Love

"Love rests on no foundation. It is an endless ocean, with no beginning or end."

"Love is so simple and spiritual. It is not related to social status, age, or even sexual identity."

"We love what we love. Reason does not enter into it. In many ways, unwise love is the truest love. Anyone can love a thing because. That's as easy as putting a penny in your pocket. But to love something despite. To know the flaws and love them too. That is rare and pure and perfect."

"You don't need money, don't take fame Don't need no credit card to ride this train It's strong and it's sudden and it's cruel sometimes But it might just save your life That's the power of love"

"The power of love is a curious thing Make a one man weep, make another man sing Change a hawk to a little white dove More than a feeling that's the power of love Tougher than diamonds, rich like cream Stronger and harder than a bad girl's dream Make a bad one good make a wrong one right Power of love that keeps you home at night"

"It takes courage to love, but pain through love is the purifying fire which those who love generously know. We all know people who are so much afraid of pain that they shut themselves up like clams in a shell and, giving out nothing, receive nothing and therefore shrink until life is a mere living death. (1 April 1939)"

"Love makes you do the wacky."

"Without love I mean nothing to you Without love broken in two Without love give me some value some worth Without love no life left on earth."

"Say you'll love, love me forever Never stop, not for whatever Near and far and always and Everywhere and everything. I love you, always forever Near and far, close and together Everywhere, I will be with you Everything, I will do for you I love you, always forever Near and far, close and together Everywhere, I will be with you Everything, I will do for you."

"He who is enamored of himself will at least have the advantage of being inconvenienced by few rivals."

"Back home where life leaves us blind Love keeps us kind [...] When life leaves us blind Love keeps us kind"

"Love is the closest thing to laughter and the closest thing to tears. Love is the motive power of everything in the universe that has beauty in it. Love is the reason for everything and the reward for everything. It’s always seemed strange to me that we have to use the word love for so many things. And yet when you come to think of it, that’s all right, too, because love is in everything in some form or another. Without it, I imagine the flowers would stop blooming and the sun would stop shining and people would stop laughing, and even the rain wouldn’t fall. So love is always growth. I think if I could have just one word for love—it would be understanding. Love must always be unselfish, and strangely enough, love is the only thing in the world that ever is unselfish. And if it isn’t unselfish, it’s only a counterfeit of love."

"I suppose the most radical part of my teaching at present is that love is not a feeling. Everybody suffers from love, or the fear of it, or the lack of it. Why? Why is love so universally and inevitably heart-breaking, whether it be through the end of a love affair, the death of a loved one or being locked in with the habitual casualness or grim indifference of a partner? The answer is because we've been taught and conditioned by the world to believe that love is a feeling."

"Feelings are constantly changing. None is dependable for long. You can love someone intensely today, and tomorrow or next month not feel a thing. Except perhaps for the feeling of doubt or depression that what was so beautiful could change so quickly."

"Love is the state of enlightenment and enlightenment is the state of love. You can't make any separation between them. Enlightenment is the state of no feelings and pure knowledge and so is love."

"Love is not a feeling; it's a sensation. Drinking water when you're thirsty is a sensation, not a feeling. Being in nature or swimming in the sea is a sensation, not a feeling. Lying down when you're tired is sensational, not a feeling, although you may say it feels good. Feeling is an emotional interpretation of experience and these sensations don't need interpretation; they are just good or right. Making physical love rightly is a sensation, not a feeling. So is the love of God. The same goes for joy and beauty; both are sensational."

"Love is beyond description; but not beyond demonstrating. Love is beyond the mind because it is always new. Any product of the mind is a reaction of the past, a synthesis of what is old. So the mind is a modifier, a reactor; a renovator, but it cannot create the new."

"Love is a power, a mighty principle that exists in its own right independent of any individual. Man changes, but the principle of love does not and cannot. Love does not leave men and women. Men and women leave love."

"Love is all around you like the air and is the very breath of your being. But you cannot know it, feel its unfeeling touch, until you pause in your busy-ness, are still and poised and empty of your wanting and desiring. When at rest the air is easily offended and will flee even from the fanning of a leaf, as love flees from the first thought. But when the air or love moves of its own accord it is a hurricane that drives all before it."

"All love - love of children, love of parents, love of God or life - comes out of making physical love. Without the making of love there is no body to love anything."

"Human love is not love. Love is natural to every body but it becomes human love as the person learns from society to confuse love with sex."

"O, there is nothing holier, in this life of ours, than the first consciousness of love,—the first fluttering of its silken wings."

"Ah, how skillful grows the hand That obeyeth Love's command! It is the heart, and not the brain, That to the highest doth attain, And he who followeth Love's behest Far excelleth all the rest!"

"That was the first sound in the song of love! Scarce more than silence is, and yet a sound. Hands of invisible spirits touch the strings Of that mysterious instrument, the soul, And play the prelude of our fate. We hear The voice prophetic, and are not alone."

"I love thee, as the good love heaven."

"Love keeps the cold out better than a cloak. It serves for food and raiment."

"How can I tell the signals and the signs By which one heart another heart divines? How can I tell the many thousand ways By which it keeps the secret it betrays?"

"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."

"Every man feels instinctively that all the beautiful sentiments in the world weigh less than a single lovely action."

"Love isn't how you feel. It's what you do."

"If we have the heart of a mother or, more precisely, if we set out to have the heart of the Mother par excellence: Mary, we will always be ready to love. [...] Using language that is quite familiar today, we can say that love knows “no form of discrimination.”"

"The words "God is love" have this deep meaning: that everything that is against love is ultimately doomed and damned."

"Underneath a starry sky Time was still but hours must really have rushed by I didn't realize But love was in your eyes I really should have gone But love went on and on"

"But tell me how it is that she could be so beautiful without any heart at all — without any place even for a heart to live in." "I cannot quite tell," she said; "but I am sure she would not look so beautiful if she did not take means to make herself look more beautiful than she is. And then, you know, you began by being in love with her before you saw her beauty … But the chief thing that makes her beautiful is this: that, although she loves no man, she loves the love of any man; and when she finds one in her power, her desire to bewitch him and gain his love (not for the sake of his love either, but that she may be conscious anew of her own beauty, through the admiration he manifests), makes her very lovely—with a self-destructive beauty..."

"One makes mistakes; that is life. But it is never a mistake to have loved."

"For that great Love speaks in the most wretched and dirty hearts; only the tone of its voice depends on the echoes of the place in which it sounds."

"To be trusted is a greater compliment than to be loved."

"Love all love. Hate all hate."

"Now there's no point in placing the blame And you should know I'd suffer the same If I lose you my heart will be broken Love is a bird... she needs to fly Let all the hurt inside of you die You're frozen when your heart's not open If I could melt your heart We'd never be apart Give yourself to me You hold the key"

"One plus one equals both."

"No one is born hating another person because of the colour of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite."

"I will make love my greatest weapon and none on whom I call can defend against its force. My reasoning they may counter; my speech they may distrust; my apparel they may disapprove; my face they may reject; and even my bargains may cause them suspicion; yet my love will melt all hearts liken to the sun whose rays soften the coldest clay. I will greet this day with love in my heart."

"Henceforth I will look upon all things with love and I will be born again. I will love the sun for it warms my bones; yet I will love the rain for it cleanses my spirit. I will love the light for it shows me the way; yet I will love the darkness for it shows me the stars. I will welcome happiness because it enlarges my heart; yet I will endure sadness because it opens my soul. I will acknowledge rewards because they are my due; yet I will welcome obstacles because they are my challenge. I will greet this day with love in my heart."

"Socrates … said the subtlest thing of all: that the lover was nearer the divine than the beloved."

"Contrary to Pascal's saying, we don't love qualities, we love persons; sometimes by reason of their defects as well as of their qualities."

"To him she seemed so beautiful, so seductive, so different from ordinary people, that he could not understand why no one was as disturbed as he by the clicking of her heels on the paving stones, why no one else's heart was wild with the breeze stirred by the sighs of her veils, why everyone did not go mad with the movements of her braid, the flight of her hands, the gold of her laughter. He had not missed a single one of her gestures, not one of the indications of her character, but he did not dare approach her for fear of destroying the spell."

"I am human and I need to be loved Just like everybody else does"

"Love is the last of the virtues to be born in the heart, but it is the first in value."

"He drew a circle that shut me out — Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout. But Love and I had the wit to win: We drew a circle that took him in."

"It seems to me like this. It's not a terrible thing — I mean, it may be terrible, but it's not damaging, it's not poisoning, to do without something one really wants. It's not bad to say: My work is not what I really want, I'm capable of doing something bigger. Or I'm a person who needs love, and I'm doing without it. What's terrible is to pretend that the second-rate is the first-rate. To pretend that you don't need love when you do; or you like your work when you know quite well you're capable of better."