LOVE QUOTES XXVI

quotations about love

Oh, ill betide that villain love, not love,
That all its object and affection finds
In the mere contact of encircling arms!

PEDRO CALDERON DE LA BARCA

The Painter of His Own Dishonour


To love another human in all of her splendor and imperfect perfection, it is a magnificent task ... tremendous and foolish and human.

LOUISE ERDRICH

The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse


Love cannot in its very nature be peaceful or content. It is a restlessness, an unsatisfaction. I can grant a lasting love just as I can grant a lasting unsatisfaction; but the lasting love cannot be coupled with possession, for love is pain and desire and possession is easement and fulfilment.

JACK LONDON

The Kempton-Wace Letters


I want love on demand. Take it away when it hurts, but deliver it when desired, straight to my door.

HEIDI K. ISERN

"The responsibility to fall out of love is on you", Quartz, August 5, 2016


A man loves with more or less passion according to the number of cords which his pretty mistress binds to his heart.

HONORÉ DE BALZAC

Physiology of Marriage

Tags: Honoré de Balzac


Love's fire colors once our neutral form, to blacken to eternal embers.

ELISE PUMPELLY CABOT

"Arizona"

Tags: Elise Pumpelly Cabot


With his venom
irresistible
and bittersweet
that loosener
of limbs, Love
reptile-like
strikes me down

SAPPHO

With His Venom

Sappho (c. 630 - c. 570 BC) was a Greek poet from the island of Lesbos. Although most of her poetry is now lost, she was regarded in ancient times as one of the greatest lyric poets and given names such as the "Tenth Muse" and "The Poetess," just as Homer was called "the Poet."


First we love within, then we love the world.

ELIZABETH LESSER

The Seeker's Guide: Making Your Life a Spiritual Adventure

Tags: Elizabeth Lesser


Love does not seek equals; it creates them.

STENDAHL

The Red and the Black

Tags: Stendahl


Love is but a fire that is to be transmitted.

GASTON BACHELARD

The Psychoanalysis of Fire

Tags: Gaston Bachelard


Love, as the poet says, is like the spring. It grows on you and seduces you slowly and gently, but it holds tight like the roots of a tree. You don't know until you're ready to go that you can't move, that you would have to mutilate yourself in order to be free. That's the feeling. It doesn't last, at least it doesn't have to. But it holds on like a steel claw in your chest. Even if the tree dies, the roots cling to you. I've seen men and women give up everything for love that once was.

WALTER MOSLEY

The Man in My Basement

Tags: Walter Mosley


Do you know what love is? I'll tell you: it is whatever you can still betray.

JOHN LE CARRÉ

The Looking Glass War

Tags: John le Carré


Burning with tender love is not really an image for someone who has warmed mercury over a gentle flame. In slowness, gentleness, and hope we have the hidden force of moral perfection and of material transmutation.

GASTON BACHELARD

The Formation of the Scientific Mind

Tags: Gaston Bachelard


Thy love is like deep waters all around--
Warm pulsing waters, in whose brooding sound
The lone wail of my heart is lulled with dreams,
And the far clamour of the world is drowned.

ELSA BARKER

"The Garden of Rose and Rue", The Book of Love

Tags: Elsa Barker


Have you heard the word is love?
It's so fine, it's sunshine.

THE BEATLES

"The Word", Rubber Soul

The Beatles were an English rock band formed in Liverpool in 1960. Rooted in skiffle, beat, and 1950s rock and roll, their sound incorporated elements of classical music and traditional pop in previously unheard-of ways. The band later explored music styles ranging from ballads and Indian music to psychedelia and hard rock.

Tags: The Beatles


In a love affair, there is usually one person who loves, and the other qui se laisse aimer; it is only in later days, perhaps, when the treasures of love are spent, and the kind hand cold which ministered them, that we remember how tender it was; how soft to soothe; how eager to shield; how ready to support and caress. The ears my no longer hear which would have received our words of thanks so delightedly. Let us hope those fruits of love, though tardy, are yet not all too late; and though we bring our tribute of reverence and gratitude, it may be to a gravestone, there is an acceptance even there for the stricken heart's oblation of fond remorse, contrite memories, and pious tears.

WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY

Newcomes


Swift doth young Love flee,
And we stand wakened, shivering from our dream.

GEORGE MEREDITH

Modern Love

Tags: George Meredith


Though this faith in love as the one democratic, even universal, form of salvation open to us moderns is the result of a long religious history that saw divine love as the origin of human love and as the model to be imitated, it has paradoxically come into its own because of a decline in religious faith. It has been possible only because, since the end of the eighteenth century, love has increasingly filled the vacuum left by the retreat of Christianity.

SIMON MAY

Love: A History


Love took up the glass of Time, and turn'd it in his glowing hands;
Every moment, lightly shaken, ran itself in golden sands.
Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords with might;
Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, pass'd in music out of sight.

ALFRED TENNYSON

Locksley Hall

Tags: Alfred Tennyson


The first love disappears, but never goes. That ache becomes reconciliation.

JAMES BALDWIN

Just Above My Head

Tags: James Baldwin