quotations about love
Love sometimes elevates, creates new qualities, suspends the working of evil inclinations; but only for a day. Love, then, is an Oriental despot, whose glance lifts a slave from the dust, and then consigns him to it again.
MADAME SWETCHINE
"Airelles", The Writings of Madame Swetchine
Man loves most that which is his own.
HENRY ADAMS
Historical Essays
The affections are like lightning: you cannot tell where they will strike till they have fallen.
HENRI-DOMINIQUE LACORDAIRE
attributed, A Dictionary of Thoughts: Being a Cyclopedia of Laconic Quotations from the Best Authors of the World, Both Ancient and Modern
If you listen to neurologists and psychiatrists, you'd never fall in love.
TIMOTHY LEARY
Changing My Mind, Among Others
Love defies all calculation. We are not judicious in love; we do not select those whom we ought to love, but those whom we cannot help loving.
GEORGE HENRY LEWES
attributed, Proust Was a Neuroscientist
Man ever is and always shall be blessed; for he loves, and love is an onward current that never ebbs; and borne upon this current humanity will at last make its far, fair haven; and meanwhile, as it voyages, it will find the course not too rough, but glorified by frequent halcyon days and calm nights set with stars.
FRANK CUMMINS LOCKWOOD
Robert Browning
You can fall in love with life, you can fall in love with yourself and with those around you. Tell the people important to you that you love them, and most importantly treat them like you do. Don't take love for granted because it's what binds the world together.
SONYA MATEJKO
"This Is What I Know About The World At 24", Huffington Post, April 5, 2016
With the secularization of the Western world, we are turning to romantic love to give us what we once looked for in the realm of the divine. Transcendence, meaning, wholeness, and ecstasy.
ESTHER PEREL
"A top couples' therapist says our 'religion of romantic love' is making relationships harder", Business Insider, November 10, 2017
Love is not some mushy feeling for your parents that you are born with, or a romanticized sexuality you learn from magazines. It is action. If you know what love is you can never be in doubt about whether someone loves you or you love someone.
PETER ABRAHAMS
The Fury of Rachel Monette
The poorest lives some little blossoms bring
To deck Love's altar in the days of spring.
ELSA BARKER
"The Garden of Rose and Rue", The Book of Love
Becoming addicted to love isn't uncommon. The chemicals released during that first phase are the same or similar to those released when consuming cocaine or drinking alcohol. And for some people the desire to feel that way all the time can be hard to resist.
KURT SMITH
"Yes, it is Possible to Be Addicted to Love", beliefnet, August 8, 2018
Love's wing moults when caged and captured,
Only free, he soars enraptured.
THOMAS CAMPBELL
Freedom and Love
Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius.
WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART
attributed, Zen Soup: Tasty Morsels of Wisdom from Great Minds
There is in man's nature a secret inclination and motion towards love of others, which, if it be not spent upon some one or a few, doth naturally spread itself towards many, and maketh men become humane and charitable, as it is seen sometimes in friars. Nuptial love maketh mankind, friendly love perfecteth it, but wanton love corrupteth and embaseth it.
FRANCIS BACON
Essays
Love was as hardwired into the structure of the universe as gravity and matter.
DAN SIMMONS
The Fall of Hyperion
Who does not know of eyes, lighted by love once, where the flame shines no more?--of lamps extinguished, once properly trimmed and tended? Every man has such in his house. Such momentoes make our splendidest chambers look blank and sad; such faces seen in a day cast a gloom upon our sunshine. So oaths mutually sworn, and invocations of heaven, and priestly ceremonies, and fond belief, and love, so fond and faithful that it never doubted but that it should live for ever, are all of no avail towards making love eternal: it dies, in spite of the banns and the priest; and I have often thought there should be a visitation of the sick for it, and a funeral service, and an extreme unction, and an abi in pace. It has its course, like all mortal things--its beginning, progress, and decay. It buds and it blooms out into sunshine, and it withers and ends.
WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY
Esmond
I'll tell you ... what real love is. It is blind devotion, unquestioning self-humiliation, utter submission, trust and belief against yourself and against the whole world, giving up your whole heart and soul to the smiter -- as I did!
CHARLES DICKENS
Great Expectations
Some sigh and cry for love
Ah, but in Pa-ree they die for love
Some waste away for love
Just the same -- hooray for love!
LEO ROBIN
"Hooray for Love"
I was thinking what a curious thing love is; only a sentiment, and yet it has power to make fools of men and slaves of women.
LOUISA MAY ALCOTT
A Long Fatal Love Chase
My God, these folks don't know how to love -- that's why they love so easily.
D. H. LAWRENCE
letter to Blanche Jennings, May 8, 1909
David Herbert Lawrence (11 September 1885 - 2 March 1930) was an English writer and poet. His collected works represent, among other things, an extended reflection on the dehumanizing effects of modernity and industrialization. His opinions earned him many enemies and he endured official persecution, censorship, and misrepresentation of his creative work throughout the second half of his life, much of which he spent in a voluntary exile he called his "savage pilgrimage".