LOVE QUOTES XLVIII

quotations about love

Love is all there is, it makes the world go 'round
Love and only love, it can't be denied
No matter what you think about it
You just won't be able to do without it
Take a tip from one who's tried

BOB DYLAN

"I Threw It All Away", Nashville Skyline


The true coronation of character is love. The true test of love is self-sacrifice. He knows not how to love who knows not how to suffer for love's sake. The love that costs nothing is worth--what it costs.

LYMAN ABBOTT

Old Testament Shadows of New Testament Truths

Tags: Lyman Abbott


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


'Tis a secret: none knows how it comes, how it goes:
But the name of the secret is Love!

LEWIS CARROLL

Sylvie and Bruno Concluded

Tags: Lewis Carroll


We can die by it, if not live by love,
And if unfit for tombs and hearse
Our legend be, it will be fit for verse.

JOHN DONNE

The Canonization


My Love is of a birth as rare
As 'tis, for object, strange and high;
It was begotten by Despair,
Upon Impossibility.

ANDREW MARVELL

The Definition of Love

Tags: Andrew Marvell


The gospel of love spread among a sex for the needs of militarism and the labor market has filled woman with the spiritual hysteria of apostleship.

MARIAN COX

"The Fools of Love", The Dry Rot of Society and Other Essays


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


She has not fallen in love. Love has been a flight, not a fall. She has risen into a new life; in her is born a new experience. Perhaps it has come suddenly, with a rush which has overwhelmed her with its tumultuous surprise. Perhaps it has grown gradually, so gradually that she has been quite unconscious of its advent until it has taken complete possession of her. As the water lily bursts open the moment the sun strikes upon it, and the rose turns from bud to blossom so gradually that the closest observation discerns no movement in the petals, so some souls bloom instantly when love touches them with its sunbeam, and others, unconscious and unobserved, pass from girlhood to womanhood. In either case it is love that works the miracle. She has not known the secret of her own heart. Or if she has known it, she cannot tell it to any one else --no, not even to herself! She only knows that within her is a secret room, wherein is a sacred shrine. But she has not the key; and what is enshrined there she will not permit even herself to know. She is a strange contradiction to herself. She is restless away from him and strangely silent in his presence, or breaks the silence only to be still more strangely voluble. She chides herself for not being herself, and has in truth become or is becoming another self. So one could imagine a green shoot beckoned imperiously by the sunlight, and neither daring to emerge from its familiar life beneath the ground nor able to resist the impulse; or a bird irresistibly called by life, and neither daring to break the egg nor able to remain longer in the prison-house of its infancy.

LYMAN ABBOTT

The Home Builder

Tags: Lyman Abbott


For me, however, if I understand the concept, to love properly and in earnest one would have to do it anonymously, or at least in an undeclared fashion, so as not to seem to ask anything in return, since asking and getting are the antithesis of love--if, as I say, I have the concept aright, which from all I have said and all that has been said to me so far it appears I do not. It is very puzzling. Love, the kind that I mean, would require a superhuman capacity for sacrifice and self-denial, such as a saint possesses, or a god, and saints are monsters, as we know, and as for the gods--well.

JOHN BANVILLE

The Infinities

Tags: John Banville


Love is not enough. It must be the foundation, the cornerstone -- but not the complete structure. It is much too pliable, too yielding.

BETTE DAVIS

The Lonely Life

Tags: Bette Davis


Love is an anesthesia. It puts you to sleep, it allows you to overlook, not question, not care ... and then, one day, you come to. And, by God and all his horny angels ... it's an eye opener.

ANN WUEHLER

The Next Mrs. Jacob Anderson

Tags: Ann Wuehler


You see, love is strong. Stronger than hate even. Love is the only thing that can kill hate, nothing else. You see, hate destroys and that's why love is stronger. It builds.

PETER ABRAHAMS

The Path of Thunder

Tags: Peter Abrahams


Love may forgive all infirmities and love still in spite of them: but Love cannot cease to will their removal.

C. S. LEWIS

The Problem of Pain

Tags: C. S. Lewis


Love is a negative form of hatred.

ROGER ZELAZNY

This Immortal

Tags: Roger Zelazny


I am coming to terms with the fact that loving someone requires a leap of faith, and that a soft landing is never guaranteed.

SARAH DESSEN

This Lullaby


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


Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it. What then kills love? Only this: Neglect.

JEANETTE WINTERSON

Written on the Body


Love wakes men, once a lifetime each;
They lift their heavy lids, and look;
And, lo, what one sweet page can teach
They read with joy, then shut the book.

COVENTRY PATMORE

"The Revelation"

Tags: Coventry Patmore


A lover is like a firefly,
lighting your life for a moment,
then leaving you to deal with the darkness
Until it flashes again.

RICH REITH

"Soulmate"