quotations about love
One word
Frees us of all the weight and pain of life:
That word is love.
SOPHOCLES
Oedipus at Colonus
If the thing loved is base, the lover becomes base.
LEONARDO DA VINCI
Thoughts on Art and Life
Love isn't love until it's past.
PRINCE
"Sometimes It Snows in April", Parade
There were often times when I wondered if there was anyone out there for me at all. I would have lengthy chats with friends as we lamented about love and life, but my end conclusion would be that I, or anyone for that matter, had to remain hopeful. Whether or not there was someone for me, having a negative mindset about love wasn’t going to help me find love. I had to believe that there is a special someone out there for everyone and it was by being positive and being my best self that I would attract that person, whoever he might be.
CELESTINE CHUA
"How I Found My Soulmate, Part 1: My Journey in Love", Personal Excellence
To speak of love is to make love.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
Love gives impetus and fruitfulness to life and to the journey of faith: without love, both life and faith remain sterile.
POPE FRANCIS
Vatican Radio, October 29, 2017
Love called, and I could not linger,
But sought the forbidden tryst,
As music follows the finger
Of the dreaming lutanist.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
"Telepathy"
The feeling of love is a rich feeling, but the expression of love in word or deed is a joy.
ALEXANDER LOWEN
Depression and the Body
Love is the sum of all the arts, as it is the reason for their existence.
JACK LONDON
The Valley of the Moon
Don't you feel something magical when you're in love?... I do, I certainly do ... but I think that feeling of magic is a hardwired psychological response. It's a chemical thing in the brain. It's a flow of chemicals and electrical currents, and it developed over millions of years in the process of evolution to aid in the procreation of the species.
ALAN LIGHTMAN
Ghost
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, as the poet says, is like the spring. It grows on you and seduces you slowly and gently, but it holds tight like the roots of a tree. You don't know until you're ready to go that you can't move, that you would have to mutilate yourself in order to be free. That's the feeling. It doesn't last, at least it doesn't have to. But it holds on like a steel claw in your chest. Even if the tree dies, the roots cling to you. I've seen men and women give up everything for love that once was.
WALTER MOSLEY
The Man in My Basement
It doesn't matter who you are or what you look like so long as somebody loves you.
ROALD DAHL
"The Heart of a Mouse", The Witches
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"
Forgotten tones of love recur to us, and kind glances shine out of the past--oh so bright and clear!--oh so longed after!--because they are out of reach; as holiday music from within a prison wall--or sunshine seen through the bars; more prized because unattainable--more bright because of the contrast of present darkness and solitude, whence there is no escape.
WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY
Esmond
To love is to will the good of the other.
THOMAS AQUINAS
Summa Theologica
Two such as you with such a master speed
Cannot be parted nor be swept away
From one another once you are agreed
That life is only life forevermore
Together wing to wing and oar to oar.
ROBERT FROST
The Master Speed
Love on his errand bound to go
Can swim the flood and wade through snow,
Where way is none, 't will creep and wind
And eat through Alps its home to find.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
Love
For what is love itself, for the one we love best? An enfolding of immeasurable cares which yet are better than any joys outside our love.
GEORGE ELIOT
Daniel Deronda
Never mingle love and business.
ANTHONY TROLLOPE
Barchester Towers