quotations about love
It has been hard, I know, my daughters, but one word alone wipes out all of the hardships: love.
SOPHOCLES
Oedipus at Colonus
Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it. What then kills love? Only this: Neglect.
JEANETTE WINTERSON
Written on the Body
Empires, thrones, kings, dominions, all may be swept away by the force of circumstances, or time; glory, honour, position, wealth, and good name may be gone forever; and love may still be alive, fresh and young. Love born on high soars aloft, and makes its heavenly influence felt in every land and every clime; every nation bows before its power, every caste and every creed own its conquering influence. Love is the foundation of all happiness here and in the life to come, of all earthly joy and heavenly bliss the one spot of garden in the desert of many a life; the spring that is never dried up, and that pours forth its soothing waters o'er many an aching breast. Love can ne'er be bough; no fear can quench it; and absence makes it burn more brightly. Love never dies, or e'er grows old, but year after year it grows in strength and purity, till its golden rays touch the sky, from whence it came.
T. AUGUSTUS FORBES LEITH
"On Love", Short Essays
Love rays us round as glory swathes a star,
And, from the mystic touch of lips and palms,
Streams rosy warmth!
GERALD MASSEY
"To My Wife"
Nothing is true but Love, nor aught of worth;
Love is the incense which doth sweeten earth.
RICHARD CHENEVIX TRENCH
"Love"
Love is the crown that glorifies; the curse
That brands and burdens; it is life and death.
It is the great law of the universe;
And nothing can exist without its breath.
ELLA WHEELER WILCOX
"What Love Is"
Oh, God, I know no joy as great as a moment of rushing into a new love, no ecstasy like that of a new love. I swim in the sky; I float; my body is full of flowers, flowers with fingers giving me acute, acute caresses, sparks, jewels, quivers of joy, dizziness, such dizziness. Music inside of one, drunkenness. Only closing the eyes and remembering, and the hunger, the hunger for more, more, the great hunger, the voracious hunger, and thirst.
ANAIS NIN
diary, May 30, 1934
Anaïs Nin (February 21, 1903 - January 14, 1977) was a French-Cuban American diarist, essayist, novelist and writer of short stories and erotica. Nin's most studied works are her diaries or journals, which detail her marriages to Hugh Parker Guiler and Rupert Pole, in addition to her numerous affairs, including those with psychoanalyst Otto Rank and writer Henry Miller.
The madness of love is the greatest of heaven's blessings.
PLATO
Phaedrus
Are you a man? Then don't disgrace your manhood and go "moping" about because a worthless girl has "jilted" you, and sacrificed truth and honour to her inclination for the time being. You have heard that there are supposed to be as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it. I believe there are better; try and catch them, and be thankful for the escape you have had. If you are a man, don't try to drown your grief with the brandy bottle, you might as well drown it in the river; but act like one, and your mind will soon be at ease. Young women, if any of you have been cast off by a thing in man's garb, fret not, you can easily get a better, and remember you have the deep sympathy of every man worthy the name who knows how you have been treated. Parents, it is your duty to watch over your children, and much of the above sort of pain that is in the world endured, might be avoided.
T. AUGUSTUS FORBES LEITH
"On Requited Love", Short Essays
This is love: You stop bothering about the universal, the general, get sucked instead into the local and particular: When will I see her again? What shall we do today? Do you like these shoes? Theory and reflection are delicate old uncles bustled out of the way by the boisterous nephews action and desire. Themes evaporate, only plot remains.
GLEN DUNCAN
The Last Werewolf
Love is a quality which mocks at death, which overlaps it, feeds on it, is nourished by it, and finds its roots deep down in that part of us which is both immortal and Divine.
ARTHUR FOLEY WINNINGTON-INGRAM
Thoughts on Love and Death
To me, love is a pure idea forged in flesh, awkwardly maybe, but it had to connect to somewhere, despite twists and turns of underground cable. An all-too-perfect thing. Sometimes the lines get crossed. Or you get a wrong number. But that's nobody's fault. It'll always be like that, so long as we exist in this physical form. As a matter of principle.
HARUKI MURAKAMI
Dance, Dance, Dance
People think first love is sweet, and never sweeter than when that first bond snaps. You've heard a thousand pop and country songs that prove the point; some fool got his heart broke. Yet that first broken heart is always the most painful, the slowest to mend, and leaves the most visible scar. What's so sweet about that?
STEPHEN KING
Joyland
Every genuine expression of love grows out of a consistent and total surrender to God.
MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.
Christmas sermon delivered at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, 1957
Love is like a wind stirring the grass beneath trees on a black night.... You must not try to be definite and sure about it and to live beneath the trees, where soft night winds blow, the long hot day of disappointment comes swiftly and the gritty dust from passing wagons gathers upon lips inflamed and made tender by kisses.
SHERWOOD ANDERSON
"Death", Winesburg, Ohio
Love is the secret you unmask yourself to find; it is the foundation of the spiritual life, the destination where all roads of the journey lead.
ELIZABETH LESSER
The Seeker's Guide: Making Your Life a Spiritual Adventure
Be the love that the world needs to survive, to thrive, and to continue make being alive more worthwhile.
SONYA MATEJKO
"This Is What I Know About The World At 24", Huffington Post, April 5, 2016
Without love, we are nothing but organic molecules circling around the sun.
TIM LOTT
"Love is ... a torment and a joy. And it's not for softies", The Guardian, July 22, 2016
Tim Lott (born 23 January 1956) is a novelist, travel journalist, and an occasional op-ed writer for the Independent on Sunday.
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
The heart is forever unfaithful, and the feelings of love will come and go, but true love is not about what you feel. It is about what you do.
DOUGLAS CARLTON ABRAMS
The Lost Diary of Don Juan