quotations about love
Love is the grand prize and the garbage heap. Love is a spiritual root canal and the only thing that makes life worth living. Love is a little taste of always and a big bite of nothing. And love is everything in between these extremes.
ROBERT FULGHUM
True Love
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
Love isn't like money--the more you give away the more you get back, and the more you have to give.
S. M. STIRLING
The Sunrise Lands
Love is an anesthesia. It puts you to sleep, it allows you to overlook, not question, not care ... and then, one day, you come to. And, by God and all his horny angels ... it's an eye opener.
ANN WUEHLER
The Next Mrs. Jacob Anderson
It is love, not reason, that is stronger than death.
THOMAS MANN
The Magic Mountain
Our love, too, proceeding from ourselves and returning to us, would suffice to make our life blessed, and would stand in need of no extraneous enjoyment.
ST. AUGUSTINE
The City of God
I will love you as the iceberg loves the ship, and the passengers love the lifeboat and the lifeboat loves the teeth of the sperm whale, and the sperm whale loves the flavor of naval uniforms.
DANIEL HANDLER
as Lemony Snicket, The Beatrice Letters
Such as are excited by the gentler influence of Love assume more of affection in their looks, sink their voice into greater softness, and manifest in their gestures greater nobleness of soul.
XENOPHON
The Banquet
Empires, thrones, kings, dominions, all may be swept away by the force of circumstances, or time; glory, honour, position, wealth, and good name may be gone forever; and love may still be alive, fresh and young. Love born on high soars aloft, and makes its heavenly influence felt in every land and every clime; every nation bows before its power, every caste and every creed own its conquering influence. Love is the foundation of all happiness here and in the life to come, of all earthly joy and heavenly bliss the one spot of garden in the desert of many a life; the spring that is never dried up, and that pours forth its soothing waters o'er many an aching breast. Love can ne'er be bough; no fear can quench it; and absence makes it burn more brightly. Love never dies, or e'er grows old, but year after year it grows in strength and purity, till its golden rays touch the sky, from whence it came.
T. AUGUSTUS FORBES LEITH
"On Love", Short Essays
A man is only as good as what he loves.
SAUL BELLOW
Seize the Day
It has been hard, I know, my daughters, but one word alone wipes out all of the hardships: love.
SOPHOCLES
Oedipus at Colonus
If there is no love more in yonder heart, it is but a corpse unburied.
WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY
Newcomes
Love fattens on smooth words.
KATHARINE HEPBURN
Me: Stories of My Life
Love is a word from the old poems you read. In real life there is no love. Men come together like apes and birds. It is sweet sometimes to play with a woman, but the wind blows and there is an end of it.
VICKI BAUM
Love and Death in Bali
Love has this in common with scruples, that it becomes embittered by the reflections and the thoughts that beset us to free ourselves.
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.
I've heard it called a Cinderella story, I've heard it called magic. But it's not magic, it's love. And when love is true from the heart, nothing magic about it.
BILL MAHON
"Love From the Ashes", KWTX, November 13, 2017
People think first love is sweet, and never sweeter than when that first bond snaps. You've heard a thousand pop and country songs that prove the point; some fool got his heart broke. Yet that first broken heart is always the most painful, the slowest to mend, and leaves the most visible scar. What's so sweet about that?
STEPHEN KING
Joyland
For me, love is the never-ending question. It is confusing. It is the answer, but it is also inundated with contradictions and complications.
JENNIFER LOPEZ
"Jennifer Lopez: Still Wild at Heart", Glamour
Love knoweth no laws.
JOHN LYLY
Euphues
To me, love is a pure idea forged in flesh, awkwardly maybe, but it had to connect to somewhere, despite twists and turns of underground cable. An all-too-perfect thing. Sometimes the lines get crossed. Or you get a wrong number. But that's nobody's fault. It'll always be like that, so long as we exist in this physical form. As a matter of principle.
HARUKI MURAKAMI
Dance, Dance, Dance