LOVE QUOTES XLIV

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 is the desire to give, not to receive, something. Love is the art of producing something with the other's talents.

BERTOLT BRECHT

"Love of Whom?"

Tags: Bertolt Brecht


Love makes the world go round.

FRENCH PROVERB


Love does not rust.

GERMAN PROVERB


Love comes in at the window and goes out at the door.

ENGLISH PROVERB


Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it. What then kills love? Only this: Neglect.

JEANETTE WINTERSON

Written on the Body


Love is not like the echo, which returneth only what is given; but, rather, like the pump, which returneth by the pail what it received by the pint.

IVAN PANIN

Thoughts


Love isn't a state of perfect caring. It is an active noun like struggle. To love someone is to strive to accept that person exactly the way he or she is, right here and now.

FRED ROGERS

The World According to Mister Rogers


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

Tags: Jean M. Auel


To be in love is to see yourself as someone else sees you, it is to be in love with the falsified and exalted image of yourself. In love we are incapable of honour -- the courageous act is no more than playing a part to an audience of two.

GRAHAM GREENE

The Quiet American


Love unlocks doors and opens windows that weren't even there before.

MIGNON MCLAUGHLIN

The Neurotic's Notebook

Tags: Mignon McLaughlin


All love is lost but upon God alone.

WILLIAM DUNBAR

The Merle and the Nightingale

Tags: William Dunbar


Love endeth like the chianti flask, its drops are bitter.

GELETT BURGESS

The Maxims of Methuselah


Love is not enough. It must be the foundation, the cornerstone -- but not the complete structure. It is much too pliable, too yielding.

BETTE DAVIS

The Lonely Life

Tags: Bette Davis


This is love: You stop bothering about the universal, the general, get sucked instead into the local and particular: When will I see her again? What shall we do today? Do you like these shoes? Theory and reflection are delicate old uncles bustled out of the way by the boisterous nephews action and desire. Themes evaporate, only plot remains.

GLEN DUNCAN

The Last Werewolf

Tags: Glen Duncan


For me, however, if I understand the concept, to love properly and in earnest one would have to do it anonymously, or at least in an undeclared fashion, so as not to seem to ask anything in return, since asking and getting are the antithesis of love--if, as I say, I have the concept aright, which from all I have said and all that has been said to me so far it appears I do not. It is very puzzling. Love, the kind that I mean, would require a superhuman capacity for sacrifice and self-denial, such as a saint possesses, or a god, and saints are monsters, as we know, and as for the gods--well.

JOHN BANVILLE

The Infinities

Tags: John Banville


Love is the building blocks of creation, love is the substance from which we are made. From love, to love, by love.

MUNEERA RASHIDA

"What is love -- can it really be defined and explained?", The Guardian, February 12, 2016


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


Any love is enveloping and potentially dangerous; after all, you are putting your heart into someone else's hands and with that an incredible power to cause pain of various kinds (and vice versa). That's a given. But there is an additional absolutism about first love, when you have nothing to compare it with. You don't know anything, yet you feel you know everything -- this can be calamitous.

JULIAN BARNES

interview, The Guardian, January 29, 2018

Tags: Julian Barnes


Loving and energizing others is the best possible thing we can do for ourselves.

JAMES REDFIELD

The Celestine Prophecy