quotations about love
Religion has done love a great service by making it a sin.
ANATOLE FRANCE
The Garden of Epicurus
In a love affair, there is usually one person who loves, and the other qui se laisse aimer; it is only in later days, perhaps, when the treasures of love are spent, and the kind hand cold which ministered them, that we remember how tender it was; how soft to soothe; how eager to shield; how ready to support and caress. The ears my no longer hear which would have received our words of thanks so delightedly. Let us hope those fruits of love, though tardy, are yet not all too late; and though we bring our tribute of reverence and gratitude, it may be to a gravestone, there is an acceptance even there for the stricken heart's oblation of fond remorse, contrite memories, and pious tears.
WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY
Newcomes
Swift doth young Love flee,
And we stand wakened, shivering from our dream.
GEORGE MEREDITH
Modern Love
Love can flourish only as long as it is free and spontaneous; it tends to be killed by the thought of duty. To say that it is your duty to love so-and-so is the surest way to cause you to hate him of her.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Marriage and Morals
Love is in the realization that actually, you're just as excited as your toddler to see him walk through that door at the end of each day. And not just because it means now there are more adults on duty to tackle the troops, but because your person is here and he makes you happy.
RASHA RUSHDY
"Love Is Sweatpants and Take-out, Actually", Huffington Post, February 14, 2016
In the religion of Love the courtesan is a heretic; but the nun is an atheist.
RICHARD GARNETT
De Flagello Myrtes
Love is kind of like a unicorn -- elusive and very hard to explain.
OLIVIA TRUFFAUT-WONG
"11 Movies To Watch When You're In Love To Get You Through The Good, The Bad, & All The Feels", Bustle, December 2015
Love is not enough. But, it is the rock on which all else stands.
NORA ROBERTS
Blood Brothers
Love takes work -- but we're so often slow to treat it as such. We'd rather endure half-hearted arrangements and let things fall apart, chalking it up as a fluke error or poor partner choice. And then we enter the next relationship, sights set high but with nothing to show by way of mindset improvement (other than blind optimism and/or a degree of jadedness.)
KRIS GAGE
"The 2 Biggest Things People Get Wrong About What Love Really Is", Your Tango, August 8, 2018
First we love within, then we love the world.
ELIZABETH LESSER
The Seeker's Guide: Making Your Life a Spiritual Adventure
Do you know what love is? I'll tell you: it is whatever you can still betray.
JOHN LE CARRÉ
The Looking Glass War
Thy love is like deep waters all around--
Warm pulsing waters, in whose brooding sound
The lone wail of my heart is lulled with dreams,
And the far clamour of the world is drowned.
ELSA BARKER
"The Garden of Rose and Rue", The Book of Love
Love's very pain is sweet,
But its reward is in the world divine
Which, if not here, it builds beyond the grave.
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
Epipsychidion
Never mingle love and business.
ANTHONY TROLLOPE
Barchester Towers
Sex alleviates tension. Love causes it.
WOODY ALLEN
A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy
The imagination of a eunuch dwells more and longer upon the material of love than that of man or woman ... supplying, so far as he can, by speculation, the place of pleasures he can no longer enjoy.
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS
journal, Apr. 4, 1831
Who is he who will affirm that there must be a web of flesh and bone to hold the shape of love?
WILLIAM FAULKNER
"Beyond"
Love can make any place agreeable.
ARABIAN PROVERB
Love is blind.
ENGLISH PROVERB
The single greatest predictor of happiness and success in life is a healthy love relationship.
PATRICIA LOVE
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