Love still makes the world go 'round, inspires great things, touches most hearts and can be painful. Here are short quotes about love to share with others.
So much has been written about romance that one catalog would not hold it. There are love quotes, love poems and plays, operas, magazine articles and both novels and non-fiction books whose major theme is love.
Short Love Sayings by Men
- Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired. (Robert Frost, 1874-1963)
- She whom I love is hard to catch and conquer, hard, but O the glory of the winning were she won. (George Meredith, 1828-1909)
- I fear to love you, sweet, because love is the ambassador of loss. (Francis Thompson, 1859-1907)
- When love and skill work together, expect a masterpiece. (John Ruskin, 1819-1900)
- The love of man and woman is as fire to warm, to light, but surely to consume and self-consuming die. (James J. Roche, 1847-1908)
- Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence. (H. L. Mencken, 1880-1956)
- Man’s love is of man’s life a thing apart; Tis woman’s whole existence. Lord Byron, 1788-1824; Don Juan)
- Give all to love; obey thy heart. (Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1803-1882)
- One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life. That word is love. (Sophocles, 496 BC-406 BC)
- Pains of love be sweeter far than all other pleasures are. (John Dryden, 1631-1700)
- When love speaks, the voice of all the gods makes heaven drowsy with the harmony. (William Shakespeare, 1564-1616; Love’s Labour’s Lost)
- Love sought is good, but given unsought is better. (Shakespeare, Twelfth Night)
- Love must kiss that mortal’s eyes who hopes to see fair Arcady. No gold can buy you entrance there… (Henry C. Bunner, 1855-1896)
- It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can stop him from lynching me, and I think that’s pretty important. (Martin Luther King Jr., 1929-1969)
Short Love Sayings by Women
- To love deeply in one direction makes us more loving in all others. (Anne-Sophie Swetchine)
- Age does not protect you from love, but love, to some extent, protects you from age. (Jeanne Moreau)
- Oh, what a dear ravishing thing is the beginning of an Amour! (Aphra Behn, 1640-1689; The Emperor of the Moon)
- Love ceases to be a pleasure when it ceases to be a secret. (Aphra Behn; The Lover’s Watch)
- There is no reciprocity. Men love women, women love children, children love hamsters. (Alice Thomas Ellis)
- I sometimes think the gods have united human beings by some mysterious principal…Or is it as Plato has supposed, that souls originally one have been divided, and each seeks the half it lost? (Lydia Maria Child, 1802-1880; Philothea: A Romance)
- He woos me with those honeyed words that women love to hear. (Emma C. Embury, 1806-1863, “The Widow’s Wooer”)
- Love thy neighbour as yourself, but choose your neighbourhood. (Louise Beal)
- Before I met my husband, I’d never fallen in love, though I’d stepped in it a few times. (Rita Rudner)
- Love is the difficult realization that something other than oneself is real. (Iris Murdoch (1919-1999)
- To love is to receive a glimpse of heaven. (Karen Sunde)
- Trouble is part of your life, and if you don’t share it, you don’t give the person who loves you a chance to love you enough. (Dinah Shore, 1917-1994)
Both the joy and pain of love are inspiring themes for writers, poets and opera composers. Sharing some of these short quotes with others can open up discussion about all the shapes love takes.
Companion articles list 24 short quotes about passion and tell how to write a love letter.
The copyright of the article 26 Short Love Quotes in Literary Culture is owned by Rosemary E. Bachelor. Permission to republish 26 Short Love Quotes in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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Jun 15, 2009 7:45 AM
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