quotations about love
My Love is of a birth as rare
As 'tis, for object, strange and high;
It was begotten by Despair,
Upon Impossibility.
ANDREW MARVELL
The Definition of Love
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
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
Here is one of the most beautiful effects of love, its confidence not only in the present, but in the future as well. Cynics may declare that it is only the deceitful way nature uses to make human beings perform her will. To such a view all lovers are indifferent. In their confidence they bind themselves to one another, not for a day only, not even for a lifetime, but for eternity.
JOHN DANIEL BARRY
"Love", Reactions and Other Essays Discussing Those States of Feeling and Attitude of Mind That Find Expression In Our Individual Qualities
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
If you do not give right attention to the one you love, it is a kind of killing. When you are in the car together, if you are lost in your thoughts, assuming you already know everything about her, she will slowly die.
THICH NHAT HANH
O Magazine, Feb. 2007
Love prepares us for martyrdom.
PHILIP KOSLOSKI
"Love is What Prepares Us For Every Form of Martyrdom", National Catholic Register, March 22, 2016
Constancy in love ... is only inconstancy confined to one object.
FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD
Moral Maxims
We must rejoice when love is great, and pardon its excess, for love is the staff of life, and life without love is life in vain.
ARTHUR LYNCH
Moods of Life
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
Young love-making--that gossamer web! Even the points it clings to--the things whence its subtle interlacings are swung--are scarcely perceptible: momentary touches of finger-tips, meetings of rays from blue and dark orbs, unfinished phrases, lightest changes of cheek and lip, faintest tremors. The web itself is made of spontaneous beliefs and indefinable joys, yearnings of one life towards another, visions of completeness, indefinite trust.
GEORGE ELIOT
Middlemarch
Danger and anger are everywhere. Love is the rarity, the gem buried in the core of the mine, the outpost of God.
TANITH LEE
Metallic Love
For, without love, pleasure withers quickly, becomes a foul taste on the palate, and pleasure's inventions are soon exhausted.
JAMES BALDWIN
Just Above My Head
Love is not at the mercy of time and it does not recognize death, they are strangers to each other.
JAMES BALDWIN
Just Above My Head
Love is woman's eternal spring and man's eternal fall. It is a game at which men must play against stacked cards, and without the slightest inkling of the trump.
HELEN ROWLAND
Inter-Collegiate World
Biologically speaking, love is the backbone of the social bonds that are critical for our survival and adaptation. These intimate bonds alter the brain's circuitry and tip the hormonal balance to shape our memories, emotions and ultimately our 'self.' In essence, every important relationship we have shapes our brain, which in turn shapes our very relationships. Lucky for us, there are many different types of love: maternal love, familial love, the kind we feel when we cuddle a pet, hug a tree, or even a special blanket. While love itself is characterized as an emotion like anger and sadness, there is also a strong biological desire -- sexual desire -- which drives all living species to populate our world.
CLAUDIA AGUIRRE
"Your Brain on Love", Huffington Post, February 15, 2016
Who strikes man with love -- God or the Devil?
LEONID ANDREYEV
He Who Gets Slapped
Love he comes and Love he tarries
Just as fate or fancy carries;
Longest stays, when sorest chidden;
Laughs and flies, when press'd and bidden.
THOMAS CAMPBELL
Freedom and Love
It is the plain women who know about love; the beautiful women are too busy being fascinating.
KATHARINE HEPBURN
attributed, Evan Esar's 20,000 Quips & Quotes
A man in love prefers his passion to every other consideration, and is fonder of his mistress than he is of virtue. Should she prove vicious, she makes vice lovely in his eyes.
WILLIAM HAZLITT
Characteristics