Love

I love you, and because I love you, I would sooner have you hate me for telling you the truth than adore me for telling you lies.
Pietro Aretino (1492-1556)

It is not enough to love those who are near and dear to us. We must show them that we do so.
Lord Eric Avebury, British statesman

Love is, above all, a gift of oneself.
Jean Anouilh

Things are beautiful if you love them.
Jean Anouilh (1910-87), playwright

Love is a great beautifier.
Louisa May Alcott

Love never dies. Neither do your deepest dreams.
Julie Donner Anderson

In dreams and love there are no impossibilities.
Janos Arany (1817-1992), poet

Real love, I've learned, is a very, very strong form of forgiveness. I don't think people yearn for love because they hate staying home alone on Saturday night or because they dread going into restaurants alone. People want love because they want their taped-together glasses or ten extra pounds to be forgiven. They want someone to look past the surface stuff like bad-hair days, a too-loud laugh, or potato chips crunching in their living-room couch when anyone sits down.
Lois Smith Brady

Love is an exploding cigar we willingly smoke.
Lynda Barry

The trick is to love somebody... If you love one person, you see everybody else differently.
James Baldwin (1927-87), writer

Of course, it's possible to love a human being -- if you don't know them too well.
Charles Bukowski (1920-94), writer

Real love is a pilgrimage. It happens when there is no strategy, but it is very rare because most people are strategists.
Anita Brookner, artist historian/critic

A soulmate is someone who has locks that fit our keys, and keys to fit our locks. When we feel safe enough to open the locks, our truest selves step out and we can be completely and honestly who we are; we can be loved for who we are and not for who we're pretending to be. Each unveils the best part of the other.
Richard Bach

Love does not begin and end the way we seem to think it does. Love is a battle, love is a war; love is growing up.
James Baldwin

Sometimes the heart sees what is invisible to the eye.
H. Jackson Brown, jr.

I am my beloved's,
And his desire is for me.
Song of Solomon 7:10

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.
I John 4:18

... But there is only one thing that has power completely, and that is love. Because when a man loves, he seeks no power, and therefore he has power..
Cry, the Beloved Country, Alan Paton

I ask you to pass through life at my side - to be my second self and best earthly companion.
Mr. Rochester in Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë

...I never knew how much I loved [him] until I saw how much he could hurt me. I felt such pain, literally a physical pain, as if someone had torn off both my arms without anesthesia, without sewing me back up...
The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan
In this portion of the book, the wife and husband are divorcing, and he has been cheating on her. She is speaking here.

Not until I was alone that night could I begin to allow the full extent of my own feelings to surface . I felt such fear, such bottomless anxiety at the thought of losing my husband, my best friend, my dearest love and inspiration that it threatened to paralyze me. ... To lose this man would be a catastrophe on every level imaginable.
He simply could not die.
Queen Noor of Jordan, when she found out King Hussein had cancer
Leap of Faith: Memoirs of an Unexpected Life, page 403

... Maybe she did love him, she’d thought. But there were so many boys to love. She wasn’t ready to love just one.
Smart Women, Judy Blume

... Time passed, life continued, and I think of him less and less. But sometimes my mind drifts back to the sweet dream of my first love, and I am haunted by images of his smile. I loved his smile.
Cambra J. Cameron

Love is too strong a word to say it too early, but it has too beautiful a meaning to say it too late.
Kurt Spiteri Cornish

Truly loving another means letting go of all expectations. It means full acceptance, even celebration of another's personhood.
Karen Casey, Irish singer

A loving heart is the truest wisdom.
Charles Dickens (1812-1870), writer

You will find as you look back upon your life that the moments when you have really lived are the moments when you have done things in the spirit of love.
Henry Drummond, British clergyman

I like not only to be loved, but to be told that I am loved; the realm of silence is large enough beyond the grave.
George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans) (1819-1880), novelist

Work is love made invisible.
Kahlil Gibran

Love is a game that two can play and both can win.
Eva Gabor (1919-1995), actress

What a grand thing to be loved; what a grander thing still to love. The heart becomes heroic through passion. It is no longer composed of anything but what is pure; it no longer rests upon anything but what is elevated and great.
Victor Hugo, "Les Miserables"

Do you love me because I'm beautiful, or am I beautiful because you love me?
Oscar Hammerstein II (1895-1960), lyricist

Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.
Robert A. Heinlein

A life without love is like a year without summer.
Swedish saying

The heart that loves is always young.
Greek proverb

We come to love not by finding a perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly.
Sam Keen

Look for a sweet person. Forget rich.
Estée Lauder

Him that I love, I wish to be free - even from me.
Anne Morrow Lindbergh (1906-2001), writer

To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket -- safe, dark, motionless, airless -- it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.
C.S. Lewis

We don't love qualities; we love persons; sometimes by reason of their defects as well as of their qualities.
Jacques Maritain, French philosopher

Love is like a game of Memory. You've already turned over your card, now you just have to flip through the other million to find one that matches.
Corey Munn

We do not fall in love, we grow in love and love grows in us.
Karl Menninger

To love someone is to see a miracle invisible to others.
François Mauriac (1885-1970)

To forgive is the highest, most beautiful form of love. In return, you will receive untold peace and happiness.
Robert Muller, Asst. Secretary-General of the U.N.

Love is the difficult realization that something other than oneself is real.
Iris Murdoch

Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.
H.L. Mencken

I love that you get cold when it's seventy-one degrees out. I love that it takes you an hour and a half to order a sandwich. I love that you get a little crinkle in your nose when you're looking at me like I'm nuts. I love that after I spend a day with you, I can still smell your perfume on my clothes. And I love that you are the last person I want to talk to before I go to sleep at night. And it's not because I'm lonely, and it's not because it's New Year's Eve. I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.
"When Harry Met Sally"

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where
I love you... with no complexities
I love you because I know of no other way than this.
"Patch Adams"

The best proof of love is trust.
AOL member profile

Love brings light into the world.
Rumi (1207-1273), poet

There is no disguise that can for long conceal love where it exists or simulate it where it does not.
François de la Rochefoucald

Falling in love consists merely in uncorking the imagination and bottling the common sense.
Helen Rowland

Life has taught us that love does not consist of gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction.
Antoine de Saint-Exupery

What kind of love story are you living?
SARK

The course of true love never did run smooth.
William Shakespeare

Love can never stay the same; it either grows or it dies.
"For A Song", Michael Peterson

You don't know love 'til it's chilled you to the bone,
Turned you inside out,
Left you all alone.
You don't know love 'til you've watched it die and then
You have to try again
You don't know love.
"You Don't Know Love", Janie Fricke

Nobody Loved, Nobody Gets Hurt
title of a Suzy Bogguss CD

Love is so easy to feel, and the hardest one to say.
"If She Only Knew", Kevin Sharp

Don't say you love me if you really don't mean it.
"Make Me Believe", Martina McBride,
lyrics by James LeBlanc and Dan Srygley

In love there's no such thing as halfway.
"Give It Up", Avalon

Oh, let's end with a prayer for this love that we share
'Cause it could change in the blink of an eye
No, you just never know how tomorrow will go
So, let's make sure we kiss good-bye
"Let's Make Sure We Kiss Good-Bye", Vince Gill

Love isn't something that we're in; it's something that we do
Love isn't something that we fall in; it's something that we do.
"Something That We Do", Clint Black

Love isn't love 'til you give it away.
"Give It Away", Michael W. Smith

Love has a way of making you dream more.
"Shot for the Moon", Susan Ashton

I'll give you love for the rest of my life
But I want to make sure you know
You can't take it with you when you go
"You Can't Take It With You When You Go," Rhonda Vincent

Love can touch us one time and last for a lifetime.
"My Heart Will Go On", Celine Dion,
lyrics by Will Jennings

I see your true colors shining through
I see your true colors, and that's why I love you
So don't be afraid to let them show
Your true colors are beautiful like a rainbow.
"True Colors", performed separately by Phil Collins and Cyndi Lauper

I promise you love won't be easy
I promise you there will be times apart
But I swear that it comes from my heart
And I promise you're the only one for me
"You're the Only One for Me", Allure,
lyrics by C. Schack, K. Karlin, D. Rich

When somebody loves you, it's no good unless he loves you all the way.
"All the Way", Frank Sinatra, lyrics by J. Van Heusen and Sammy Cahn

Love takes no less than everything.
"Love Is"

They say that anger is just love disappointed...
“Hole in the World,” the Eagles

Have you ever been in love
You could touch the moonlight
When your heart is shooting stars
You're holding heaven in your arms
Have you ever been so alive

Have you ever walked on air
Every felt like you were dreamin'
When you never thought it could
But it really feels that good
Have you ever been so in love
- "Have You Ever Been in Love," Celine Dion

Love is friendship set on fire.
Jeremy Taylor

Love seems the swiftest, but it is the slowest of all growths. No man or woman really knows what perfect love is until they have been married a quarter of a century.
Mark Twain

The first duty of love is to listen.
Paul Tillich (1886-1965), theologian

Nothing is too much trouble for love.
Desmond Tutu, clergyman and civil rights leader

People hate as they love, unreasonably.
William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-63), novelist

At some point, love alone doesn't make a relationship work.
"Seventh Heaven"

You know, I think for the longest time, I was just waiting to find somebody I loved as much as I loved you. I realize that's not gonna happen, you know. You were my first love.
"Dawson's Creek," (season 4) Dawson to Joey

Joey: ... I know it's over. I just want to be your friend. ...
Pacey: You want to know what the truth is, Jo? I still love you, and I probably will love you for a very long time. But I can't just be your buddy. 'Cause, as much as I enjoy the concept of just being friends, in reality, it's a bizarre form of torture, and I'm just not willing to participate in it. So, right now, what I want to do is just move on and get over you, and the only way for me to do that is to not be around you anymore.
"Dawson's Creek" (episode 422), Joey and Pacey

You know it's love when you can't fall asleep because the reality is better than your dreams.

You can give without loving, but you can't love without giving.

Real love stories never have endings.

Don't weep because it's over, smile because it happened.
It is better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all.

Love is not necessary to life, but it's what makes life worth living.

Love is a well you drink from often but only fall into once.

Love may not make the world go around, but it sure makes the trip worthwhile.

Love is 3/4 dream and 1/4 reality. Problems usually arise when you fall in love with the dream and not the reality. You find love when you fall in love with both.

You do not love someone because they are beautiful; they are beautiful because you love them.

Love grows best when watered daily with kind words.

The mystery of love is greater than the mystery of death.

Love is like war - easy to begin but hard to stop.

Love is when each person is more concerned for the other than for oneself.

Love is an act of endless forgiveness, a tender look which becomes a habit.
Peter Ustinov (1921- ), actor/writer/director

When love comes it comes without effort, like perfect weather.
Helen Yglesias, writer

When women love us, they forgive us everything, even our crimes;
when they do not love us, they give us credit for nothing, not even our virtues.
Honore de Balzac (1799-1850), novelist

Love will find a way. Indifference will find an excuse.

There are never enough "I love you's."
Lenny Bruce (1925-1966), comedian

You are simply my best time.
You are my sweetest laughter.
You are my most peaceful sleep...
and still! You find new ways to love me.
Always you will have my hand to hold.
Always.
Mary Anne M.B.L. Radmacher

You can give without living, but you cannot love without giving.
Amy Carmichael (1867-1951), missionary

Love has nothing to do with what you are expecting to get - only with what you are expecting to give, which is everything.
Katharine Hepburn (1907-2003), actress

Only the heart knows how to find what is precious.
Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-1881), writer

Only love can be divided endlessly and still not diminish.
Anne Morrow Lindbergh (1906-2001), writer

Love is never as ferocious as when you think it's going to leave you.
Anita Shreve, "Weight of Water"