quotations about love
There is no happiness in love, except at the end of an English novel.
ANTHONY TROLLOPE
Barchester Towers
One of the remarkable things about love is that, despite very irritating people writing poems and songs about how pleasant it is, it really is quite pleasant.
DANIEL HANDLER
as Lemony Snicket, Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid
Love's wing moults when caged and captured,
Only free, he soars enraptured.
THOMAS CAMPBELL
Freedom and Love
That feelings of love and hate make rational judgments impossible in public affairs, as in private affairs, we can clearly enough see in others, though not so clearly in ourselves.
HERBERT SPENCER
The Study of Sociology
Almost all the time, you tell yourself you're loving somebody when you're just using them.
CHUCK PALAHNIUK
Invisible Monsters
Being in love is an elaborate state of anticipation for the continual exchanging of certain kinds of gifts. The gifts can range from a glance to the offering of the entire self. But the gifts must be gifts: they cannot be claimed. One has no rights as a lover--except the right to anticipate what the other wishes to give.
JOHN BERGER
G. John Berger
Though she had been besieged, courted, and pursued by men who had fallen in love with her, she did not in her heart believe in the existence of love. It seemed to her as unreal as the painted drop scenes, the temples of love, and the banks of roses that formed the settings for her dances. But though she was cold and insensitive to love, she was esteemed a wonderful mistress. She herself practiced love as a duty imposed by her profession, a part to be played that might sometimes please but always fatigued her and called for a high degree of art.
VICKI BAUM
Grand Hotel
Even kindergarten love is hard work.
JEFF HICKS
"Kindergarten love flourishes, 50 years later", The Record, September 3, 2018
Many of us want love to be wrapped up in an attractive package with all the bells, whistles, hugs and kisses. I know I do. Father God, please let my mate be smart, kind, generous, a dreamer but a doer, mentally stable, financially free, an advocate and a consumer of therapy, and also, can he look like Idris Elba, please, and thanks! But that's not always what love is. Realistically, that's not even what like is!
DANIELLE YOUNG
"OWN's Love Is ____ Aims to Redefine #RelationshipGoals", The Grapevine, June 26, 2018
Love takes work -- but we're so often slow to treat it as such. We'd rather endure half-hearted arrangements and let things fall apart, chalking it up as a fluke error or poor partner choice. And then we enter the next relationship, sights set high but with nothing to show by way of mindset improvement (other than blind optimism and/or a degree of jadedness.)
KRIS GAGE
"The 2 Biggest Things People Get Wrong About What Love Really Is", Your Tango, August 8, 2018
For me the cosmic aeons lie complete,
O Love, between thy forehead and thy feet!
ELSA BARKER
"The Garden of Rose and Rue", The Book of Love
Love was a country he knew nothing about.
JAMES BALDWIN
Another Country
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
There is hope for all the colored people in this country while one white woman can love one colored man.
PETER ABRAHAMS
The Path of Thunder
I sought for love on the highway,
For love unselfish and pure,
And found it in good deeds blooming,
Tho' often in haunts obscure.
HENRY ABBEY
"Trailing Arbutus"
I love your letters. How far is that from saying I love you? Well--about a mile. Two miles.
EDWARD ABBEY
The Serpents of Paradise
When I think of what true love means to us, I also think of the mundane days of bill paying, chore completing, and grocery shopping. Even though we hate being adults, being adults together somehow seems tolerable and perhaps even survivable.
LINDSAY DETWILER
"True Love Is Built In The Simple Moments", Huffington Post, October 22, 2017
Love is God's dream for man.
POPE FRANCIS
Vatican Radio, October 29, 2017
We can love a partner but not necessarily trust them. But when we trust a partner, loving them becomes much easier.
VIKKI ZIEGLER
"The Top 7 Reasons Why Marriages Last", Huffington Post, November 14, 2017
Our love is about small days to build memories upon, simple adventures we experience together.
LINDSAY DETWILER
"True Love Is Built In The Simple Moments", Huffington Post, October 22, 2017