LOVE
Addison, Joseph
Certain it is that there is no kind of affection so purely angelic as the love of a father to a daughter. He beholds her both with and without regard to her sex.—In love to our wives, there is desire; to our sons, there is ambition; but in that to our daughters there is something which there are no words to express.
Alger, William R.
Love makes obedience lighter than liberty.
Anonymous
If there is anything better than to be loved, it is loving.
Antoninus, Marcus Aurelius
It is the duty of men to love even those who injure them.
Bacon, Francis
Nuptial love maketh mankind; friendly love perfecteth it; but wanton love corrupteth and embaseth it.
Balzac, Honore de
The motto of chivalry is also the motto of wisdom; to serve all, but love only one.
Love is to the moral nature what the sun is to the earth.
True love is eternal, infinite, and always like itself. It is equal and pure, without violent demonstrations: it is seen with white hairs and is always young in the heart.
Beaumont, Francis
Of all the paths leading to a woman's love, pity is the straightest.
Beecher, Henry Ward
Young love is a flame; very pretty, often very hot and fierce, but still only light and flickering. The love of the older and disciplined heart is as coals, deep-burning, unquenchable.
We never know how much one loves till we know how much he is willing to endure and suffer for us; and it is the suffering element that measures love.—The characters that are great, must, of necessity, be characters, that shall be willing, patient, and strong to endure for others.—To hold our nature in the willing service of another, is the divine idea of manhood, of the human character.
Bernard, Saint
The true measure of loving God is to love him without measure.
Beyle, Marie Henry
One half, the finest half of life, is hidden from the man who does not love with passion.
Bovee, Christian Nestell
Our first love, and last love is self-love.
It is ever the invisible that is the object of our profoundest worship. With the lover it is not the seen but the unseen that he muses upon.
In matters of love and appetite beware of surfeits. Nothing contributes so much to the duration of either as moderation in their gratification.
Braddon, Mary Elizabeth
Why is it so difficult to love wisely, so easy to love too well?
Buckingham, George Villiers
All true love is grounded on esteem.
Bulwer-Lytton, Edward George
It seems to me that the coming of love is like the coming of spring—the date is not to be reckoned by the calendar. It may be slow and gradual; it may be quick and sudden. But in the morning, when we wake and recognize a change in the world without, verdure on the trees, blossoms on the sward, warmth in the sunshine, music in the air, we say spring has come.
The love of man, in his mature years, is not so much a new emotion, as a revival and concentration of all his departed affections toward others.
It is astonishing how little one feels poverty when one loves.
The accents of love are all that is left of the language of paradise.
Burton, Richard E.
No cord or cable can draw so forcibly, or bind so fast, as love can do with a single thread.
Byron, George Gordon Noel
Man's love is of man's life a part; it is woman's whole existence.
Alas! the love of women! it is known to be a lovely and a fearful thing; for all of theirs upon that die is thrown; and if 'tis lost, life has no more to bring to them but mockeries of the past alone.
With thee all toils are sweet; each clime hath charms; earth—sea alike—our world within our arms!
Child, Mrs. Lydia M.
The desire to be beloved is ever restless and unsatisfied; but the love that flows out upon others is a perpetual well-spring from on high.
The cure for all the ills and wrongs, the cares, the sorrows, and the crimes of humanity, all lie in that one word "love." It is the divine vitality that everywhere produces and restores life. To each and every one of us, it gives the power of working miracles if we will.
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor
The man's courage is loved by the woman, whose fortitude again is coveted by the man. His vigorous intellect is answered by her infallible tact. Can it be true, as is so constantly affirmed, that there is no sex in souls? I doubt it exceedingly.
Stimulate the heart of love and the mind to be early accurate, and all other virtues will rise of their own accord, and all vices will be thrown out.
Colton, Caleb C.
The plainest man that can convince a woman that he is really in love with her, has done more to make her in love with him than the handsomest man, if he can produce no such conviction. For the love of woman is a shoot, not a seed, and flourishes most vigorously only when ingrafted on that love which is rooted in the breast of another.
Love is an alliance of friendship and animalism; if the former predominate it is a passion exalted and refined; if the latter, gross and sensual.
Corporeal charms may indeed gain admirers, but there must be mental ones to retain them.
It is in love as in war, we are often more indebted for success to the weakness of the defence, than to the energy of the attack; for mere idleness has ruined more women than passion; vanity more than idleness, and credulity more than either.
Cowley, Abraham
The woman that has not touched the heart of a man, before he leads her to the altar, has scarcely a chance to charm it when possession and security turn their powerful arms against her.
Davidson, John Thain
I know no better augury of a young man's future than true filial devotion. Very rarely does one go morally wrong, whose passionate love to his mother is a ruling force in his life, and whose continual desire is to gladden her heart. Next to the love of God, this is the noblest emotion. I do not remember a single instance of a young fellow going to the bad who was tenderly devoted to his parents.
Davis, William Henry
Passion may be blind; but to say that love is, is a libel and a lie.—Nothing is more sharp-sighted or sensitive than true love, in discerning, as by an instinct, the feelings of another.
Doddridge, Philip
If nobody loves you, be sure it is your own fault.
Dryden, John
Let grace and goodness be the principal loadstone of thy affections. For love which hath ends; will have an end; whereas that which is founded on true virtue, will always continue.
Love reckons hours for months, and days for years; and every little absence is an age.
Love is love's reward.
Dudevant, Amantine Lucile Aurore
A man loved by a beautiful and virtuous woman, carries with him a talisman that renders him invulnerable; every one feels that such a one's life has a higher value than that of others.
A woman cannot love a man she feels to be her inferior; love without veneration and enthusiasm is only friendship.
Love is the virtue of women.
Eliot, George
Young love-making, that gossamer web! Even the points it clings to—the things whence its subtle interlacings are swung—are scarcely perceptible: momentary touches of fingertips, meetings of rays from blue and dark orbs, unfinished phrases, lightest changes of cheek and lip, faintest tremors. The web itself is made of spontaneous beliefs and indefinable joys, yearnings of one life toward another, visions of completeness, indefinite trust.
Among all the many kinds of first love, that which begins in childish companionship is the strongest and most enduring; when passion comes to unite its force to long affection, love is at its spring-tide.
A supreme love, a motive that gives a sublime rhythm to a woman's life, and exalts habit into partnership with the soul's highest needs, is not to be had where and how she wills: to know that high initiation, she must often tread where it is hard to tread, and feel the chill air and watch through darkness.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo
Never self-possessed, or prudent, love is all abandonment.
Love is strongest in pursuit; friendship in possession.
Love, and you shall be loved.—All love is mathematically just, as much as the two sides of an algebraic equation.
Erasmus, Desiderius
Love that has nothing but beauty to keep it in good health, is short-lived, and apt to have ague-fits.
Fuller, Margaret
One hour of love will teach a woman more of her true relations than all your philosophizing.
Fuller, Thomas
Affections, like the conscience, are rather to be led than drawn; and 'tis to be feared, they that marry where they do not love, will love where they do not marry.
Galsworthy, John
There will always be about the same percentage of people capable of real love, and there will always be about the same percentage of people who aren't.
Girardin, Emile de
A woman whom we truly love is a religion.
Girardin, Madam de
To love one who loves you, to admire one who admires you, in a word, to be the idol of one's idol, is exceeding the limit of human joy; it is stealing fire from heaven.
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von
We are shaped and fashioned by what we love.
We love a girl for very different things than understanding. We love her for her beauty, her youth, her mirth, her confidingness, her character, with its faults, caprices, and God knows what other inexpressible charms; but we do not love her understanding. Her mind we esteem if it is brilliant, and it may greatly elevate her in our opinion; nay, more, it may enchain us when we already love. But her understanding is not that which awakens and inflames our passions.
Greville, Lord
The poets judged like philosophers when they feigned love to be blind.—How often do we see in a woman what our judgment and taste approve, and yet feel nothing of love toward her; how often what they both condemn, and yet feel a great deal.
That is the true season of love, when we believe that we alone can love, that no one could ever have loved so before us, and that no one will love in the same way after us.
Hardy, Arthur S.
First love is an instinct—at once a gift and a sacrifice.—Every other is a philosophy—a bargain.
We love the virtues, but do not fall in love with them.—They confirm and nurture love, but after middle age they do not give it birth.
Hare, August W.
A youth's love is the more passionate, virgin love is the more idolatrous.
Love, it has been said, flows downward. The love of parents for their children has always been far more powerful than that of children for their parents; and who among the sons of men ever loved God with a thousandth part of the love which God has manifested to us?
Hazlitt, William
In love we rarely think of moral qualities, and scarcely of intellectual ones.—Temperament and manner alone, with beauty, excite love.
Herbert, George
Love and a cough cannot be hid.
Hervey, Eleanor Louisa
Divine love is a sacred flower, which in its early bud is happiness, and in its full bloom is heaven.
Holmes, Oliver Wendell
There comes a time when the souls of human beings, women more even than men, begin to faint for the atmosphere of the affections they are made to breathe.
Home, Henry
Nothing more excites to all that is noble and generous, than virtuous love.
Howells, William Dean
The whole business of love and lovemaking, is painted by the novelists in a monstrous disproportion to the other elations of life.
Hugo, Victor
The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved, loved for ourselves, or rather loved in spite of ourselves.
The first symptom of love in a young man, is timidity; in a girl, it is boldness.—The two sexes have a tendency to approach, and each assumes the qualities of the other.
Life is a flower of which love is the honey.
Ibsen, Henrik
The Bible speaks of a mysterious sin for which there is no forgiveness: this great unpardonable sin is the murder of the "love-life" in a human being.
Irving, Washington
Love is never lost. If not reciprocated it will flow back and soften and purify the heart.
The love of a delicate female is always shy and silent. Even when fortunate, she scarcely breathes it to herself; but when otherwise, she buries it in the recesses of her bosom, and there lets it cower and brood among the ruins of her peace.
A woman is more considerate in affairs of love than a man; because love is more the study and business of her life.
Jackson, Helen Hunt
Great loves, to the last, have pulses red; all great loves that have ever died dropped dead.
Jerrold, Douglas
It is a beautiful necessity of our nature to love something.
Love's like the measles, all the worse when it comes late in life.
Jewsbury, Maria Jane
Love is the purification of the heart from self; it strengthens and ennobles the character, gives a higher motive and a nobler aim to every action of life, and makes both man and woman strong, noble, and courageous; and the power to love truly and devotedly is the noblest gift with which a human being can be endowed; but it is a sacred fire that must not be burned to idols.
Love is the purification of the heart from self; it strengthens and ennobles the character; gives higher motive and nobler aim to every action of life, and makes both man and woman strong, noble, and courageous.—The power to love truly and devotedly is the noblest gift with which a human being can be endowed; but it is a sacred fire that must not be burned to idols.
Karr, Jean Baptiste Alphonse
One expresses well only the love he does not feel.
Love is the most terrible, and also the most generous of the passions; it is the only one that includes in its dreams the happiness of some one else.
Love in marriage should be the accomplishment of a beautiful dream, and not, as it too often is, the end.
Keller, Helen
Love ... is like a beautiful flower which I may not touch, but whose fragrance makes the garden a place of delight just the same.
Krummacher, Friedrich Wilhelm
If the tender, profound, and sympathizing love, practised and recommended by Jesus, were paramount in every heart, the loftiest and most glorious idea of human society would be realized, and little be wanting to make this world a kingdom of heaven.
Lamb, Charles
Man while he loves is never quite depraved.
Lamennais, Abbe Hugo Felicite de
The heart of him who truly loves is a paradise on earth; he has God in himself, for God is love.
Landon, Letitia Elizabeth
O love! thine essence is thy purity! Breathe one unhallowed breath upon thy flame and it is gone forever, and but leaves a sullied vase,—its pure light lost in shame.
Lasalle, Henri
Love is an egotism of two.
Latimer, Hugh
As every lord giveth a certain livery to his servants, love is the very livery of Christ. Our Saviour, who is the Lord above all lords, would have his servants known by their badge, which is love.
Lavater, John Caspar
He who, silent, loves to be with us—he who loves us in our silence—has touched one of the keys that ravish hearts.
Love sees what no eye sees; love hears what no ear hears; and what never rose in the heart of man love prepares for its object.
Lawrence, David H.
Love is a thing to be learned. It is a difficult, complex maintenance of individual integrity throughout the incalculable processes of inter-human polarity.
Leibnitz, Gottfried Wilhelm von
To love is to place our happiness in the happiness of another.
Leighton, Robert
How shall I do to love? Believe. How shall I do to believe? Love.
L'Enclos, Ninon de
A man's want of beauty is of small account if he be not deficient in other amiable qualities, for there is no conquest without the affections, and what mole can be so blind as a woman in love.
Lessing, Bruno
Love really has nothing to do with wisdom or experience or logic. It is the prevailing breeze in the land of youth.
Limayrac, Paulin
The heart of a young woman in love is a golden sanctuary which often enshrines an idol of clay.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth
Love gives itself; it is not bought.
Not father or mother has loved you as God has, for it was that you might be happy he gave his only son.—When he bowed his head in the death hour, love solemnized its triumph; the sacrifice there was completed.
There is nothing holier in this life of ours than the first consciousness of love—the first fluttering of its silken wings—the first rising sound and breath of that wind which is so soon to sweep through the soul, to purify or to destroy.
It is folly to pretend that one ever wholly recovers from a disappointed passion. Such wounds always leave a scar. There are faces I can never look upon without emotion; there are names I can never hear spoken without almost starting.
Love makes its record in deeper colors as we grow out of childhood into manhood; as the emperors signed their names in green ink when under age, but when of age, in purple.
Luther, Martin
Love is an image of God, and not a lifeless image, but the living essence of the divine nature which beams full of all goodness.
Faith, like light, should always be simple and unbending; while love, like warmth, should beam forth on every side, and bend to every necessity of our brethren.
Macleod, Alexander
A man may be a miser of his wealth; he may tie up his talent in a napkin; he may hug himself in his reputation; but he is always generous in his love. Love cannot stay at home; a man cannot keep it to himself. Like light, it is constantly traveling. A man must spend it, must give it away.
Malet, Lucas
He credited her with a number of virtues, of the existence of which her conduct and conversation had given but limited indications.—But, then, lovers have a proverbial power of balancing inverted pyramids, going to sea in sieves, and successfully performing other kindred feats impossible, to a faithless and unbelieving generation.
There is a passion of reverence, almost of pity, mingling with the love of an honest man for a pure girl, which makes it the most exquisite, perhaps, of all human sentiments.
Margaret of Valois
In love, as in war, a fortress that parleys is half taken.
Martineau, Harriet
Must love be ever treated with profaneness as a mere illusion? or with coarseness as a mere impulse? or with fear as a mere disease? or with shame as a mere weakness? or with levity as a mere accident? whereas it is a great mystery and a great necessity, lying at the foundation of human existence, morality, and happiness,—mysterious, universal, inevitable as death.
Mauvaux, Julien
The heart of a woman is never so full of affection that there does not remain a little corner for flattery and love.
Middleton, Conyers
The treasures of the deep are not so precious as are the concealed comforts of a man locked up in woman's love.
Milton, John
Mutual love, the crown of all our bliss.
Moore, Thomas
Love must shun the path where many rove; one bosom to recline upon, one heart to be his only one, are quite enough for love!
Love was to his impassioned soul, not a mere part of its existence, but the whole, the very life-breath of his heart.
There is nothing half so sweet in life as love's young dream.
That happy minglement of hearts, where, changed as chemic compounds are, each with its own existence parts, to find a new one, happier far!
Where there is room in the heart there is always room in the house.
More, Hannah
Absence in love is like water upon fire; a little quickens, but much extinguishes it.
Love never reasons, but profusely gives; gives, like a thoughtless prodigal, its all, and trembles then lest it has done too little.
Nathan, George Jean
A man reserves his greatest and deepest love not for the woman in whose company he finds himself electrified and enkindled but for that one in whose company he may feel tenderly drowsy.
Necker, Madame
Where love and wisdom drink out of the same cup, in this everyday world, it is the exception.
O'Malley, Austin
If you intend to use a horse a whole day and a love for a lifetime, keep the reins taut in the morning.
Osgood, Frances S.
Love is the loadstone of love.
Otway, Thomas
The worst thing an old man can be is a lover.
Pascal, Blaise
If a man loves a woman for her beauty, does he love her? No; for the small-pox, which destroys her beauty without killing her, causes his love to cease. And if any one loves me for my judgment or my memory, does he really love me? No; for I can lose these qualities without ceasing to be.
Penn, William
Love is the hardest lesson in Christianity; but, for that reason, it should be most our care to learn it.
Love is indeed heaven upon earth; since heaven above would not be heaven without it; for where there is not love, there is fear; but, "Perfect love casteth out fear." And yet we naturally fear most to offend what we most love.
Petit-Senn, Jean-Antoine
Love with old men is as the sun upon the snow, it dazzles more than it warms them.
Petrarch
Love is the crowning grace of humanity, the holiest right of the soul, the golden link which binds us to duty and truth, the redeeming principle that chiefly reconciles the heart of life, and is prophetic of eternal good.
Plato
All loves should be simply stepping-stones to the love of God. So it was with me; and blessed be his name for his great goodness and mercy.
Quarles, Francis
If thou neglectest thy love to thy neighbor, in vain thou professest thy love to God; for by thy love to God, the love to thy neighbor is begotten, and by the love to thy neighbor, thy love to God is nourished.
Richter, Jean Paul
Love one human being purely and warmly, and you will love all.—The heart in this heaven, like the sun in its course, sees nothing, from the dewdrop to the ocean, but a mirror which it brightens, and warms, and fills.
Love lessens woman's delicacy, and increases man's.
Rochefoucauld, Francois, Duc de la
When the heart is still agitated by the remains of a passion, we are more ready to receive a new one than when we are entirely cured.
As love increases, prudence diminishes.
The reason why lovers are never weary of one another is this—they are always talking of themselves.
A man of sense may love like a madman, but not as a fool.
No disguise can long conceal love where it is, nor feign it where it is not.
Saadi
He who is intoxicated with wine will be sober again in the course of the night, but he who is intoxicated by the cupbearer will not recover his senses until the day of judgment.
Schiller, Johann Christoph Friedrich von
I have enjoyed the happiness of the world; I have lived and loved.
Schlegel, August Wilhelm von
Those who yield their souls captive to the brief intoxication of love, if no higher and holier feeling mingle with and consecrate their dream of bliss, will shrink trembling from the pangs that attend their waking.
Scott, Sir Walter
True love's the gift which God hath given to man alone beneath the heaven. The silver link, the silver tie, which heart to heart, and mind to mind, in body and in soul can bind.
Oh, why should man's success remove the very charms that wake his love!
In peace, love tunes the shepherd's reed; in war, he mounts the warrior's steed; in halls, in gay attire is seen; in hamlets, dances on the green. Love rules the court, the camp, the grove, and men below, and saints above; for love is heaven, and heaven is love.
Segur, Joseph Alexandre Pierre, Vicomte de
Love is like the moon; when it does not increase it decreases.
Shakespeare, William
Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind.
As soon go kindle fire with snow, as seek to quench the fire of love with words.
But love is blind, and lovers cannot see the pretty follies that themselves commit.
Love reasons without reason.
Love sought is good, but given unsought is better.
A murderous guilt shows not itself more soon than love that would seem hid; love's night is noon.
Base men, being in love, have then a nobility in their natures, more than is native to them.
They love least, that let men know their love.
The blood of youth burns not with such excess, as gravity's revolt to wantonness.
Shaw, Henry Wheeler
Love looks through a telescope; envy, through a microscope.
Sigourney, Lydia H.
The soul of woman lives in love.
South, Robert
Love covers a multitude of sins. When a scar cannot be taken away, the next kind office is to hide it.—Love is never so blind as when it is to spy faults.—It is like the painter, who, being to draw the picture of a friend having a blemish in one eye, would picture only the other side of his face.—It is a noble and great thing to cover the blemishes and to excuse the failings of a friend; to draw a curtain before his stains, and to display his perfections; to bury his weaknesses in silence, but to proclaim his virtues upon the house-top.
Southey, Robert
Take away love, and not physical nature only, but the heart of the moral world would be palsied.
The true one of youth's love, proving a faithful help-meet in those years when the dream of life is over, and we live in its realities.
Oh, let the steps of youth be cautious how they advance into a dangerous world; our duty only can conduct us safe, our passions are seducers; and of all, the strongest is love.
Spadara, Marchioness de
If there be one thing pure, where all beside is sullied, and that can endure when all else passes away—if aught-surpassing human deed, or word, or thought, it is a mother's love.
Spanheim, Frederick
They are the true disciples of Christ, not who know most, but who love most.
Spencer, Ichabod Smith
It is the very essence of love, of nobleness, of greatness, to be willing to suffer for the good of others.
Stael, Madam de
Love which is only an episode in the life of man, is the entire history of woman's life.
Stahl, P. J.
There is no permanent love but that which has duty for its eldest brother; so that if one sleeps the other watches, and honor is safe.
Sterne, Lawrence
It is sweet to feel by what fine spun threads our affections are drawn together.
Stowe, Mrs. Harriet Beecher
Love needs new leaves every summer of life, as much as your elm tree, and new branches to grow broader and wider, and new flowers to cover the ground.
Suard, Jean Baptiste Antoine
We attract hearts by the qualities we display, we retain them by the qualities we possess.
Taylor, Jeremy
Love is the greatest thing that God can give us, for himself is love; and it is the greatest thing we can give to God, for it will also give ourselves, and carry with it all that is ours. The apostle calls it the bond of perfection; it is the old, the new, and the great commandment, and all the commandments, for it is the fulfilling of the law. It does the work of all the other graces without any instrument but its own immediate virtue.
Two things create love perfection and usefulness, to which answer, on our part, admiration and desire; and both these are centered in love.
Temple, Sir William
The greatest pleasure of life is love.
Tennyson, Alfred Lord
It is better to have loved and lost, than not to love at all.
Terence
It is possible that a man can be so changed by love as hardly to be recognized as the same person.
Thoreau, Henry David
It is strange that men will talk of miracles, revelations, inspiration, and the like, as things past, while love remains.
Tuckerman, Henry Theodore
Nothing quickens the perceptions like genuine love. From the humblest professional attachment to the most chivalric devotion, what keenness of observation is born under the influence of that feeling which drives away the obscuring clouds of selfishness, as the sun consumes the vapor of the morning.
Tupper, Martin Farquhar
Love is the weapon which Omnipotence reserved to conquer rebel man when all the rest had failed. Reason he parries; fear he answers blow for blow; future interest he meets with present pleasure; but love is that sun against whose melting beams the winter cannot stand. There is not one human being in a million, nor a thousand men in all earth's huge quintiilion whose clay heart is hardened against love.
Vincent, Henry
I am not one of those who do not believe in love at first sight, but I believe in taking a second look.
Voltaire, Francois Marie de
Love is a canvas furnished by Nature and embroidered by imagination.
Warner, Charles Dudley
Did a woman ever love who would not give all the years of tasteless serenity for one year, for one month, for one day of uncalculating delirium of love poured out upon the man who returned it.
Watts, Isaac
Two sentiments alone suffice for man, were he to live the age of the rocks,— love, and the contemplation of the Deity.
Whitman, Walt
I never could explain why I love anybody, or anything.
Wilcox, Ella Wheeler
The days grow shorter, the nights grow longer, the headstones thicken along the way; and life grows sadder, but love grows stronger for those who walk with us day by day.
Willis, Nathaniel Parker
For woman's love—I mean self-love, is boundless, just like the sea, and sometimes quite as groundless.
Young, Edward
The maid that loves goes out to sea upon a shattered plank, and puts her trust in miracles for safety.
A father's heart is tender, though the man's is made of stone.
Humble love, and not proud science, keeps the door of heaven.
