quotations about love
The only way to experience love is to buy it and have it installed in your head. But, like most technology, its shelf-life is limited.
GERMAIN LUSSIER
"Love Is a Gadget in This Upcoming Scott Eastwood Film", Gizmodo, August 15, 2016
Love is to be the lodestar of our lives and, if blessed with the capacity to exercise it, we can aspire to imitate God.
SIMON MAY
Love: A History
Is it the beloved who evokes love, or the lover who has love to give?
DOUGLAS CARLTON ABRAMS
The Lost Diary of Don Juan
It is as absurd to deny that it is possible for a man always to love the same woman, as it would be to affirm that some famous musician needed several violins in order to execute a piece of music or compose a charming melody.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
One of the cruelest things about a wrong love is that it delights in tangles and hidden ways; that it teaches and practices deceit from its first inception; that its earliest efforts are toward destroying all older and more sacred attachments.
AMELIA E. BARR
A Singer from the Sea
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"
Love -- thou art deep --
I cannot cross thee --
But, were there Two
Instead of One --
Rower and Yacht -- some sov'reign Summer --
Who knows -- but we'd reach the Sun?
EMILY DICKINSON
"Love thou art high"
Nuptial love maketh mankind; friendly love perfecteth it; but wanton love corrupteth, and embaseth it.
SIR FRANCIS BACON
"Of Love", Essays, or Counsels Civil and Moral
Love is said to be an involuntary passion, and it is, therefore, contended that it cannot be resisted. This is true in part only, for like all things else, when nourished and supplied plentifully with ailment, it is rapid in its progress; but let these be withdrawn and it may be stifled in its birth or much stinted in its growth.
GEORGE WASHINGTON
letter to Eleanor Parke Custis, Jan. 16, 1795
I loved long and long,
And grew to be out of fashion
Like an old song.
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
"O Do Not Love Too Long", In the Seven Woods
To show great love for God and our neighbor we need not do great things. It is how much love we put in the doing that makes our offering Something Beautiful for God.
MOTHER TERESA
A Gift for God
I've never had my heart broken ... It's a very sad state of affairs. I think everybody should have their heart broken. I don't think it says anything good about me at all ... My lover and my best friend and my partner has been my work. But I certainly would in life have wanted to know--would like to know--what it was like to have a real partner.
SALLY FIELD
Good Housekeeping, Mar. 2009
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
Love is ownership. We own whom we love. The universe is God's because he loves.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Life Thoughts
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
Days will come when the magic of the senses shall fade. And when this enchantment has fled, then it first becomes evident whether we are truly worthy of love.
T. S. ARTHUR
"The Evening Before Marriage", Orange Blossoms
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
If love does not know how to give and take without restrictions, it is not love, but a transaction that never fails to lay stress on a plus and a minus.
EMMA GOLDMAN
"The Tragedy of Woman's Emancipation"
You don't need scores of suitors. You need only one ... if he's the right one.
LOUISA MAY ALCOTT
Little Women