quotations about love
A man in love prefers his passion to every other consideration, and is fonder of his mistress than he is of virtue. Should she prove vicious, she makes vice lovely in his eyes.
WILLIAM HAZLITT
Characteristics
Love is never free ... It is the most expensive emotion we have.
LAURELL K. HAMILTON
Burnt Offerings
At any rate, let us love for a while, for a year or so, you and me. That's a form of divine drunkenness that we can all try.
F. SCOTT FITZGERALD
"The Diamond as Big as the Ritz"
Love is like butter, it goes well with bread.
YIDDISH PROVERB
Love grows with obstacles.
GERMAN PROVERB
Why is the measure of love loss?
JEANETTE WINTERSON
Written on the Body
What could be more serious than the love of man for woman, what more commanding, more impressive, bearing in its bosom the seeds of death; at the same time these lovers, these people entering into illusion glittering eyed, must be danced round with mockery, decorated with garlands.
VIRGINIA WOOLF
To the Lighthouse
It must be sad to outlive aught we love.
GEORGE ELIOT
The Spanish Gypsy
The problem with being passionately in love ... is that it deprives you of too much sleep.
DAN SIMMONS
The Rise of Endymion
There is hope for all the colored people in this country while one white woman can love one colored man.
PETER ABRAHAMS
The Path of Thunder
All love is lost but upon God alone.
WILLIAM DUNBAR
The Merle and the Nightingale
I profess not to know how women's hearts are wooed and won. To me they have always been matters of riddle and admiration. Some seem to have but one vulnerable point, or door of access; while others have a thousand avenues, and may be captured in a thousand different ways. It is a great triumph of skill to gain the former, but a still greater proof of generalship to maintain possession of the latter, for man must battle for his fortress at every door and window. He who wins a thousand common hearts is therefore entitled to some renown; but he who keeps undisputed sway over the heart of a coquette is indeed a hero.
WASHINGTON IRVING
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
Love is intangible and invisible. If you want to reduce it to materialism, it is a biologically adaptive impulse to ensure the survival of your genes. But nothing makes nonsense of scientific materialism more comprehensively than the mystery of love. All the truly real things are not measurable.
TIM LOTT
"Love is ... a torment and a joy. And it's not for softies", The Guardian, July 22, 2016
Tim Lott (born 23 January 1956) is a novelist, travel journalist, and an occasional op-ed writer for the Independent on Sunday.
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
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
The belief that love is a finite essence that will eventually run out holds a certain logic for me even now, even if I am supposed to know better.
SUSANNA MOORE
The Big Girls
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
There is not on earth so base a knave as the man who wins the love of a woman when he knows that he cannot or ought not to requite it.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
As a drop of honey is dissipated and lost in a pail of water, so the sweet affection of love would totally vanish through too extensive a diffusion.
ARISTOTLE
Politics
Love alone was left, as a great image of a dream that was erased.
ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE
"The Valley", Poetical Meditations