quotations about love
Love is not like the echo, which returneth only what is given; but, rather, like the pump, which returneth by the pail what it received by the pint.
IVAN PANIN
Thoughts
Love not only occupies the higher lobes of the brain, but crowds out the lower to make room for its expansion.
HORACE MANN
Thoughts
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
It is love, not reason, that is stronger than death.
THOMAS MANN
The Magic Mountain
We can love with our minds, but can we love only with our minds? Love extends itself all the time, so that we can love even with our senseless nails: we love even with our clothes, so that a sleeve can feel a sleeve.
GRAHAM GREENE
The End of the Affair
Loving and energizing others is the best possible thing we can do for ourselves.
JAMES REDFIELD
The Celestine Prophecy
We never love anyone. What we love is the idea we have of someone. It's our own concept--our own selves--that we love.
FERNANDO PESSOA
The Book of Disquiet
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
The madness of love is the greatest of heaven's blessings.
PLATO
Phaedrus
Among all the many kinds of first love, that which begins in childish companionship is the strongest and most enduring: when passion comes to unite its force to long affection, love is at its spring-tide.
GEORGE ELIOT
Mr. Gilfil's Love Story
When you've lost all your play, guess what love becomes. Work. Work that gets harder every hour.
MARTIN AMIS
House of Meetings
A pair of bright eyes with a dozen glances suffice to subdue a man; to enslave him, and enflame him; to make him even forget; they dazzle him so that the past becomes straightway dim to him; and he so prizes them that he would give all his life to possess 'em.
WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY
Esmond
I think love adds to everything. I'm an old softie about that. I think love is the most important thing in life. If you don't have [a relationship], you're always looking for one. It's the motivator, the driver.
SHERYL CROW
Dr. Drew interview, 2001
All human love is a faint type of God's;
An echoing note from a harmonious whole;
A feeble spark from an undying flame;
A single drop from an unfathomed sea:
But God's is infinite; it fills the earth
And heaven, and the broad, trackless realms of space.
ALBERT LAIGHTON
"The Love of God"
Love is my religion--I could die for that.
JOHN KEATS
letter to Fanny Brawne, Oct. 13, 1819
Nothing is true but Love, nor aught of worth;
Love is the incense which doth sweeten earth.
RICHARD CHENEVIX TRENCH
"Love"
I shall be loved as quiet things
Are loved--white pigeons in the sun,
Curled yellow leaves that whisper down
One after one;
The silver reticence of smoke
That tells no secret of its birth
Among the fiery agonies
That turn the earth.
KARLE WILSON BAKER
"I Shall Be Loved as Quiet Things"
Karle Wilson Baker (1878-1960) was an American poet and author. She was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for her last collection of poetry, Dreamers on Horseback, in 1931.
Love is the one thing stronger than desire and the only proper reason to resist temptation.
JEANETTE WINTERSON
Written on the Body
Let me prevail as of old, as lover, as lord, as king, or have done with Love's tyrant rule.
WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT
To Nimue
Love is a farthing piece, a bloody bribe pressed in the palm of God and thrown away.
STELLA BENSON
This Is the End