quotations about love
In seeing there is love, in being seen there is abhorrence. One grins, trying to bear the pain of being seen. But not just anyone can be someone who only looks. If the one who is looked at looks back, then the person who was looking becomes the one who is looked at.
KOBO ABE
The Box Man
Love is never finished expressing itself.
GASTON BACHELARD
The Poetics of Reverie: Childhood, Language, and the Cosmos
Love is like a good piece of wood: It just gets stronger and stronger as the years go by.
DAVID BALDACCI
The Christmas Train
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
Expressing love is one of the most beautiful things of life -- for husbands and wives, children and parents, etc. I know that people often claim they prefer to express love by doing things like mowing lawns or making a nice dinner or buying gifts, etc. (There is even a popular book that has you take a questionnaire to find out what your primary way of showing love is so that people will be able to detect when you are showing love, in case you never verbally express it.) To be honest, I don't like promoting the idea that some people are just programmed to express love in certain ways, and not in others. There! I said it. (Sorry if you're a big fan of the book!) I say we don't let a questionnaire or our previous habits and norms limit us. How about we ALL learn to express love -- verbally -- with words!
MARA KOFOED
"The Language of Love", Danny + Mara, December 12, 2012
We are told from an early age that our true love is out there, waiting for us and so we yearn to find them, to know what it feels like to experience true love, to know you have made the right choice. The truth about love is that it is often bewildering and unknowable. You may never know if you have made the right choice. But when love is true, you embrace all the unknowns, regardless.
ROXANNE GAY
"Where the Hell Is the Love of My Life?", New York Times, October 18, 2018
A man in love is a man under the strong influence of a highly charged image which even if it is far different from the reality as other people see it, nevertheless guides his ideas, feelings, and behavior.
ERIC BERNE
The Mind in Action
Let me prevail as of old, as lover, as lord, as king, or have done with Love's tyrant rule.
WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT
To Nimue
Son, if a maiden love thee, thou shalt appear handsome in her sight; she shall praise thine eyes, and the corners of thy mouth, yea, she shall admire thy hands. Though thou wert even as the orangutan yet shall she paint thee with fancies.
GELETT BURGESS
The Maxims of Methuselah
Yes, life is but a waste,
A cheerless pathway, where
No healthy fruit allures the taste,
No flowerets balm the air,
If Love, the wild rose, ne'er luxuriates there.
WILLIAM B. TAPPAN
"Love"
Now, girls, if you want to observe a young man hustle out after a pick and shovel, just tell him that your heart is in some other fellow's grave. Young men are grave-robbers by nature.
O. HENRY
"The Count and the Wedding Guest"
True love turns words and feelings into actions.
JOEL OSTEEN
Become a Better You
Ah! let us love, my Love, for Time is heartless,
Be happy while you may!
ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE
"The Lake"
Love endeth like the chianti flask, its drops are bitter.
GELETT BURGESS
The Maxims of Methuselah
Love is my religion--I could die for that.
JOHN KEATS
letter to Fanny Brawne, Oct. 13, 1819
All human actions are motivated at their deepest level by two emotions--fear or love. In truth there are only two emotions--only two words in the language of the soul.... Fear wraps our bodies in clothing, love allows us to stand naked. Fear clings to and clutches all that we have, love gives all that we have away. Fear holds close, love holds dear. Fear grasps, love lets go. Fear rankles, love soothes. Fear attacks, love amends.
NEALE DONALD WALSCH
Conversations with God
With whom shall a young lady fall in love but with the person she sees? She is not supposed to lose her heart in a dream, like a Princess in the "Arabian Nights;" or to plight her young affections to the portrait of a gentleman in the Exhibition, or a sketch in the "Illustrated London News." You have an instinct within you which inclines you to attach yourself to some one: you meet Somebody: you hear Somebody constantly praised; you walk, or ride, or waltz, or talk, or sit in the same pew at church with Somebody: you meet again, and again, and--"Marriages are made in Heaven," your dear mamma says, pinning your orange-flower wreath on, with her blessed eyes dimmed with tears--and there is a wedding breakfast, and you take off your white satin and retire to your coach-and-four, and you and he are a happy pair--Or, the affair is broken off and then, poor dear wounded heart! Why then you meet Somebody Else, and twine your young affections round number two. It is your nature so to do. Do you suppose it is all for the man's sake that you love, and not a bit for your own? Do you suppose you would drink if you were not thirsty, or eat if you were not hungry?
WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY
Pendennis
What a strange world it is where you can have as much sex as you like but love is taboo. I'm talking about the real thing, the grand passion, which may not allow affection or convenience or happiness. The truth is that love smashes into your life like an ice floe, and even if your heart is built like the Titanic you go down. That's the size of it, the immensity of it. It's not proper, it's not clean, it's not containable.
JEANETTE WINTERSON
The Powerbook
Love born of anxiety resembles a thorn shaped so that efforts to pull it out of one's flesh merely cause it to penetrate more deeply therein.
ANDRE MAUROIS
An Art of Living
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