quotations about love
From the dawn of time odes have been sung to love; wreathes heaped and roses; and if you asked nine people out of ten they would say they wanted nothing but this--love; while the women ... would all the time be feeling, this is not what we want; there is nothing more tedious, puerile, and inhumane than this; yet it is also beautiful and necessary.
VIRGINIA WOOLF
To the Lighthouse
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
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 fattens on smooth words.
KATHARINE HEPBURN
Me: Stories of My Life
It is love, not reason, that is stronger than death.
THOMAS MANN
The Magic Mountain
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
I say love, and the world populates itself with doves.
PABLO NERUDA
"Get Used to Seeing the Shadow Behind Me"
Love's a fire that needs renewal
Of fresh beauty for its fuel.
THOMAS CAMPBELL
Freedom and Love
When you love someone
you have to let them go.
It's the only way to keep them.
MACRINA WIEDERKEHR
Seasons of Your Heart
Love's dream, too, knows decay;
Awhile the soul-harp's wildly thrilling strain
Pours out those notes we ne'er forget again,
And the deep fountains of the heart burst forth
As if to gladden every spot of earth;
But O! it will not stay.
MARY T. LATHRAP
"Song of the Earth-Weary"
Ah! let us love, my Love, for Time is heartless,
Be happy while you may!
ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE
"The Lake"
It may be true that love is blind, but only for what is ugly: its sight is keen enough for what is beautiful.
IVAN PANIN
Thoughts
Those who are gone, you have. Those who departed loving you, love you still; and you love them always. They are not really gone, those dear hearts and true; they are only gone into the next room; and you will presently get up and follow them, and yonder door will close upon you, and you will be no more seen.
WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY
Roundabout Papers
Love, unconquerable,
Waster of rich men, keeper
Of warm lights and all-night vigil
In the soft face of a girl:
Sea-wanderer, forest-visitor!
Even the pure immortals cannot escape you,
And mortal man, in his one day's dusk,
Trembles before your glory.
SOPHOCLES
Antigone
The end of love is a haunting. A haunting of dreams. A haunting of silence. Haunted by ghosts it is easy to become a ghost. Life ebbs. The pulse is too faint. Nothing stirs you. Some people approve of this and call it healing. It is not healing. A dead body feels no pain.
JEANETTE WINTERSON
The Powerbook
Love is the one thing stronger than desire and the only proper reason to resist temptation.
JEANETTE WINTERSON
Written on the Body
We, unaccustomed to courage
exiles from delight
live coiled in shells of loneliness
until love leaves its high holy temple
and comes into our sight
to liberate us into life.
MAYA ANGELOU
A Brave and Startling Truth
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
You don't need scores of suitors. You need only one ... if he's the right one.
LOUISA MAY ALCOTT
Little Women
Love knows no law.
PORTUGUESE PROVERB