quotations about love
Love has this in common with scruples, that it becomes embittered by the reflections and the thoughts that beset us to free ourselves.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of the Affections", Les Caractères
Jean de La Bruyère (16 August 1645 - 11 May 1696) was a French philosopher and moralist noted for his satire. His Caractères, which appeared in 1688, captures the psychological, social, and moral profile of French society of his time.
Love is a word from the old poems you read. In real life there is no love. Men come together like apes and birds. It is sweet sometimes to play with a woman, but the wind blows and there is an end of it.
VICKI BAUM
Love and Death in Bali
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all things else, when nourished and supplied plentifully with ailment, it is rapid in its progress; but let these be withdrawn and it may be stifled in its birth or much stinted in its growth.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
Love is the one thing stronger than desire and the only proper reason to resist temptation.
JEANETTE WINTERSON
Written on the Body
Love knoweth no laws.
JOHN LYLY
Euphues
No fruit has a more precise marked period of maturity, than love; if neglected to be gathered at that time, it will certainly fall to the ground and die away.
FULKE GREVILLE
Maxims, Characters, and Reflections
One love drives out another.
SPANISH PROVERB
Our earthly loves are but so many silver steps leading us up to the great golden love of God.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
See, chasing love does have its perks, but the best thing about chasing love? I've caught it, it feels just like home, and now I'm never letting go.
WHITNEY BUCHANAN
"Chasing Love, Is it Worth it?", Huffington Post, April 4, 2016
The girlish talk of love and lovers is henceforth stale and commonplace. The cheap jokes of the comic papers on love and its poor counterfeit, flirtation, are a blasphemy. Love-romances and love-poems have lost their charm, so inadequate are they to tell love's true story. She is herself the romance; she is herself the poem.
LYMAN ABBOTT
The Home Builder
When love comes to town I'm gonna jump that train
When love comes to town I'm gonna catch that flame.
Maybe I was wrong to ever let you down
But I did what I did before love came to town.
U2
"When Love Comes to Town", Rattle and Hum
You can run from love
And if it's really love it will find you
Catch you by the heel
U2
"A Man and a Woman", How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb
A man is only as good as what he loves.
SAUL BELLOW
Seize the Day
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 say love, and the world populates itself with doves.
PABLO NERUDA
"Get Used to Seeing the Shadow Behind Me"
Love ... like a lamp, it needs to be fed out of the oil of another's heart, or its flame burns low.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
Love does not dominate; it cultivates.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
attributed, Words of Wisdom: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Love is in that moment when you're in separate rooms trying to get the kids to sleep, and you unexpectedly get butterflies in your stomach because you're excited that you get to hang out with your best friend soon. It's in that conversation on the couch in your sweatpants eating Pad Thai out of a box while you exchange stories about things your children did and replay videos of them being adorable even though they've only been asleep for five minutes.
RASHA RUSHDY
"Love Is Sweatpants and Take-out, Actually", Huffington Post, February 14, 2016
Love lights more fires than hate extinguishes.
ELLA WHEELER WILCOX
"Optimism"
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