quotations about love
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
Love can get nasty when there's people involved.
MIKE WRATHELL
"Mozart's 'Figaro' Flies Thru Detroit!", America Jr., November 14, 2017
The Eskimo has fifty-two names for snow because it is important to them; there ought to be as many for love.
MARGARET ATWOOD
Surfacing
Margaret Atwood (born November 18, 1939) is a Canadian poet, novelist, literary critic, essayist, teacher, environmental activist, and inventor. Her works encompass a variety of themes including gender and identity, religion and myth, the power of language, climate change, and "power politics".
Love covers a multitude of sins.
LOUISA MAY ALCOTT
Little Women
You are worthy of love simply because you exist. Because you inhale and you exhale. You are worthy of love because you stumbled across this blog and you wanted to be encouraged, inspired and feel less alone. You are worthy of love because you have an open, beating, wildly beautiful, ever-hopeful heart. You are worthy of love because you are imperfect. Because you are built on strength and courage, curiosity and compassion. You are worthy of love because you give it and you intend to receive it. You are worthy of love because you look for the good when all you can see is the bad. You are worthy of love because you try. Because you dream. Because you are.
LINDSAY TIGAR
"You Are Worthy of Love", Confessions of a Love Addict, October 26, 2015
Love is the most destructive weapon of all, the only problem being how to contain and channel it into something that can be spanned, aimed and loosed.
K. J. PARKER
Devices and Desires
True love is never ending. That's like saying, "If this book I'm reading is really a book, it will never end." Books do end when the authors stop writing them. That doesn't make a book any less of a book. Even short stories can teach us valuable lessons. But when my kids ask me how to be part of a love story that's never ending, I'll tell them to find a prolific writing partner and keep working on new chapters together. No love is written in the stars. If you want a good love story, you have to keep creating it.
JULIE MITCHELL
"Love is not written in the stars", Corsicana Daily Sun, November 6, 2017
What love is depends on where you are in relation to it. Secure in it, it can feel as mundane and necessary as air -- you exist within it, almost unnoticing. Deprived of it, it can feel like an obsession; all-consuming, a physical pain. Love is the driver for all great stories: not just romantic love, but the love of parent for child, for family, for country. It is the point before consummation of it that fascinates: what separates you from love, the obstacles that stand in its way. It is usually at those points that love is everything.
JOJO MOYES
"What is love -- can it really be defined and explained?", The Guardian, February 12, 2016
Wherever love is, I want to be, I will follow it as surely as the land-locked salmon finds the sea.
JEANETTE WINTERSON
The Passion
What is more humiliating than finding the object of your love unworthy?
JEANETTE WINTERSON
The Passion
It was always about love. Always, always about love. Lost love, love denied, the obsessive hunger for love. Parental or romantic. Whether it was twisted or pure, fulfilled or unrequited, love was always at the source.
JAMES W. HALL
Magic City
Loving and energizing others is the best possible thing we can do for ourselves.
JAMES REDFIELD
The Celestine Prophecy
Love is not at the mercy of time and it does not recognize death, they are strangers to each other.
JAMES BALDWIN
Just Above My Head
Love is blind but sees afar.
ITALIAN PROVERB
Love is the most melodious of all harmonies.
HONORE DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
To me, love is a pure idea forged in flesh, awkwardly maybe, but it had to connect to somewhere, despite twists and turns of underground cable. An all-too-perfect thing. Sometimes the lines get crossed. Or you get a wrong number. But that's nobody's fault. It'll always be like that, so long as we exist in this physical form. As a matter of principle.
HARUKI MURAKAMI
Dance, Dance, Dance
It must be sad to outlive aught we love.
GEORGE ELIOT
The Spanish Gypsy
The way to love anything is to realize that it may be lost.
G. K. CHESTERTON
"The Advantages of Having One Leg", On Lying in Bed and Other Essays
Love Bertrand, love his dog.
FRENCH PROVERB
O little hour of Love, so wild and sweet!
I gave the world, thy honey-dew to eat;
And now the tear-sown pathway of the dead
Echoes the patter of thy flying feet.
ELSA BARKER
"The Garden of Rose and Rue", The Book of Love