quotations about love
Love is an alchemist that can transmute poison into food.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
Charles Caleb Colton (1777 - 1832) was an English cleric and writer. His books, including collections of epigrammatic aphorisms and short essays on conduct, though now almost forgotten, had a phenomenal popularity in their day.
Love, n. A temporary insanity curable by marriage or by removal of the patient from the influences under which he incurred the disorder. This disease is prevalent only among civilized races living under artificial conditions; barbarous nations breathing pure air and eating simple food enjoy immunity from its ravages. It is sometimes fatal, but more frequently to the physician than to the patient.
AMBROSE BIERCE
The Devil's Dictionary
Ambrose Bierce (1842-1913) was an American short story writer, journalist, poet, and Civil War veteran. His book The Devil's Dictionary has been called "the most brilliant work of satire written in America," and his story "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" is one of the most famous and frequently anthologized stories in American literature.
Lust is a sprightly servant,
Gallant where wines are poured;
Love is a bitter master,
Love is an iron lord.
STEPHEN VINCENT BENÉT
Young Adventure
This is the morning of our love
It's just the dawning of our love
I feel you
Your heart it sings
I feel you
The joy it brings
Where heaven waits
Those golden gates
And back again
You take me to
And lead me through oblivion
DEPECHE MODE
"I Feel You", Songs of Faith and Devotion
All you need is love.
THE BEATLES
"All You Need Is Love", Magical Mystery Tour
The Beatles were an English rock band formed in Liverpool in 1960. Rooted in skiffle, beat, and 1950s rock and roll, their sound incorporated elements of classical music and traditional pop in previously unheard-of ways. The band later explored music styles ranging from ballads and Indian music to psychedelia and hard rock.
It is always possible to bind together a considerable number of people in love, so long as there are other people left over to receive manifestations of their aggressiveness.
SIGMUND FREUD
Civilization and Its Discontents
Love is never lost. If not reciprocated, it will flow back and soften and purify the heart.
WASHINGTON IRVING
attributed, Golden Gleams of Thought: From the Words of Leading Orators
Love is not a delicate toying,
A slim and shimmering mesh;
It is two souls wrenched into one,
Two bodies made one flesh.
STEPHEN VINCENT BENÉT
Young Adventure
What is love? To be delighted by the happiness of another.
GOTTFRIED WILHELM LEIBNIZ
Confessio Philosophi
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1 July 1646 - 14 November 1716) was a German philosopher, mathematician, and logician. His most prominent accomplishment was the development of differential and integral calculus independently of Sir Isaac Newton's contemporaneous achievements.
'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.
ALFRED TENNYSON
"In Memoriam"
I would rather have eyes that cannot see, ears that cannot hear, lips that cannot speak, than a heart that cannot love.
ROBERT TIZON
attributed, Happy for No Reason: 7 Steps to Being Happy from the Inside Out
Love can be a terrible curse. It can make you overlook even the largest flaws in a person's behavior.
CHRISTOPHER PAOLINI
Brisingr
We can't profess love without talking through hand puppets.
DAVID SEDARIS
Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim
As love is the most noble and divine passion of the soul, so is it that to which we may justly attribute all the real satisfactions of life, and without it, man is unfinished, and unhappy.
APHRA BEHN
The Fair Jilt
Aphra Behn (1640 - 1689) was an English playwright, poet, and novelist from the Restoration era. As one of the first English women to earn her living by her writing, she broke cultural barriers and served as a literary role model for later generations of women authors.
If you grew up in a house where you weren't loved, you didn't know there was an alternative.
JEFFREY EUGENIDES
The Marriage Plot
Love is a powerful neurological condition like hunger or thirst, only more permanent. We talk about love being blind or unconditional, in the sense that we have no control over it. But then, that is not so surprising, since love is basically chemistry.
JIM AL-KHALILI
"What is love -- can it really be defined and explained?", The Guardian, February 12, 2016
Love seeketh not itself to please,
Nor for itself hath any care,
But for another gives its ease,
And builds a Heaven in Hell's despair.
WILLIAM BLAKE
Songs of Experience
The blood of love welled up in my heart with a slow pain.
SYLVIA PLATH
The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath
[Nature's] crown is Love. Only through Love can we come near her. She puts gulfs between all things, and all things strive to be interfused. She isolates everything, that she may draw everything together. With a few draughts from the cup of Love she repays for a life full of trouble.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe
Happiest time of youth and life, when love is first spoken and returned; when the dearest eyes are daily shining welcome, and the fondest lips never tire of whispering their sweet secrets; when the parting look that accompanies "Good night!" gives delightful warning of tomorrow.
WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY
The Virginians