who strikes man with love -- God or the Devil?
LEONID ANDREYEV
He Who Gets Slapped
I think love and hate are really the same thing. They're what you feel when someone matters more to you than anything else; more than yourself, even.
K. J. PARKER
Evil for Evil
The clearer and happier you feel inside, the more joyous and loving your outer world becomes because love attracts love.
JUDY HALL
Love Crystals
One of the nice things about having a lover, it makes you think about everything anew. The rest of your life becomes a kind of movie, flat and even rather funny.
JOHN UPDIKE
Rabbit Redux
Love is my religion--I could die for that.
JOHN KEATS
letter to Fanny Brawne, Oct. 13, 1819
Love in a hut, with water and a crust,
Is--Love, forgive us!--cinders, ashes, dust;
Love in a palace is perhaps at last
More grievous torment than a hermit's fast.
JOHN KEATS
"Lamia"
Love does not dominate; it cultivates.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
attributed, Words of Wisdom: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
I fell in love once, if love be that cruelty which takes us straight to the gates of Paradise only to remind us they are closed for ever.
JEANETTE WINTERSON
Sexing the Cherry
Love receives its death-wound from aversion, and forgetfulness buries it.
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 must be the same in all worlds.
HORACE MANN
Thoughts
Love is the most melodious of all harmonies.
HONORE DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
Love is the union between natural craving and sentiment.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
Love may be or it may not, but where it is, it ought to reveal itself in its immensity.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Letters of Two Brides
Love, in this world, is like a seed taken from the tropics, and planted where the winter comes too soon; and it cannot spread itself in flower-clusters and wide-twining vines, so that the whole air is filled with the perfume thereof. But there is to be another summer for it yet. Care for the root now, and God will care for the top by and by.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Life Thoughts
Love is ownership. We own whom we love. The universe is God's because he loves.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Life Thoughts