Love

"Love is where you find it. I think it is foolish to go looking for it, and I think it can often be poisonous."

"I wish that people who are conventionally supposed to love each other would say to each other, when they fight, "Please — a little less love, and a little more common decency.""

"Love does not care for time or order."

"Love,—the shining goal Of every human soul."

"I think about grief as a measure of our love, that grief compels us to do something, to love more."

"Could we forbear dispute, and practise love, We should agree as angels do above."

"The most wonderful of all things in life, I believe, is the discovery of another human being with whom one's relationship has a glowing depth, beauty, and joy as the years increase. This inner progressiveness of love between two human beings is a most marvelous thing, it cannot be found by looking for it or by passionately wishing for it. It is a sort of Divine accident."

"But what is grief, if not love persevering?"

"I learned the lesson that great men cultivate love, and that only little men cherish a spirit of hatred. I learned that assistance given to the weak makes the one who gives it strong; and that oppression of the unfortunate makes one weak."

"There is no formula for generating the authentic warmth of love. It cannot be copied. You cannot talk yourself into it or rouse it by straining at the emotions or by dedicating yourself solemnly to the service of mankind. Everyone has love, but it can only come out when he is convinced of the impossibility and the frustration of trying to love himself. This conviction will not come through condemnations, through hating oneself, through calling self love bad names in the universe. It comes only in the awareness that one has no self to love."

"Love is not consolation, it is light."

"The combination of these two facts — the longing in the depth of the heart for absolute good, and the power, though only latent, of directing attention and love to a reality beyond the world and of receiving good from it — constitutes a link which attaches every man without exception to that other reality. Whoever recognizes that reality recognizes also that link. Because of it, he holds every human being without any exception as something sacred to which he is bound to show respect. This is the only possible motive for universal respect towards all human beings. Whatever formulation of belief or disbelief a man may choose to make, if his heart inclines him to feel this respect, then he in fact also recognizes a reality other than this world's reality. Whoever in fact does not feel this respect is alien to that other reality also."

"He who does not realize to what extent shifting fortune and necessity hold in subjection every human spirit, cannot regard as fellow-creatures nor love as he loves himself those whom chance separated from him by an abyss. The variety of constraints pressing upon man give rise to the illusion of several distinct species that cannot communicate. Only he who has measured the dominion of force, and knows how not to respect it, is capable of love and justice."

"Belief in the existence of other human beings as such is love."

"I observed, "Love is the fulfilling of the law, the end of the commandment." It is not only "the first and great" command, but all the commandments in one. "Whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, if there be any virtue, if there be any praise," they are all comprised in this one word, love."

"An ounce of love is worth a pound of knowledge."

"Love, that is all the earth to lovers — love, that mocks time and space, Love, that is day and night — love, that is sun and moon and stars, Love, that is crimson, sumptuous, sick with perfume, No other words but words of love, no other thought but love."

"Dearest comrades, all is over and long gone, But love is not over..."

"I find a rapture linked with each despair, Well worth the price of anguish. I detect More good than evil in humanity. Love lights more fires than hate extinguishes, And men grow better as the world grows old."

"Between the finite and the infinite The missing link of Love has left a void. Supply the link, and earth with Heaven will join In one continued chain of endless life."

"Look to the Great Eternal Cause And not to any man, for light. Look in; and learn the wrong, and right, From your own soul's unwritten laws. And when you question, or demur, Let Love be your Interpreter."

"Breathe "God," in any tongue — it means the same; LOVE ABSOLUTE: Think, feel, absorb the thought; Shut out all else; until a subtle flame (A spark from God's creative centre caught) Shall permeate your being, and shall glow, Increasing in its splendour, till, YOU KNOW."

"Divine the Powers that on this trio wait. Supreme their conquest, over Time and Fate. Love, Work, and Faith — these three alone are great."

"All love that has not friendship for its base, Is like a mansion built upon the sand."

"Be happy, be happy; you shall have your red rose. I will build it out of music by moonlight, and stain it with my own heart's-blood. All that I ask of you in return is that you will be a true lover, for Love is wiser than Philosophy, though she is wise, and mightier than Power, though he is mighty."

"To love oneself is the beginning of a life-long romance."

"When one is in love, one always begins by deceiving one's self, and one always ends by deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance."

"To be in love is to surpass one's self."

"Even in the most perfect love one person loves less profoundly than the other."

"There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning."

"Taylor: Imagine me needing someone. Back on Earth I never did. Oh, there were women. Lots of women. Lots of love-making but no love. You see, that was the kind of world we'd made. So I left, because there was no one to hold me there."

"Just let your love flow like a mountain stream And let your love grow with the smallest of dreams And let your love show and you'll know what I mean It's the season Let your love fly like a bird on a wing And let your love bind you to all livin' things And let your love shine and you'll know what I mean That's the reason."

"Love is the true antithesis of fear. It expands where fear constricts. It embraces where fear repels."

"A long time ago, Anne used to talk about energy—how that was all that love was—ions connecting across synapses of time and air. Don't rationalize, she'd say. None of it will ever make sense. I leaned back against the wall and closed my eyes, not wanting to cry. Anne was right. None of it made any sense."

"If Thou be one whose heart the holy forms Of young imagination have kept pure Stranger! henceforth be warned; and know that pride, Howe'er disguised in its own majesty, Is littleness; that he who feels contempt For any living thing, hath faculties Which he has never used; that thought with him Is in its infancy. The man whose eye Is ever on himself doth look on one, The least of Nature's works, one who might move The wise man to that scorn which wisdom holds Unlawful, ever. O be wiser, thou ! Instructed that true knowledge leads to love; True dignity abides with him alone Who, in the silent hour of inward thought, Can still suspect, and still revere himself, In lowliness of heart."

"Ignorance of each other is what has made unity impossible in the past. Therefore we need enlightenment. We need more light about each other. Light creates understanding, understanding creates love, love creates patience, and patience creates unity. Once we have more knowledge (light) about each other, we will stop condemning each other and a United front will be brought about."

"The only business of the head in the world is to bow a ceaseless obeisance to the heart."

"A pity beyond all telling Is hid in the heart of love."

"But is there any comfort to be found? Man is in love and loves what vanishes, What more is there to say?"

"Speech after long silence; it is right, All other lovers being estranged or dead, Unfriendly lamplight hid under its shade, The curtains drawn upon unfriendly night, That we descant and yet again descant Upon the supreme theme of Art and Song: Bodily decrepitude is wisdom; young We loved each other and were ignorant."

"Only love can break your heart."

"Truth, like a woman, must be wooed and won - and this is only through the purity of mind and the heart’s deep love."

"Che amar chi t'odia, ell'è impossibil cosa."

": For 'tis impossible Hate to return with love."

": One sweet, sad secret holds my heart in thrall; A mighty love within my breast has grown, Unseen, unspoken, and of no one known; And of my sweet, who gave it, least of all."

"How many times do I love, again? Tell me how many beads there are In a silver chain Of evening rain Unravelled from the trembling main And threading the eye of a yellow star:— So many times do I love again."

"To Chloe's breast young Cupid slily stole, But he crept in at Myra's pocket-hole."

"Love in a shower safe shelter took, In a rosy bower beside a brook, And winked and nodded with conscious pride To his votaries drenched on the other side. Come hither, sweet maids, there's a bridge below, The toll-keeper, Hymen, will let you through. Come over the stream to me."

"In your arms was still delight, Quiet as a street at night; And thoughts of you, I do remember, Were green leaves in a darkened chamber, Were dark clouds in a moonless sky."

"When we do not love, we sleep, we are children of the dust — but love, and you are a god, you are pure, as on the first day of creation."