Quote Library
Get App

Love Quotes

115 quotes

Love

Love

Timeless insights about relationships, compassion, and human connection

115 Quotes
Pablo Neruda
Pablo Neruda
To feel the love of people whom we love is a fire that feeds our life
— Memoirs, section "The Fire That Feeds Our Lives"
Audre Lorde
Audre Lorde
Each time you love, love as deeply as if it were forever, only, nothing is eternal
— From the poem 'Advice to My Daughter', published in 'The Black Unicorn' (1978)
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
You can only see clearly with the heart. What is essential is invisible to the eye
— The Little Prince (1943), Chapter 21
Sophocles
Sophocles
One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life: that word is love
— 'Oedipus at Colonus', line 1625
James Baldwin
James Baldwin
Whatever our struggles, whatever the ground of our being, the smallest gesture of tenderness can change us
— The Fire Next Time (book)
Eleanor Roosevelt
Eleanor Roosevelt
The giving of love is an education in itself
— You Learn by Living: Eleven Keys for a More Fulfilling Life, Chapter 4
Emily Brontë
Emily Brontë
Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same material
— Wuthering Heights (novel, 1847)
Mary Oliver
Mary Oliver
Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?
— The Summer Day, New and Selected Poems (1992)
Bram Stoker
Bram Stoker
There are darknesses in life and there are lights, and you are one of the lights, the light of all lights
— Dracula (novel, 1897)
Eckhart Tolle
Eckhart Tolle
Whatever you think the world is withholding from you, you are withholding from the world
— A New Earth, Chapter 1
Carl Gustav Jung
Carl Gustav Jung
The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed
— Modern Man in Search of a Soul, Chapter 8: The Development of Personality
James Thurber
James Thurber
Love is the strange bewilderment which overtakes one person on account of another person
— The Beast in Me and Other Animals
Pablo Neruda
Pablo Neruda
Love is so short, forgetting is so long
— Poem XX, Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair (1924)
Socrates
Socrates
The hottest love has the coldest end.
— Quoted in Plato's Phaedrus (interpreted through secondary sources)
Nayyirah Waheed
Nayyirah Waheed
You are my poem; a poem I do not own, nor write, yet I live inside its lines
— Salt, selected poem
Virginia Woolf
Virginia Woolf
He loved her, perhaps, more dearly than any man loves a woman, but so differently that it might not be recognized as love at all
— To the Lighthouse
Thich Nhat Hanh
Thich Nhat Hanh
To love without knowing how to love wounds the person we love
— How to Love, Introduction
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
They do not love that do not show their love
— Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act I, Scene II
Rainer Maria Rilke
Rainer Maria Rilke
Whatever our lives might be, we are always on the verge of a great revelation
— Letters to a Young Poet (Letter Eight)
Gautama Buddha
Gautama Buddha
You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection
— Often attributed in Buddhist teachings; paraphrased in Dhammapada commentary
W. H. Auden
W. H. Auden
If equal affection cannot be, let the more loving one be me
— The More Loving One, in Homage to Clio (1960)
E. E. Cummings
E. E. Cummings
I carry your heart with me. I am never without it
— Poem: i carry your heart with me(i carry it in)
Nicholas Sparks
Nicholas Sparks
The best love is the kind that awakens the soul; that makes us reach for more, that plants the fire in our hearts and brings peace to our minds
— From the novel The Notebook
G.K. Chesterton
G.K. Chesterton
The way to love anything is to realize that it may be lost
— The Defendant (1901), essay 'The Eclipse of a Sense of Humour'
Gabriel García Márquez
Gabriel García Márquez
I have waited for this opportunity for more than half a century, to repeat to you once again my vow of eternal fidelity and everlasting love
— Love in the Time of Cholera (novel)
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs
— Romeo and Juliet, Act 1, Scene 1
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde
Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead
— A Woman of No Importance, Act II
J.R.R. Tolkien
J.R.R. Tolkien
I am glad you are here with me. Here at the end of all things, Sam
— The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (Mount Doom, Book VI, Chapter 3)
János Arany
János Arany
In dreams and in love there are no impossibilities
— Quoted in various literature anthologies
Joan Crawford
Joan Crawford
Love is a fire. But whether it is going to warm your hearth or burn down your house, you can never tell
— Interview with Roy Newquist, 'Conversations with Joan Crawford', 1962
Iris Murdoch
Iris Murdoch
We can only learn to love by loving
— The Bell (novel, 1958)
Mark Twain
Mark Twain
To get the full value of joy you must have someone to divide it with
— Notebook, 1894
J.R.R. Tolkien
J.R.R. Tolkien
I would rather spend one lifetime with you than face all the ages of this world alone
— The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
H. Jackson Brown Jr.
H. Jackson Brown Jr.
Sometimes the heart sees what is invisible to the eye
— Life's Little Instruction Book (compiled aphorism)
Eden Ahbez
Eden Ahbez
The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return
— Lyrics from the song "Nature Boy"
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
Whatever is done for love always occurs beyond good and evil.
— Part One, Aphorism 153, Beyond Good and Evil (1886)
Laozi
Laozi
Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage
— Tao Te Ching, Chapter 67 (interpretation)
Robert Browning
Robert Browning
Take away love, and our earth is a tomb
— From the poem 'Paracelsus' (1835)
Alfred Lord Tennyson
Alfred Lord Tennyson
If I had a flower for every time I thought of you... I could walk through my garden forever
— Attributed (commonly quoted, from 19th-century letters or poetic fragments)
Blaise Pascal
Blaise Pascal
The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of
— Pensées, Section IV, 277
Tom Robbins
Tom Robbins
The highest function of love is that it makes the loved one a unique and irreplaceable being
— From 'Still Life with Woodpecker' (1980)
C.S. Lewis
C.S. Lewis
To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken
— The Four Loves, Book 2, Chapter 6
Elizabeth Gilbert
Elizabeth Gilbert
To lose balance sometimes for love is part of living a balanced life.
— Eat, Pray, Love (2006)
Rumi
Rumi
The minute I heard my first love story, I started looking for you, not knowing how blind that was. Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere. They’re in each other all along
— 'The Essential Rumi', translated by Coleman Barks
Ursula K. Le Guin
Ursula K. Le Guin
Love doesn't just sit there like a stone; it has to be made, like bread, remade all the time, made new
— The Lathe of Heaven (1971)
E.E. Cummings
E.E. Cummings
Love is the voice under all silences, the hope which has no opposite in fear
— Collected Poems, 1938
Elalusz (Nikita Gill)
Elalusz (Nikita Gill)
Hearts are wild creatures, that’s why our ribs are cages
— Wild Embers (poetry collection, 2017)
Charlotte Brontë
Charlotte Brontë
I have for the first time found what I can truly love, I have found you
— Jane Eyre, Chapter 23
Louis de Bernières
Louis de Bernières
Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away
— From the novel 'Captain Corelli's Mandolin' (1994)
Mother Teresa
Mother Teresa
Let us always meet each other with smile, for the smile is the beginning of love
— Speech on the importance of small acts of kindness (various public addresses)
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction
— 'Wind, Sand and Stars' (1939)
Hafiz of Shiraz
Hafiz of Shiraz
Even after all this time, the sun never says to the earth, 'You owe me.' Look what happens with a love like that. It lights the whole sky
— The Gift: Poems by Hafiz, selected translation
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
What is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil
— 'Beyond Good and Evil', Aphorism 153 (1886)
Leigh Bardugo
Leigh Bardugo
The heart is an arrow. It demands aim to land true
— Six of Crows
Aristotle
Aristotle
Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies
— Attributed by Diogenes Laërtius in Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, Book V
E. E. Cummings
E. E. Cummings
Love is the voice under all silences, the hope which has no opposite in fear; the strength so strong mere force is feebleness: the truth more first than sun, more last than star
— Poem: 'Love is the voice under all silences...' (from 'Complete Poems, 1904–1962')
Eckhart Tolle
Eckhart Tolle
To love is to recognize yourself in another
— A New Earth, Chapter 8
Stephen Chbosky
Stephen Chbosky
We accept the love we think we deserve
— The Perks of Being a Wallflower (novel), Part 1
Emily Brontë
Emily Brontë
Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same
— Wuthering Heights (Chapter 9)
Marcel Proust
Marcel Proust
Now, little by little, it will begin to happen with you, just as it happens to them, that something unfamiliar enters your heart
— In Search of Lost Time, Volume II: Within a Budding Grove
Elizabeth Gilbert
Elizabeth Gilbert
To be fully seen by somebody, then, and be loved anyhow—this is a human offering that can border on miraculous
— Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace With Marriage (book)
Emily Brontë
Emily Brontë
Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same
— Wuthering Heights, Chapter 9
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, and therefore is winged Cupid painted blind
— A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 1, Scene 1
Kahlil Gibran
Kahlil Gibran
Life without love is like a tree without blossoms or fruit
— The Prophet, 'On Love'
Hermann Hesse
Hermann Hesse
If I know what love is, it is because of you
— Novel 'Narcissus and Goldmund' (1930)
Mahatma Gandhi
Mahatma Gandhi
Where there is love there is life
— Speech in 1914 at a mass meeting in Durban, South Africa
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
Love sought is good, but given unsought, is better
— Twelfth Night, Act III, Scene I
David Viscott
David Viscott
To love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides
— Quoted in How to Live with Another Person, Chapter 3
Mignon McLaughlin
Mignon McLaughlin
In the arithmetic of hearts, one plus one equals everything, and two minus one equals nothing
— The Second Neurotic's Notebook (1966)
Alphonse de Lamartine
Alphonse de Lamartine
To love for the sake of being loved is human, but to love for the sake of loving is angelic
— 'Méditations poétiques' (1820s)
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Fyodor Dostoevsky
What is hell? I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love
— The Brothers Karamazov, Part 2, Book 5, Chapter 4
Khalil Gibran
Khalil Gibran
When love beckons to you, follow him, though his ways are hard and steep
— 'The Prophet' (1923), 'On Love' section
Viktor Frankl
Viktor Frankl
What is to give light must endure burning
— Man's Search for Meaning, Part Two: Logotherapy in a Nutshell
Ocean Vuong
Ocean Vuong
To touch the hand of another is often to touch a world, entire and alive, that has never before been seen
— On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe
We loved with a love that was more than love
— Poem 'Annabel Lee' (1849)
Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore
Love is an endless mystery, for it has nothing else to explain it
— Stray Birds, Verse 26
Coco Chanel
Coco Chanel
When we are in love, we are convinced nobody else will do. But as time goes, others do, and often do, much much better
— Quoted in 'Chanel and Her World' by Edmonde Charles-Roux (1979)
N.R. Hart
N.R. Hart
Souls tend to go back to who feels like home
— poem from 'Love, War and Soul'
Emily Brontë
Emily Brontë
Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same
— Wuthering Heights, Chapter 9
Anaïs Nin
Anaïs Nin
Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive
— The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Volume 1
Victor Hugo
Victor Hugo
Love is a shared solitude
— Les Misérables (1862)
Gabriel García Márquez
Gabriel García Márquez
There is always something left to love
— One Hundred Years of Solitude (Chapter 12)
Alice Walker
Alice Walker
I have learned not to worry about love; but to honor its coming with all my heart
— Collected Poems: Her Blue Body Everything We Know (1991)
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages
— Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Part III
Atticus
Atticus
Each time I have ever loved, I have learned a new song to sing to the silent stars
— Love Her Wild
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
There is no remedy for love but to love more.
— Journal, July 25, 1839
Maya Angelou
Maya Angelou
Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope
— Collected in Maya Angelou's Quotes displayed on her official website
E. E. Cummings
E. E. Cummings
Lovers alone wear sunlight
— Poem: "Being to timelessness as it's to time," (Collected Poems)
Jack Kornfield
Jack Kornfield
The heart is like a garden. It can grow compassion or fear, resentment or love. What seeds will you plant there?
— A Path with Heart (book, 1993)
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness
— Beyond Good and Evil, Aphorism 4
William Faulkner
William Faulkner
You don’t love because: you love despite; not for the virtues, but despite the faults
— ‘The Wild Palms’ (1939), Chapter 6
Paul the Apostle
Paul the Apostle
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
— 1 Corinthians 13:13, The Bible (New Testament)
Stephanie Perkins
Stephanie Perkins
For the two of us, home isn't a place. It is a person. And we are finally home
— Anna and the French Kiss
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
The most vital movements are not of the body, but of the soul, and of the soul through the body
— Point Counter Point
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe
We loved with a love that was more than love
— Annabel Lee (poem, stanza 2)
E. E. Cummings
E. E. Cummings
Love is the whole and more than all
— Poem 'if everything happens that can't be done', Complete Poems: 1904–1962
Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King Jr.
I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear
— Sermon at Ebenezer Baptist Church, Atlanta, Georgia, 1967
Victor Hugo
Victor Hugo
Love is the foolishness of men, and the wisdom of God
— Les Misérables (Book IV, Chapter 2)
Erich Fromm
Erich Fromm
Whatever you become, be tender
— The Art of Being (1989)
Valerie Lombardo
Valerie Lombardo
To be your friend was all I ever wanted; to be your lover was all I ever dreamed
— Widely attributed from various poetry collections
Mother Teresa
Mother Teresa
The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread
— From her Nobel Peace Prize lecture (1979)
George Eliot
George Eliot
Only in the agony of parting do we look into the depths of love
— Felix Holt, The Radical, Chapter XLVI
Rainer Maria Rilke
Rainer Maria Rilke
Whatever happens, whatever what is is is what I want. Only that. But that.
— Letters to a Young Poet, Letter Seven
Albert Ellis
Albert Ellis
The art of love is largely the art of persistence
— The Art of Love and The Therapy of Emotion (lecture)
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
We loved in a love that was more than love—a mystery that neither time nor distance could diminish
— Written in her personal correspondence to Robert Browning, circa 1845
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
We are shaped and fashioned by what we love
— Collected Works, Maxims and Reflections
Jane Austen
Jane Austen
There is no charm equal to tenderness of heart
— Emma, Volume I, Chapter 10
Haruki Murakami
Haruki Murakami
If you remember me, then I don't care if everyone else forgets
— Kafka on the Shore (2002)
Emily Brontë
Emily Brontë
Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same
— Wuthering Heights, Chapter 9
Erich Fromm
Erich Fromm
Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence
— The Art of Loving, 1956
Peter Ustinov
Peter Ustinov
Love is an act of endless forgiveness, a tender look which becomes a habit
— From various interviews and his autobiographical writings
Emily Dickinson
Emily Dickinson
Love is anterior to life, posterior to death, initial of creation, and the exponent of breath
— Poem 917, Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson
Zelda Fitzgerald
Zelda Fitzgerald
Nobody has ever measured, not even poets, how much the heart can hold
— Save Me the Waltz (1932)
Iris Murdoch
Iris Murdoch
Love is the extremely difficult realization that something other than oneself is real
— The Sovereignty of Good (essay, 1970)
Maya Angelou
Maya Angelou
Love is an endless act of forgiveness. Forgiveness is key to action and freedom
— Interview with Oprah Winfrey, O Magazine, February 2012