quotations about love
Do they still call it infatuation? That magic ax that chops away the world in one blow, leaving only the couple standing there trembling? Whatever they call it, it leaps over anything, takes the biggest chair, the largest slice, rules the ground wherever it walks, from a mansion to a swamp, and its selfishness is its beauty.... People with no imagination feed it with sex -- the clown of love. They don't know the real kinds, the better kinds, where losses are cut and everybody benefits. It takes a certain intelligence to love like that -- softly, without props.
TONI MORRISON
Love
A summer breeze can be very refreshing; but if we try to put it in a tin can so we can have it entirely to ourselves, the breeze will die. Our beloved is the same. He is like a breeze, a cloud, a flower. If you imprison him in a tin can, he will die. Yet many people do just that. They rob their loved one of his liberty, until he can no longer be himself. They live to satisfy themselves and use their loved one to help them fulfill that. That is not loving; it is destroying.
THICH NHAT HANH
Teachings on Love
Every little thing wants to be loved.
SUE MONK KIDD
The Secret Life of Bees
True love is a durable fire,
In the mind ever burning.
SIR WALTER RALEIGH
As Ye Came from the Holy Land
Sir Walter Raleigh (c. 1552 - 1618) was an English writer, poet, soldier, politician, courtier, spy, and explorer. He is also well known for popularizing tobacco in England.
'Know that Love is a careless child,
And forgets promises past;
He is blind, he is deaf when he list,
And in faith never fast.
'His desire is a dureless content,
And a trustless joy;
He is won with a world of despair,
And is lost with a toy.
SIR WALTER RALEIGH
As Ye Came from the Holy Land
Sir Walter Raleigh (c. 1552 - 1618) was an English writer, poet, soldier, politician, courtier, spy, and explorer. He is also well known for popularizing tobacco in England.
On the day when it will be possible for woman to love not in her weakness but in her strength, not to escape herself but to find herself, not to abase herself but to assert herself--on that day love will become for her, as for man, a source of life and not of mortal danger.
SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR
The Second Sex
Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life... You give them a piece of you. They didn't ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore.
NEIL GAIMAN
The Sandman, #65
Neil Gaiman (born 10 November 1960) is an English author of short fiction, novels, comic books, graphic novels, films, and nonfiction. He is best known for the comic book series The Sandman and novels such as American Gods, Coraline, and The Graveyard Book.
Surely only true love could justify my lack of taste.
MARGARET ATWOOD
Lady Oracle
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".
It's easier to avoid the snares of love than to escape once you are in that net.
LUCRETIUS
De Rerum Natura
Running like a river trying to find the ocean
Flowers in the concrete
Climbing over fences, blooming in the shadows
Places that you can't see
Coming through the melody when the night bird sings
Love is a wild thing, yeah
KACEY MUSGRAVES
"Love Is a Wild Thing"
We've got this gift of love, but love is like a precious plant.... You've got to keep watering it. You've got to really look after it and nurture it.
JOHN LENNON
ATV interview, Dec. 2, 1969
Only love makes fruitful the soul.
JOHN GALSWORTHY
Beyond
I dream of a love that is more than two people craving to possess one another.
IRVIN D. YALOM
When Nietzsche Wept
To follow the impulse of love and feeling is the secret law of every woman's heart.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Letters of Two Brides
Some meet love's dreams when kissed by death,
And some again in youth,
But all have felt the quickening breath
Of love's undying truth.
EDWIN LEIBFREED
"Love's Dreams"
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).
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).
O, wicked love ... that has so many unnamed components.
ANNE RICE
Beauty's Punishment
Love is the key to felicity, nor is there a heaven to any who love not. We enter Paradise through its gates only.
AMOS BRONSON ALCOTT
Table Talk
Unconditional love. That's what he wants to give her and what he wants from her. People should give without wanting anything in return. All other giving is selfish. But he is being selfish a little, isn't he, by wanting her to love him in return? He hopes that she loves him in return. Is it possible for a person to love without wanting love back? Is anything so pure? Or is love, by its nature, a reciprocity, like oceans and clouds, an evaporating of seawater and a replenishing of rain?
ALAN LIGHTMAN
Reunion
Happiest time of youth and life, when love is first spoken and returned; when the dearest eyes are daily shining welcome, and the fondest lips never tire of whispering their sweet secrets; when the parting look that accompanies "Good night!" gives delightful warning of tomorrow.
WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY
The Virginians