quotations about love
We are told from an early age that our true love is out there, waiting for us and so we yearn to find them, to know what it feels like to experience true love, to know you have made the right choice. The truth about love is that it is often bewildering and unknowable. You may never know if you have made the right choice. But when love is true, you embrace all the unknowns, regardless.
ROXANNE GAY
"Where the Hell Is the Love of My Life?", New York Times, October 18, 2018
Love brooks no delay.
ROMAN PROVERB
Love is the grand prize and the garbage heap. Love is a spiritual root canal and the only thing that makes life worth living. Love is a little taste of always and a big bite of nothing. And love is everything in between these extremes.
ROBERT FULGHUM
True Love
I used to think romantic love was a neurosis shared by two, a supreme foolishness. I no longer think that. There's nothing foolish in loving anyone. Thinking you'll be loved in return is what's foolish.
RITA MAE BROWN
Bingo
Life without Love is as a flower without fragrance.
RICHARD GARNETT
De Flagello Myrtes
Love prepares us for martyrdom.
PHILIP KOSLOSKI
"Love is What Prepares Us For Every Form of Martyrdom", National Catholic Register, March 22, 2016
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 is not a flow chart.
PAUL COSGROVE
"Love is not a flow chart", December 22, 2015
When we consider the lofty character of love, and remember his wonderful helpfulness to man, it would seem that he could have no opposition in his work, nor enemies under the sun; yet there is a whole bunch of fellows who are constantly antagonizing love. Among them are anger, hatred, revenge, envy, and jealousy. Love will have no fellowship with these, and if any one of them is admitted into the heart love goes out.
NICIAS BALLARD COOKSEY
Helps to Happiness
Every genuine expression of love grows out of a consistent and total surrender to God.
MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.
Christmas sermon delivered at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, 1957
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".
Expressing love is one of the most beautiful things of life -- for husbands and wives, children and parents, etc. I know that people often claim they prefer to express love by doing things like mowing lawns or making a nice dinner or buying gifts, etc. (There is even a popular book that has you take a questionnaire to find out what your primary way of showing love is so that people will be able to detect when you are showing love, in case you never verbally express it.) To be honest, I don't like promoting the idea that some people are just programmed to express love in certain ways, and not in others. There! I said it. (Sorry if you're a big fan of the book!) I say we don't let a questionnaire or our previous habits and norms limit us. How about we ALL learn to express love -- verbally -- with words!
MARA KOFOED
"The Language of Love", Danny + Mara, December 12, 2012
Love covers a multitude of sins.
LOUISA MAY ALCOTT
Little Women
You don't need scores of suitors. You need only one ... if he's the right one.
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
There is no disguise which can hide love for long where it exists, or simulate it where it does not.
LA ROCHEFOUCAULD
Maxims
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
Love knoweth no laws.
JOHN LYLY
Euphues
Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it. What then kills love? Only this: Neglect.
JEANETTE WINTERSON
Written on the Body
If you want to fall in love, you can't hold everything in. You have to open up, take that risk. You'll be hurt sometimes, but if you don't, you'll never be happy. The one you find may not be the kind of woman you expected to fall in love with, but it wont matter, you'll love her for exactly what she is.
JEAN M. AUEL
The Valley of Horses