quotations about love
Falling in Love, as modern biology teaches us to believe, is nothing more than the latest, highest, and most involved exemplification, in the human race, of that almost universal selective process which Mr. Darwin has enabled us to recognise throughout the whole long series of the animal kingdom. The butterfly that circles and eddies in his aerial dance around his observant mate is endeavouring to charm her by the delicacy of his colouring, and to overcome her coyness by the display of his skill. The peacock that struts about in imperial pride under the eyes of his attentive hens, is really contributing to the future beauty and strength of his race by collecting to himself a harem through whom he hands down to posterity the valuable qualities which have gained the admiration of his mates in his own person. Mr. Wallace has shown that to be beautiful is to be efficient; and sexual selection is thus, as it were, a mere lateral form of natural selection--a survival of the fittest in the guise of mutual attractiveness and mutual adaptability, producing on the average a maximum of the best properties of the race in the resulting offspring. I need not dwell here upon this aspect of the case, because it is one with which, since the publication of the 'Descent of Man,' all the world has been sufficiently familiar.
GRANT ALLEN
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"Falling in Love", Falling in Love and Other Essays
Life is short and we never have enough time for the hearts of those who travel the way with us. O, be swift to love!
HENRI-FREDERIC AMIEL
Journal Intime
Love abounds in all things,
excels from the depths to beyond the stars,
is lovingly disposed to all things.
She has given the king on high
the kiss of peace.
HILDEGARD OF BINGEN
"Caritas abundat"
A man loves with more or less passion according to the number of cords which his pretty mistress binds to his heart.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
It is easy to halve the potato where there's love.
IRISH PROVERB
Love is blind but sees afar.
ITALIAN PROVERB
There is little that comes so close to death as fulfilled love.
IVAN KLIMA
Love and Garbage
Love is the sum of all the arts, as it is the reason for their existence.
JACK LONDON
The Valley of the Moon
Love cannot in its very nature be peaceful or content. It is a restlessness, an unsatisfaction. I can grant a lasting love just as I can grant a lasting unsatisfaction; but the lasting love cannot be coupled with possession, for love is pain and desire and possession is easement and fulfilment.
JACK LONDON
The Kempton-Wace Letters
Love is a stream that will find its course.
JAMAICAN PROVERB
Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.
JAMES BALDWIN
The Fire Next Time
The first love disappears, but never goes. That ache becomes reconciliation.
JAMES BALDWIN
Just Above My Head
Love forces, at last, this humility: you cannot love if you cannot be loved, you cannot see if you cannot be seen.
JAMES BALDWIN
Just Above My Head
It was always about love. Always, always about love. Lost love, love denied, the obsessive hunger for love. Parental or romantic. Whether it was twisted or pure, fulfilled or unrequited, love was always at the source.
JAMES W. HALL
Magic City
And when two people have loved each other
see how it is like a
scar between their bodies,
stronger, darker, and proud;
how the black cord makes of them a single fabric
that nothing can tear or mend.
JANE HIRSHFIELD
"For What Binds Us"
Love receives its death-wound from aversion, and forgetfulness buries it.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of the Affections", Les Caractères
Jean de La Bruyère (16 August 1645 - 11 May 1696) was a French philosopher and moralist noted for his satire. His Caractères, which appeared in 1688, captures the psychological, social, and moral profile of French society of his time.
We never love with all our heart and all our soul but once, and that is the first time.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of the Affections", Les Caractères
Jean de La Bruyère (16 August 1645 - 11 May 1696) was a French philosopher and moralist noted for his satire. His Caractères, which appeared in 1688, captures the psychological, social, and moral profile of French society of his time.
As your lover describes you, so you are.
JEANETTE WINTERSON
Sexing the Cherry
Why is the measure of love loss?
JEANETTE WINTERSON
Written on the Body
What is more humiliating than finding the object of your love unworthy?
JEANETTE WINTERSON
The Passion