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 receives its death-wound from aversion, and forgetfulness buries it.
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.
As your lover describes you, so you are.
JEANETTE WINTERSON
Sexing the Cherry
Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it. What then kills love? Only this: Neglect.
JEANETTE WINTERSON
Written on the Body
If you have a history of bad relationships, what feels natural to you is probably NOT the best thing for you. This is counter-intuitive, but the things that feel good or exciting to you may actually be red flags that you're with someone who is fulfilling an old pattern of yours. Ironically, the kind of love that you deserve is going to feel uncomfortable at first, because it will be something NEW and off your neural map, so to speak. It may not be as exciting, and you'll likely not even be as initially attracted to the person who you'll ultimately create a strong relationship with, but true love is a marathon, not a sprint.
JENEV CADDELL
"The Part You're Missing About Manifesting True Love", Huffington Post, December 30, 2015
I really thought that love would save us all.
JOHN LENNON
attributed, The Philadelphia Inquirer, December 10, 1980
Love is a spiritual force, the deep aliveness that is the essence of being before we think about it.
JUDITH SEDGEMAN
Love Is Not What You Think
Love is a confidence trick, that's all. It's Nature's way of suckering a mammal with a brain and a long, vulnerable gestation period into reproducing. Humans can think, so ordinary animal-grade maternal instinct wouldn't be enough to make human women go through all that, not if they stopped and thought about what's involved. So you have love. It's a substitute for rational thought.
K. J. PARKER
Evil for Evil
It is the plain women who know about love; the beautiful women are too busy being fascinating.
KATHARINE HEPBURN
attributed, Evan Esar's 20,000 Quips & Quotes
'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
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
This love of ours, in so far as it is a love for one particular creature, is not perhaps a very real thing, since, though associations of pleasant or painful musings can attach it for a time to a woman to the extent of making us believe that it has been inspired by her in a logically necessary way, if on the other hand we detach ourselves deliberately or unconsciously from those associations, this love, as though it were in fact spontaneous and sprang from ourselves alone, will revive in order to bestow itself on another woman.
MARCEL PROUST
Within a Budding Grove
Love can get nasty when there's people involved.
MIKE WRATHELL
"Mozart's 'Figaro' Flies Thru Detroit!", America Jr., November 14, 2017
I loved a being, an idea of my own mind, which had no real existence. I concreted this abstract of perfection, I annexed this fictitious quality to the idea presented by a name; the being, whom that name signified, was by no means worthy of this. This is the truth: Unless I am determinedly blind -- unless I am resolved causelessly and selfishly to seek destruction, I must see it. Plain! is it not plain? I loved a being; the being, whom I loved, is not what she was; consequently, as love appertains to mind, and not body, she exists no longer. I regret when I find that she never existed, but in my mind; yet does it not border on willful deception, deliberate, intentional self-deceit, to continue to love the body, when the soul is no more?
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
letter to Thomas Jefferson Hogg, Jun. 2, 1811
Have you ever wondered why you feel more energetic and generally healthier when you're in love? That sparkle in the eyes of those in love isn't mythical or just a fancy twist of words. Love is a visceral experience, and your body chemistry changes because of it. It is an antidote to illnesses and actually increases one's life span.
PRACHI GANGWANI
"I Hypothalamus You: Love Is In the Brain Not Heart", iDiva, August 4, 2016
Take away love, and our earth is a tomb!
ROBERT BROWNING
"Fra Lippo Lippi"
He who would not be idle, let him fall in love.
ROMAN PROVERB
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
"God is love" became inverted into "love is God", so that it is now the West's undeclared religion--and perhaps its only generally accepted religion.
SIMON MAY
Love: A History
Nuptial love maketh mankind; friendly love perfecteth it; but wanton love corrupteth, and embaseth it.
SIR FRANCIS BACON
"Of Love", Essays, or Counsels Civil and Moral