Virtues

"Where love could walk with banish'd Hope no more."

"Here her hand Grasped, made her vail her eyes: she looked and saw The novice, weeping, suppliant, and said to her, "Yea, little maid, for am I not forgiven?" Then glancing up beheld the holy nuns All round her, weeping; and her heart was loosed Within her, and she wept with these and said,"Ye know me then, that wicked one, who broke The vast design and purpose of the King. O shut me round with narrowing nunnery-walls, Meek maidens, from the voices crying 'shame.'I must not scorn myself: he loves me still. Let no one dream but that he loves me still.""

"Life is ever lord of Death And Love can never lose its own."

"Justice is what love looks like in public."

"To love is to know the sacrifices which eternity exacts from life."

"There is no language that love does not speak."

"Free love, so bound, were freëst," said the King. "Let love be free; free love is for the best: And, after heaven, on our dull side of death, What should be best, if not so pure a love Clothed in so pure a loveliness? yet thee She failed to bind, though being, as I think, Unbound as yet, and gentle, as I know."

"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."

"Lady, for indeed I loved you and I deemed you beautiful, I cannot brook to see your beauty marred Through evil spite: and if ye love me not, I cannot bear to dream you so forsworn: I had liefer ye were worthy of my love, Than to be loved again of you — farewell; And though ye kill my hope, not yet my love, Vex not yourself: ye will not see me more."

"We love but while we may; And therefore is my love so large for thee, Seeing it is not bounded save by love."

"Hell is wherever Love is not, and Heaven Is Love's location. No dogmatic creed, No austere faith based on ignoble fear Can lead thee into realms of joy and peace. Unless the humblest creatures on the earth Are bettered by thy loving sympathy Think not to find a Paradise beyond."

"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."

"Sweet is true love though given in vain, in vain; And sweet is death who puts an end to pain: I know not which is sweeter, no, not I. Love, art thou sweet? then bitter death must be: Love, thou art bitter; sweet is death to me. O Love, if death be sweeter, let me die. … I fain would follow love, if that could be; I needs must follow death, who calls for me; Call and I follow, I follow! let me die."

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

"Bid me to live, and I will live Thy Protestant to be: Or bid me love, and I will give A loving heart to thee, A heart as soft, a heart as kind, A heart as sound and free As in the whole world thou canst find, That heart I'll give to thee."

"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."

"Love is and was my Lord and King, And in his presence I attend To hear the tidings of my friend, Which every hour his couriers bring."

"Yet is there one true line, the pearl of pearls: Man dreams of Fame while woman wakes to love."

"A politics of conscience is still yet possible. And yes... love will prevail."

"Romance lives by repetition, and repetition converts an appetite into an art. Besides, each time that one loves is the only time one has ever loved. Difference of object does not alter singleness of passion. It merely intensifies it. We can have in life but one great experience at best, and the secret of life is to reproduce that experience as often as possible."

"Let never man be bold enough to say, Thus, and no farther shall my passion stray: The first crime, past, compels us into more, And guilt grows fate, that was but choice, before."

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

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

"Those who are faithful know only the trivial side of love; it is the faithless who know love's tragedies."

"You, methinks you think you love me well; For me, I love you somewhat; rest: and Love Should have some rest and pleasure in himself, Not ever be too curious for a boon, Too prurient for a proof against the grain Of him ye say ye love: but Fame with men, Being but ampler means to serve mankind, Should have small rest or pleasure in herself, But work as vassal to the larger love, That dwarfs the petty love of one to one."

"I will love thee to the death, And out beyond into the dream to come."

"Some kill their love when they are young, And some when they are old; Some strangle with the hands of Lust, Some with the hands of Gold."

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

"There is a lady sweet and kind, Was never face so pleased my mind; I did but see her passing by, And yet I love her till I die."

"There is no more powerful motivation than to feel we’re being used in the creation of a world where love has healed all wounds. We are no longer ambitious for ourselves, but are rather inspired by the vision of a healed world."

"Soft is the breath of a maiden's Yes: Not the light gossamer stirs with less; But never a cable that holds so fast Through all the battles of wave and blast."

"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."

"For love reflects the thing beloved."

"Love's too precious to be lost, A little grain shall not be spilt."

"A hundred wise men have said in various ways that love transcends the power of death, and millions of fools have supposed that they meant nothing by it. At this late hour in my life I have learned what they meant. They meant that love transcends death. They are correct."

"If there is any thing that keeps the mind open to angel visits, and repels the ministry of ill, it is human love."

"Lake Como [...] is not like Lake Geneva surrounded by large fields well delimited and cultivated with the best systems, which suggest money and speculation. Here, wherever I turn, I see hills of unequal altitudes clothed with trees planted at will that the hand of man has not yet damaged and forced to bear fruit. Among these hills with admirable lines that plummet towards the lake for so singular steep slopes [...]. Everything here nobly, exquisitely speaks of love, there is nothing that reminds you of the ugliness of civilization. Halfway up the hill, hidden by large trees, the hamlets nestle and beyond the tree tops the architectural vagueness of their bell towers rises. If some small field intrudes here and there in the groups of chestnut and cherry trees, the plants seem happily to grow more vigorous than elsewhere and the gaze rests happy. And beyond the hills, whose summits offer hermitages that everyone would gladly inhabit, the astonished eye catches sight of the perpetual snow white of the peaks of the Alps which in their solemn austerity remind him just as much of the adversities of life, as much as it is enough to value the present well-being. The sound of the bell of a distant village lost in the woods stimulates the imagination: the notes flow on the water, fading in a tone of resigned melancholy and seem to say to man: life is fleeing, do not resist the happiness that comes towards you [...] hurry to enjoy it."

"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."

"'Tis better to have loved and lost, Than never to have loved at all."

"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."

"Open your heart and take us in, Love—love and me."

"Wars begin in the minds of men, and in those minds, love and compassion would have built the defenses of peace."

"Many who are careful with their money no sooner fall in love than they begin to waste it: and when they have spent it all, they no longer shrink from making more by methods which they formerly avoided because they thought them disgraceful."

"How can anyone be against love?"

"How come we don't always know when love begins, but we always know when it ends?"

"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."

"No, not Jove Himselfe, at one time, can be wise and love."

"Never give all the heart, for love Will hardly seem worth thinking of To passionate women if it seem Certain, and they never dream That it fades out from kiss to kiss; For everything that's lovely is but a brief, dreamy, kind of delight. O never give the heart outright, For they, for all smooth lips can say, Have given their hearts up to the play. And who could play it well enough If deaf and dumb and blind with love? He that made this knows all the cost, For he gave all his heart and lost."

"God gives us love. Something to love He lends us; but when love is grown To ripeness, that on which it throve Falls off, and love is left alone."

"There has fallen a splendid tear From the passion-flower at the gate. She is coming, my dove, my dear; She is coming, my life, my fate; The red rose cries, "She is near, she is near;" And the white rose weeps, "She is late;" The larkspur listens, "I hear; I hear;" And the lily whispers, "I wait.""