Love

"My aim is to understand love. I know how alive I felt when I was in love, and I know that everything I have now, however interesting it might seem, doesn't really excited me. But love is a terrible thing: I've seen my girlfriends suffer and I don't want the same thing to happen to me. … Although my aim is to understand love, and although I suffer to think of people to whom I gave my heart, I see that those who touched my heart failed to arouse my body, and that those who aroused my body failed to touch my heart."

"When we meet someone and fall in love, we have a sense that the whole universe is on our side. And yet if something goes wrong, there is nothing left! How is it possible for the beauty that was there only minutes before to vanish so quickly? Life moves very fast. It rushes from heaven to hell in a matter of seconds."

"Love is much like a dam: if you allow a tiny crack to form through which only a trickle of water can pass, that trickle will quickly bring down the whole structure, and soon no one will be able to control the force of the current. For when those walls come down, then love takes over, and it no longer matters what is possible or impossible; it doesn't even matter whether we can keep the loved one at our side. To love is to lose control."

"I am going to sit here with you by the river. If you go home to sleep, I will sleep in front of your house. And if you go away, I will follow you — until you tell me to go away. Then I'll leave. But I have to love you for the rest of my life."

"Even if loving meant leaving, or solitude, or sorrow, love was worth every penny of its price."

"Love is always new. Regardless of whether we love once, twice, or a dozen times in our life, we always face a brand-new situation. Love can consign us to hell or to paradise, but it always takes us somewhere. We simply have to accept it, because it is what nourishes our existence. If we reject it, we die of hunger, because we lack the courage to reach out a hand and pluck the fruit from the branches of the tree of life. We have to take love where we find it, even if it means hours, days, weeks of disappointment and sadness. The moment we begin to seek love, love begins to seek us. And to save us."

"There's nothing deeper than love. In fairy tales, the princesses kiss the frogs, and the frogs become princes. In real life, the princesses kiss princes, and the princes turn into frogs."

"Lovers need to know how to lose themselves and then how to find themselves again."

"The gods throw the dice, and they don't ask whether we want to be in the game or not. They don't care if when you go, you leave behind a lover, a home, a career, or a dream. The gods don't care whether you have it all, whether it seems that your every desire can be met through hard work and persistence. The gods don't want to know about your plans and your hopes. Somewhere they're throwing the dice — and you are chosen. From then on, winning or losing is only a question of luck. The gods throw the dice, freeing love from its cage. And love can create or destroy — depending on the direction of the wind when it is set free."

"We must never forget that spiritual experience is above all a practical experience of love. And with love, there are no rules."

"Love is the force that transforms and improves the Soul of the World. … It is we who nourish the Soul of the World, and the world we live in will be either better or worse, depending on whether we become better or worse. And that's where the power of love comes in. Because when we love, we always strive to become better than we are."

"One is loved because one is loved. No reason is needed for loving."

"The wise are wise only because they love."

"And sometimes when I am weary, When the path is thorny and Wild, I'll look back to the Eyes in the twilight, Back to the eyes that smiled.And pray that a wreath like a rainbow May slip from the beautiful past, And Crown me again with the sweet, strong love And keep me, and hold me fast."

"Years! Years, ye shall mix with me! Ye shall grow a part Of the laughing Sea; Of the moaning heart Of the glittered wave Of the sun-gleam's dart In the ocean-grave. Fair, cold, and faithless wert thou, my own! For that I love Thy heart of stone! From the heights above To the depths below, Where dread things move, There is naught can show A life so trustless! Proud be thy crown! Ruthless, like none, save the Sea, alone!"

"There are no signs, There are no stars aligned, No amulets no charms, To bring you back to my arms. There's just this human heart. That's built with this human fault. What was your question? Love is the answer."

"What have I done? What horrid crime committed? To me the worst of crimes—outliv'd my liking."

"So mourn'd the dame of Ephesus her love."

"There have been women I have loved … A lot, as discreetly as possible."

"Love is a special word, and I use it only when I mean it. You say the word too much and it becomes cheap."

"Do not judge but love and be loved, if you want to be really happy."

"World-peace can be achieved when the power of love replaces the love of power."

"Instead of creating a reason why you cannot love the world, try to create a reason why you should and must love the world."

"Love is something that never cared to learn how to judge anybody."

"Is the world so unbearable? No! What we need is only a little more love for the world."

"Man is by nature a lover. Only he has yet to discover the real thing to love. This quest awakens him to the fulfillment of his real Self."

"Life is nothing but the expansion of love. We can cultivate divine love by entering into the Source. The Source is God, who is all Love."

"If you really want to love humanity, then you have to love humanity as it is now."

"Hatred is a disguised form of love. You can only hate someone whom you really wish to love, because if you were totally indifferent to that person, you could not even get up enough energy to hate him."

"Love the world. Otherwise, you will be forced to carry the heaviest load: your own bitter self."

"Where love is thick, faults are thin. If you really love someone, then it is difficult to find fault with him. His faults seem negligible, for love means oneness."

"First of all, let us try to know what love is. If love means to possess someone or something, then that is not real love, not pure love. If loves means to give oneself, to become one with everything and everyone, then that is real love. Real love is total oneness with the object loved and with the Possessor of love."

"What is love? From the spiritual and inner point of view, love is self-expansion. Human love binds and is bound. Divine Love expands, enlarges itself."

"Try not to change the world. You will fail. Try to love the world. Lo, the world is changed. Changed forever."

"The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because they are generally the same people."

"Each one gave the other the only assistance one man can expect from another: that his friend support him and ask only that he remain himself. It is no great accomplishment to take people as they are, and we must always do so eventually, but to wish them to be as they are, that is a genuine love."

"There's no love lost between us."

"Isn't everything we do in life a way to be loved a little more?"

"I have often had occasion to observe, that a warm blundering man does more for the world than a frigid wise man."

"Where there is the greatest love, there are always miracles."

"Love is the fundamental and innate vocation of every human being."

"The word "love" is used far too frequently and far too imprecisely. It moves heaven and earth, it illuminates the purest of pages, but oh, with what ease it is pressed into service to mask the most infamous of passions, the vilest selfishness, and even crime!"

"True love is not the helpless desire to possess the cherished object of one's fervent affection; true love is the disciplined generosity we require of ourselves for the sake of another when we would rather be selfish; that, at least, is how I have taught myself to love my wife."

"Give me the love that leads the way, The faith that nothing can dismay, The hope no disappointments tire, The passion that will burn like fire; Let me not sink to be a clod: Make me Thy fuel, Flame of God"

"One can give without loving, but one cannot love without giving"

"For love is ever the beginning of Knowledge, as fire is of light."

"That our love is to be unconditional ---- that is, not demanding anything in return ---- is clearly indicated in the words of Jesus to His chosen 12 disciples just before His crucifixion...A corollary of unconditional love is unlimited forgiveness. This is demonstrated in Jesus' words to Peter when that disciple inquired whether he should forgive as many as seven times"

"The biblical assertion, Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord, is often quoted to portray justice as punishment, as retribution. This is a far cry from the concept of the justice of love... This quandary arises not only through a misconception of justice, but of love as well. For love is often thought to be sentimental weakness. Surely the more we study and meditate on the gospel ---- the good news ---- of Christ, both in Palestine long ago and in His Messages today, the more truly we will come to understand that love means justice, and justice is the way of love. In the Sermon on the Mount, as reported by Matthew, Christ says (speaking through Jesus): You have heard that it was said, 'an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.' But I say to you...if any one strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also... Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father... for he makes his sun rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. (from Matt. chapter 5)"

"That's love too. It ain't sex, and maybe that's too bad, but you know, Cindy, when a man and a woman care for each other, that doesn't always mean they have to sleep together or live together."

"When love hurts, it won't work."