quotations about love
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, 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.
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
Children of the future Age
Reading this indignant page,
Know that in a former time
Love! sweet Love! was thought a crime.
WILLIAM BLAKE
"A Little Girl Lost", Songs of Experience
Life's greatest happiness is to be convinced we are loved.
VICTOR HUGO
Les Miserables
Victor Marie Hugo (1802-1885) is considered the most important of the French Romantic writers. Though regarded in France as one of that country's greatest poets, he is better known abroad for such novels as Les Misérables (1862) and The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (1831).
You never give away your heart; you lend it from time to time. If it were not so how could we take it back without asking?
JEANETTE WINTERSON
Written on the Body
The greatest pleasures of love are inseparable from its greatest pains: Love has the face of a goddess, but the talons of a lion.
IVAN PANIN
Thoughts
We can't profess love without talking through hand puppets.
DAVID SEDARIS
Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim
Love's a bully, pushing and shoving
In the belly of a woman.
Heavy rhythm taking over
To stick together a man and a woman
Stick together man and a woman
Stick together.
U2
"Do You Feel Loved", Pop
The blood of love welled up in my heart with a slow pain.
SYLVIA PLATH
The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath
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
You shouldn't have to pay for your love with your bones and your flesh.
PAT BENATAR
"Hell is for Children"
We should like those whom we love to receive all their happiness, or, if this were impossible, all their unhappiness from our hands.
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.
Love life seems to be that factor which requires the largest quantity of magical tinkering.
ISAAC ASIMOV
Foundation and Empire
Love is eternal as long as it lasts.
VINICIUS DE MORAIS
attributed, The New York Times Biographical Service, 1991
Love's never a fair trade.
MARGARET ATWOOD
The Year of the Flood
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".
Man's love is of man's life a thing apart,
'Tis woman's whole existence.
LORD BYRON
Don Juan
You can't love people into who you need them to be.
JULIE MITCHELL
"Love is not written in the stars", Corsicana Daily Sun, November 6, 2017
[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
Some people, right away, do know each other deeply. Love gives them insight into each other. Love makes them pledge themselves to each other. Love makes them inventive. Yes, it also makes them ridiculous. But that's just another of love's glories. It makes being ridiculous permissible.
JAMES KUZNER
"Should we scoff at the idea of love at first sight?", The Conversation, August 30, 2018
James Kuzner is Associate Professor of English at Brown University. With a specialty in early modern literature, his research tends to focus on the relationship between literature, selfhood, and political imagination.