quotes from essays in love

Quotes from Essays in Love

Alain de Botton ·  211 pages

Rating: (14.7K votes)

“Every fall into love involves the triumph of hope over self-knowledge. We fall in love hoping we won't find in another what we know is in ourselves, all the cowardice, weakness, laziness, dishonesty, compromise, and stupidity. We throw a cordon of love around the chosen one and decide that everything within it will somehow be free of our faults. We locate inside another a perfection that eludes us within ourselves, and through our union with the beloved hope to maintain (against the evidence of all self-knowledge) a precarious faith in our species.” ― Alain de Botton, quote from Essays in Love

“We are all more intelligent than we are capable, and awareness of the insanity of love has never saved anyone from the disease.” ― Alain de Botton, quote from Essays in Love

“Perhaps it is true that we do not really exist until there is someone there to see us existing, we cannot properly speak until there is someone who can understand what we are saying in essence, we are not wholly alive until we are loved.” ― Alain de Botton, quote from Essays in Love

“We fall in love because we long to escape from ourselves with someone as beautiful, intelligent, and witty as we are ugly, stupid, and dull. But what if such a perfect being should one day turn around and decide they will love us back? We can only be somewhat shocked-how can they be as wonderful as we had hoped when they have the bad taste to approve of someone like us?” ― Alain de Botton, quote from Essays in Love

“It was no longer her absence that wounded me, but my growing indifference to it. Forgetting, however calming, was also a reminder of infidelity to what I had at one time held so dear.” ― Alain de Botton, quote from Essays in Love

“To be loved by someone is to realize how much they share the same needs that lie at the heart of our own attraction to them. Albert Camus suggested that we fall in love with people because, from the outside, they look so whole, physically whole and emotionally 'together' - when subjectively we feel dispersed and confused. We would not love if there were no lack within us, but we are offended by the discovery of a similar lack in the other. Expecting to find the answer, we find only the duplicate of our own problem.” ― Alain de Botton, quote from Essays in Love

“The more familiar two people become, the more the language they speak together departs from that of the ordinary, dictionary-defined discourse. Familiarity creates a new language, an in-house language of intimacy that carries reference to the story the two lovers are weaving together and that cannot be readily understood by others.” ― Alain de Botton, quote from Essays in Love

“.. if you asked most people whether they believed in love or not, they’d probably say they didn’t. Yet that’s not necessarily what they truly think. It’s just the way they defend themselves against what they want. They believe in it, but pretend they don’t until they’re allowed to. Most people would throw away all their cynicism if they could. The majority just never gets the chance.” ― Alain de Botton, quote from Essays in Love

“Everyone returns us to a different sense of ourselves, for we become a little of who they think we are.” ― Alain de Botton, quote from Essays in Love

“Must being in love always mean being in pain?” ― Alain de Botton, quote from Essays in Love

“Perhaps the easiest people to fall in love with are those about whom we know nothing. Romances are never as pure as those we imagine during long train journeys, as we secretly contemplate a beautiful person who is gazing out of the window – a perfect love story interrupted only when the beloved looks back into the carriage and starts up a dull conversation about the excessive price of the on-board sandwiches with a neighbour or blows her nose aggressively into a handkerchief.” ― Alain de Botton, quote from Essays in Love

“The most attractive are not those who allow us to kiss them at once [we soon feel ungrateful] or those who never allow us to kiss them [we soon forget them], but those who coyly lead us between the two extremes.” ― Alain de Botton, quote from Essays in Love

“If cynicism and love lie at opposite ends of a spectrum, do we not sometimes fall in love in order to escape the debilitating cynicism to which we are prone? Is there not in every coup de foudre a certain willful exaggeration of the qualities of the beloved, an exaggeration which distracts us from our habitual pessimism and focuses our energies on someone in whom we can believe in a way we have never believed in ourselves?” ― Alain de Botton, quote from Essays in Love

“The telephone becomes an instrument of torture in the demonic hands of a beloved who doesn't call.” ― Alain de Botton, quote from Essays in Love

“Unrequited love may be painful, but it is safely painful, because it does not involve inflicting damage on anyone but oneself, a private pain that is as bitter-sweet as it is self-induced. But as soon as love is reciprocated, one must be prepared to give up the passivity of simply being hurt to take on the responsibility of perpetrating hurt oneself.” ― Alain de Botton, quote from Essays in Love

“There is a longing for a return to a time without the need for choices, free of the regret at the inevitable loss that all choice (however wonderful) has entailed.” ― Alain de Botton, quote from Essays in Love

“In the oasis complex, the thirsty man images he sees water, palm trees, and shade not because he has evidence for the belief, but because he has a need for it. Desperate needs bring about a hallucination of their solution: thirst hallucinates water, the need for love hallucinates a prince or princess. The oasis complex is never a complete delusion: the man in the desert does see something on the horizon. It is just that the palms have withered, the well is dry, and the place is infected with locusts.” ― Alain de Botton, quote from Essays in Love

“Her lie was symptomatic of a certain pride she took in mocking the romantic, in being unsentimental, matter-of-fact, stoic; yet at heart she was the opposite: idealistic, dreamy, giving, and deeply attached to everything she liked verbally to dismiss as "mushy.” ― Alain de Botton, quote from Essays in Love

“The inability to live in the present lies in the fear of leaving the sheltered position of anticipation or memory, and so of admitting that this is the only life that one is ever likely (heavenly intervention aside) to live.” ― Alain de Botton, quote from Essays in Love

“The longing for destiny is nowhere stronger than in our romantic life.” ― Alain de Botton, quote from Essays in Love

“We wanted to test each other's capacity for survival: only if we had tried in vain to destroy one another would we know we were safe.” ― Alain de Botton, quote from Essays in Love

“As Proust once said, classically beautiful women should be left to men without imagination.” ― Alain de Botton, quote from Essays in Love

“Perhaps because the origins of a certain kind of love lie in an impulse to escape ourselves and out weaknesses by an alliance with the beautiful and noble. But if the loved ones love us back, we are forced to return to ourselves, and are hence reminded of the things that had driven us into love in the first place. Perhaps it was not love we wanted after all, perhaps it was simply someone in whom to believe, but how can we continue to believe the the beloved now that they believe in us?” ― Alain de Botton, quote from Essays in Love

“In the end, I've found that it doesn't really matter who you marry. If you like them at the beginning, you probably won't like them at the end. And if you start off hating them, there's always the chance you'll end up thinking they're all right.” ― Alain de Botton, quote from Essays in Love

“What is so frightening is the extent to which we may idealize others when we have such trouble tolerating ourselves” ― Alain de Botton, quote from Essays in Love

“Everyone returns us to a different sense of ourselves, for we become a little of who they think we are. Our selves could be compared to an amoeba, whose outer walls are elastic, and therefore adapt to the environment. It is not that the amoeba has no dimensions, simply that it has no self-defined shape. It is my absurdist side that an absurdist person will draw out of me, and my seriousness that a serious person will evoke. If someone thinks I am shy, I will probably end up shy, if someone thinks me funny, I am likely to keep cracking jokes.” ― Alain de Botton, quote from Essays in Love

“We had often read the same books at night in the same bed, and later realized that they had touched us in different places: that they had been different books for each of us. Might the same divergence not occur over a single love-line? I felt like a dandelion releasing hundreds of spores into the air - and not knowing if any of them would get through.” ― Alain de Botton, quote from Essays in Love

“Yet we can perhaps only ever fall in love without knowing quite who we have fallen in love with. The initial convulsion is necessarily founded on ignorance.” ― Alain de Botton, quote from Essays in Love

“In Plato's Symposium, Aristophanes accounts for this feeling of familiarity by claiming that the loved one was our long-lost 'other half to whose body our own had originally been joined. In the beginning, all human beings were hermaphrodites with double backs and flanks, four hands and four legs and two faces turned in opposite directions on the same head. These hermaphrodites were so powerful and their pride so overweening that Zeus was forced to cut them in two, into a male and female half – and from that day, every man and woman has yearned nostalgically but confusedly to rejoin the part from which he or she was severed.” ― Alain de Botton, quote from Essays in Love

“By forty, everyone has the face they deserve,’ wrote George Orwell,” ― Alain de Botton, quote from Essays in Love

About the author

Alain de Botton Born place: in Zurich, Switzerland See more on GoodReads

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100 Quotes By Alain De Bottom, The Author Of Essays In Love

Most of what makes a book 'good' is that we are reading it at the right moment for us. Alain de Botton    

The moment we cry in a film is not when things are sad but when they turn out to be more beautiful than we expected them to be. Beautiful Alain de Botton    

One rarely falls in love without being as much attracted to what is interestingly wrong with someone as what is objectively healthy. Love Alain de Botton    

Intimacy is the capacity to be rather weird with someone - and finding that that's ok with them. Alain de Botton    

One of the best protections against disappointment is to have a lot going on. Alain de Botton    

We are all more intelligent than we are capable, and awareness of the insanity of love has never saved anyone from the disease. Love Never Alain de Botton    

To one's enemies: "I hate myself more than you ever could. You Alain de Botton    

It is in books, poems, paintings which often give us the confidence to take seriously feelings in ourselves that we might otherwise never have thought to acknowledge. Never Books Alain de Botton    

Not being understood may be taken as a sign that there is much in one to understand. Alain de Botton    

There is no such thing as work-life balance. Everything worth fighting for unbalances your life. Life Alain de Botton    

What we seek, at the deepest level, is inwardly to resemble, rather than physically to possess, the objects and places that touch us through their beauty. Alain de Botton    

It was no longer her absence that wounded me, but my growing indifference to it. Forgetting, however calming, was also a reminder of infidelity to what I had at one time held so dear. Me Time I Alain de Botton    

People only get really interesting when they start to rattle the bars of their cages. Alain de Botton    

A good half of the art of living is resilience. Art Living Alain de Botton    

Booksellers are the most valuable destination for the lonely, given the numbers of books written because authors couldn't find anyone to talk to. Books Alain de Botton    

You normally have to be bashed about a bit by life to see the point of daffodils, sunsets and uneventful nice days. You Life Alain de Botton    

Never too late to learn some embarrassingly basic, stupidly obvious things about oneself. Never Alain de Botton    

The largest part of what we call 'personality' is determined by how we've opted to defend ourselves against anxiety and sadness". Alain de Botton    

The difference between hope and despair is a different way of telling stories from the same facts. Hope Alain de Botton    

Anyone who isn't embarrassed of who they were last year probably isn't learning enough. Learning Alain de Botton    

Do you love me enough that I may be weak with you? Everyone loves strength, but do you love me for my weakness? That is the real test. You Me Love I Alain de Botton    

The pleasure we derive from journeys is perhaps dependent more on the mindset with which we travel than on the destination we travel to. Alain de Botton    

Everyone returns us to a different sense of ourselves, for we become a little of who they think we are. Think Alain de Botton    

Must being in love always mean being in pain? Love Alain de Botton    

The only people we can think of as normal are those we don't yet know very well. Think Alain de Botton    

Feeling lost, crazy and desperate belongs to a good life as much as optimism, certainty and reason. Life Alain de Botton    

We don't really learn anything properly until there is a problem, until we are in pain, until something fails to go as we had hoped ... We suffer, therefore we think. Think Alain de Botton    

Bitterness: anger that forgot where it came from. Alain de Botton    

There's a whole category of people who miss out by not allowing themselves to be weird enough. Alain de Botton    

It is perhaps when our lives are at their most problematic that we are likely to be most receptive to beautiful things. Beautiful Alain de Botton    

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Home » 90 Beautiful Love Quotes from Literature

90 Beautiful Love Quotes from Literature

By Author Rena Meyer

Posted on Published: April 10, 2021  - Last updated: January 21, 2024

Categories Quotes

Love is powerful, but it’s also complicated.

More often than not, it’s difficult to put that feeling of love into words because it will steal them right out of your mouth. We can, thankfully, always turn to literature to fill in the gaps and find some romantic inspiration.

Whether you’re looking to get into the Valentine’s Day spirit, or you’re struggling with words to express how you feel for someone special, these beautiful love quotes from literature are sure to help.

Chances are, some of the best and most famous writers have already put your thoughts into words.

On our list of love quotes from books , you’ll find romantic quotes for him, love quotes for her, and inspirational love quotes you can use as Instagram captions, to remind someone how special they are to you, or anything else you can think of.

After all, there are (at least) a million different ways to say “I love you,” and no one knew them better than these wordsmiths.

Best love quotes from literature

1. “He’s more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.” ― Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights

2. “I am nothing special; just a common man with common thoughts, and I’ve led a common life. There are no monuments dedicated to me and my name will soon be forgotten. But in one respect I have succeeded as gloriously as anyone who’s ever lived: I’ve loved another with all my heart and soul; and to me, this has always been enough.” ― Nicholas Sparks, The Notebook

3. “I’ve never had a moment’s doubt. I love you. I believe in you completely. You are my dearest one. My reason for life.” ― Ian McEwan, Atonement

4. “Having begun to love you, I love you for ever – in all changes, in all disgraces, because you are yourself.” ― Thomas Hardy, Tess of the D’Urbervilles

6. “…There is the heat of Love, the pulsing rush of Longing, the lover’s whisper, irresistible—magic to make the sanest man go mad.” ― Homer, The Iliad

7. “Each time you happen to me all over again.” ― Edith Wharton, The Age of Innocence

8. “It’s enough for me to be sure that you and I exist at this moment.” ― Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

9. “Who, being loved, is poor?” — Oscar Wilde , A Woman of No Importance

10. “It is love, not reason, that is stronger than death.” ― Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain

11. “She was more than human to me. She was a Fairy, a Sylph, I don’t know what she was – anything that no one ever saw, and everything that everybody ever wanted. I was swallowed up in an abyss of love in an instant. There was no pausing on the brink; no looking down, or looking back; I was gone, headlong, before I had sense to say a word to her.” ― Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

12. “It is better to love wisely, no doubt: but to love foolishly is better than not to be able to love at all.” ― William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair

13. “Tis better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all.” ― Alfred Lord Tennyson, In Memoriam

14. “Wounds heal. Love lasts. We remain.” ― Kristin Hannah , The Nightingale

15. “I am glad it cannot happen twice, the fever of first love. For it is a fever, and a burden, too, whatever the poets may say.” ― Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca

16. “Soul meets soul on lovers’ lips.” — Percy Bysshe Shelley, Prometheus Bound

17. “If I know what love is, it is because of you.” — Hermann Hesse, Narcissus and Goldmund

18. “All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love.” — Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

19. “Love is the only way to grasp another human being in the innermost core of his personality. No one can become fully aware of the very essence of another human being unless he loves him. By his love he is enabled to see the essential traits and features in the beloved person; and even more, he sees that which is potential in him, which is not yet actualized but yet ought to be actualized. Furthermore, by his love, the loving person enables the beloved person to actualize these potentialities. By making him aware of what he can be and of what he should become, he makes these potentialities come true.” ― Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning

20. “Gamble everything for love, if you are a true human being.” ― Rumi , The Essential Rumi

21. “A pain stabbed my heart, as it did every time I saw a girl I loved who was going the opposite direction in this too-big world.” ― Jack Kerouac , On the Road

22. “Kiss me, and you will see how important I am.” ― Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

23. “Don’t ever think I fell for you, or fell over you. I didn’t fall in love, I rose in it.” ― Toni Morrison, Jazz

24 . “When we love, we always strive to become better than we are. When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too.” — Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

25. “Do I love you? My God, if your love were a grain of sand, mine would be a universe of beaches.” — William Goldman, The Princess Bride

26. “To love or have loved, that is enough. Ask nothing further. There is no other pearl to be found in the dark folds of life.” — Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

27. “Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.” ― William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream

28. “Love, whether newly born or aroused from a deathlike slumber, must always create sunshine, filling the heart so full of radiance, that it overflows upon the outward world.” ― Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter

29. “Just in case you ever foolishly forget; I’m never not thinking of you.” — Virginia Woolf , Selected Diaries

30. “I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be.” — Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

30. “I have for the first time found what I can truly love – I have found you. You are my sympathy – my better self – my good angel – I am bound to you with a strong attachment. I think you good, gifted, lovely: a fervent, a solemn passion is conceived in my heart; it leans to you, draws you to my centre and spring of life, wrap my existence about you – and, kindling in pure, powerful flame, fuses you and me in one.” — Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

31. “I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, in secret, between the shadow and the soul.” ― Pablo Neruda, 100 Love Sonnets

32. “You gave me a forever within the numbered days, and I’m grateful.” — John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

33. “For where all love is, the speaking is unnecessary” ― Diana Gabaldon, Outlander

34. “To know and love one other human being is the root of all wisdom.” ― Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited

35. “Love is just a word until someone comes along and gives it meaning.” ― Paulo Coelho, Aleph

36. “Love is a great beautifier.” ― Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

37. “What greater thing is there for two human souls, than to feel that they are joined for life–to strengthen each other in all labour, to rest on each other in all sorrow, to minister to each other in all pain, to be one with each other in silent unspeakable memories at the moment of the last parting?” – George Eliot, Adam Bede

38. “Love is like a tree: it grows by itself, roots itself deeply in our being and continues to flourish over a heart in ruin. The inexplicable fact is that the blinder it is, the more tenacious it is. It is never stronger than when it is completely unreasonable.” ― Victor Hugo, The Hunchback of Notre-Dame

39. “The most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or touched, they are felt with the heart.” ― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

40. “We loved with a love that was more than love.” ― Edgar Allan Poe , Annabel Lee

41. “I’ve always loved you, and when you love someone, you love the whole person, just as he or she is, and not as you would like them to be.” ― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

42. “So, I love you because the entire universe conspired to help me find you.” ― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

43. “You don’t love someone because they’re perfect, you love them in spite of the fact that they’re not.” ― Jodi Picoult, My Sister’s Keeper

44. “If you remember me, then I don’t care if everyone else forgets.” ― Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore

45. “I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look or the words, which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.” ― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

46. “Beauty made you love, and love made you beautiful.” ― Elizabeth von Arnim, The Enchanted April

47. “It had flaws, but what does that matter when it comes to matters of the heart? We love what we love. Reason does not enter into it. In many ways, unwise love is the truest love. Anyone can love a thing because. That’s as easy as putting a penny in your pocket. But to love something despite. To know the flaws and love them too. That is rare and pure and perfect.” ― Patrick Rothfuss , The Wise Man’s Fear

48. “If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more.” ― Jane Austen, Emma

49. “Woman is sacred; the woman one loves is holy.” ― Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

50. “Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.” ― Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land

51. “When you fall in love, it is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake, and then it subsides. And when it subsides, you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots are to become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the desire to mate every second of the day. It is not lying awake at night imagining that he is kissing every part of your body. No … don’t blush. I am telling you some truths. For that is just being in love; which any of us can convince ourselves we are. Love itself is what is left over, when being in love has burned away. Doesn’t sound very exciting, does it? But it is!” – Louis de Bernieres, Captain Corelli’s Mandolin

52. “Once upon a time there was a boy who loved a girl, and her laughter was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering.” ― Nicole Krauss, The History of Love

53. “We are all fools in love.” – Jane Austen , Pride and Prejudice

54. “The power of a glance has been so much abused in love stories, that it has come to be disbelieved in. Few people dare now to say that two beings have fallen in love because they have looked at each other. Yet it is in this way that love begins, and in this way only.” ― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

55. “Love, she thought, must come suddenly, with great outbursts and lightnings,–a hurricane of the skies, which falls upon life, revolutionises it, roots up the will like a leaf, and sweeps the whole heart into the abyss.” ― Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary

56. “There is never a time or place for true love. It happens accidentally, in a heartbeat, in a single flashing, throbbing moment.” ― Sarah Dessen, The Truth About Forever

57. “My love is selfish. I cannot breathe without you.” ― John Keats, Bright Star: Love Letters and Poems of John Keats to Fanny Brawne

58. “Oh, you can’t describe someone you’re in love with!” ― Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire

59. “To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even 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. To love is to be vulnerable.” ― C.S. Lewis , The Four Loves

60. “The only thing worse than a boy who hates you: a boy that loves you.” ― Markus Zusak, The Book Thief

61. “When the heart speaks, the mind finds it indecent to object.” ― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

62. “Believe in a love that is being stored up for you like an inheritance, and have faith that in this love there is a strength and a blessing so large that you can travel as far as you wish without having to step outside it.” ― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

63. “Love doesn’t just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; remade all the time, made new.” ― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Lathe of Heaven

64. “If it’s true that here are as many minds as there are heads, then there are as many kinds of love as there are hearts.” ― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

65. “I want to know you moved and breathed in the same world with me.” ― F. Scott Fitzgerald , The Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald

66. “It isn’t possible to love and part. You will wish that it was. You can transmute love, ignore it, muddle it, but you can never pull it out of you. I know by experience that the poets are right: love is eternal.” ― E.M. Forster, A Room with a View

67. “We’re all a little weird. And life is a little weird. And when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall into mutually satisfying weirdness—and call it love—true love.” ― Robert Fulghum, True Love

68. “He stepped down, trying not to look long at her, as if she were the sun, yet he saw her, like the sun, even without looking.” — Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

69. “If you ever have need of my life, come and take it.” — Anton Chekhov, The Seagull

70. “They held each other and kissed and pushed each others’ darkness into the corner, believing in each others’ light, each others’ dream.” ― Hubert Selby Jr., Requiem for a Dream

71. “Every lover is, in his heart, a madman, and, in his head, a minstrel.” ― Neil Gaiman , Stardust

72. “I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this, in which there is no I or you, so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand, so intimate that when I fall asleep your eyes close.” ― Pablo Neruda, 100 Love Sonnets 

73. “Love is like the sea. It’s a moving thing, but still and all, it takes its shape from the shore it meets, and it’s different with every shore.” ― Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God

74. “The heart has its reasons, of which reason knows nothing.” ― Blaise Pascal, Pensées

75. “And I’d choose you; in a hundred lifetimes, in a hundred worlds, in any version of reality, I’d find you and I’d choose you.” ― Kiersten White, The Chaos of Stars

76. “I would rather spend one lifetime with you, than face all the ages of this world alone.” ― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

77. “Love is a possible strength in an actual weakness.” ― Thomas Hardy, Far From the Madding Crowd

78. “The one you love and the one who loves you are never, ever the same person.” – Chuck Palahniuk, Invisible Monsters

79. “To lose balance sometimes for love is part of living a balanced life.“ – Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love

80. “My heart is, and always will be, yours.” — Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility

81. “And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.” ― Khalil Gibran, The Prophet

82. “How frightening, that one person could mean so much, so many things.” ― Colleen McCullough, The Thorn Birds

83. “Happiness is holding someone in your arms and knowing you hold the whole world.” ― Orhan Pamuk, Snow

84. “Doubt thou that the sun is fire, Doubt that that the sun does move, doubt truth to be a liar, but never doubt that I love.” — William Shakespeare, Hamlet

85. “It doesn’t matter who you are or what you look like, so long as somebody loves you.” – Roald Dahl, The Witches

86. “If I could have him like this in my dreams every night of my life, I’d stake my entire life on dreams and be done with the rest.” ― André Aciman, Call Me by Your Name

87. “Love means never having to say you’re sorry.” ― Erich Segal, Love Story

88. “Make sure you marry someone who laughs at the same things you do.” ― J.D. Salinger , The Catcher in the Rye

89. “The only regret I will have in dying is if it is not for love.” ― Gabriel García Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera

90. “I love you wildly, insanely, infinitely.” ― Boris Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago

91. “I have so much of you in my heart.” ― John Keats, Bright Star: Love Letters and Poems of John Keats to Fanny Brawne

92. “It was good to be alive; it was better to be young; it was best of all to be in love.” ― Arthur C. Clarke, The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke

93. “I will follow you to the ends of the world.” ― Khaled Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns

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Essays in Love (On Love) by Alain de Botton

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B : weaknesses galore, but clever enough, with his trademark digressions, that we do recommend it

See our review for fuller assessment.

   From the Reviews : "Alain de Botton picks up the torch, so to speak, more or less where Stendhal left off. De Botton�s On Love reads as if Stendhal had lived into the �90s, survived modern critical theory (as he clearly has), thought it was funny (as he likely would have), but retained a novelist�s sympathy for the impulse -- which he shared -- to deconstruct and to dissect in search of some higher understanding." - Francine Prose, The New Republic "The result is something like La Rochefoucauld�s maxims crossed with Adolphe, with jokes and against a background of luggage reclaim areas and breakfast cereal packets. (...) Ingeniously pinpointed mundane details stop the novel from getting too abstract. It is witty, funny, sophisticated, neatly tied up, and full of wise and illuminating insights." - Gabriele Annan, The Spectator Please note that these ratings solely represent the complete review 's biased interpretation and subjective opinion of the actual reviews and do not claim to accurately reflect or represent the views of the reviewers. Similarly the illustrative quotes chosen here are merely those the complete review subjectively believes represent the tenor and judgment of the review as a whole. We acknowledge (and remind and warn you) that they may, in fact, be entirely unrepresentative of the actual reviews by any other measure.

The complete review 's Review :

       Baby-faced in appearance, Gallic in name and often in attitude, English Wunderkind De Botton has achieved notable (and somewhat galling) success at an early age, with five books to his name before he turned thirty. On Love was his first novel ( Essays in Love , as the British original had it) -- though there are also similarly themed later novels, Kiss & Tell and The Romantic Movement . Love preoccupies the young author, as well it might, and though a big subject to tackle, De Botton tackles well.        The story of this novel is simplicity itself: a love affair, from its very beginning to its very end. De Botton's narrator describes falling in love with Chloe, being in love with her, and then getting over her. An old story, the twist here is in how De Botton relates it, dwelling and (over)analyzing each and every aspect, and looking to see greater truths in them.        De Botton is intelligent, and he chooses to approach his book cleverly. Clever and intelligent do not always mix, but De Botton manages quite well. Each relatively short chapter is further divided into numbered paragraphs, each a brief point (or often a brief digression) illuminating various aspects of the love between Chloe and the narrator -- and love in general. Young, well-educated, fairly well to do, neither is completely sympathetic. Part of De Botton's success is that he shows us everyday love in characters who are not particularly appealing. He revels in considering all aspects of love, including -- or rather, especially -- the mundane and everyday and trivial. There are charts and pictures and diagrams, and some of it is too cute and forced, but overall it is indeed a clever little book.        It is a young author's book, and we occasionally grimace at some of what De Botton tries -- but it is a difficult subject to handle well. Other people's love affairs are often not the most interesting of subjects, especially when one deals with the everyday minutiae, but for most of the book De Botton keeps us hooked with his interesting thoughts on love's many aspects. The almost banal affair itself does stifle the narrative (De Botton's strength is certainly essayistic, which is why his Proust book is far superior to the novels), but there are enough well-conceived flights of fancy to keep the reader amused.        In her review Francine Prose makes particular note of the chapter entitled Marxism , where the Marxism in question is not Karl's, but rather the Groucho's who didn't want to belong to any club that would have him. It is that sort of cleverness that fills the book, and those who are put off by it should turn elsewhere. Prose is correct in expecting that those who can't appreciate this notion (which De Botton handles very cleverly) would not enjoy the book. We would argue that the book is, on some level, even more demanding than that. De Botton is intelligent, and the book is rich in allusion and reference. While most of this is enjoyable, it is perhaps the place where he truly goes wrong: the references are too clever for the quality of his narrative (he is not quite up to snuff in the story-telling department yet), and so readers are left either disappointed by the writing or confused by the references.        We still recommend this book rather highly, as an interesting failed effort, with enough quality, humor, and cleverness (and love-talk !) to satisfy. Like all of De Botton's book, it makes one think -- though without being overly taxing.

About the Author :

       English author Alain de Botton was born in Switzerland in 1969 and educated at Cambridge.

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The Modern Novel

The world-wide literary novel from early 20th century onwards, de botton: essays in love.

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Alain de Botton: Essays in Love (US: On Love)

“I’ve found that it doesn’t really matter who you marry. If you like them at the beginning, you probably won’t like them at the end. And if you start off hating them, there’s always the chance you’ll end up thinking they’re all right.” The words are not de Botton’s but those of his girlfriend’s father. I recently read a survey which said that 80% of married American men, if given the choice, would marry the same woman. Only 50% of married American women would make the same choice. Yup, there’s still plenty to say on the subject. De Botton takes his love affair and analyzes it from every angle, upside, downside, herside, Marxside, JohnStuartMillside, yet the most profound statement about love I came away with was the above quote.

This novel has had considerable success because it is cool, it is hip, it uses big words and quotes from philosophers we have never heard of (so he went to Cambridge University) and is meant to tell us all about love but, in reality, it is not about love, it is about Alain de Botton, a topic about which, frankly, I find it hard to work up any enthusiasm. I am surprised that Chloe, the object of his affection, does. At their first post-coital repast, she makes him a slap-up meal, with five different jams but all he can do is bitch that there is no strawberry jam and goes out to buy some. Excuse me? DTMFA , I was crying. But she does not. She buys new shoes and he says she looks like a pelican but still she comes back for more. It’s not as though he is Tom Cruise. His photo (taken by one Chloe Stewart – is this the same Chloe?) makes him look like a rather ordinary looking twelve-year old but maybe it’s the light.

The love affair spins out and then spins away – shock! horror! he even contemplates suicide – and still the philosophical analysis carries on. I learned nothing. If you want hip, cool, philosophical trendiness à la Nicholson Baker , this book may well be for you. Otherwise, read Madame Bovary or, better still, do as Chloe does, read Cosmopolitan .

Publishing history

First published 1993 by MacMillan

25 Modern Love Essays to Read if You Want to Laugh, Cringe and Cry

The popular column, which began in 2004, has become a podcast, a book and an Amazon Prime streaming series. Here are some of its greatest hits.

By Daniel Jones

Whether you’re new to Modern Love or a longtime fan, we think you’ll enjoy this collection of some of our most memorable essays. You’ll find some of our most read and most shared of all time, and others that really got readers talking (and tweeting, and sharing). We present, in no particular order, the quirky, the profound, the head scratching and the heartbreaking. (A handful of these essays and dozens more of our most memorable columns can also be found in the Modern Love anthology .)

To keep up on all things Modern Love — our weekly essays, podcast episodes and batches of Tiny Love Stories, along with other relationship-based reads from The Times — sign up for Love Letter , a weekly email. And check out the “Modern Love” television series , based on this column, on Amazon Prime Video.

1. No Sound, No Fury, No Marriage

By Laura Pritchett

After her peaceful marriage quietly dissolves, a woman comes to appreciate the vitality of conflict and confrontation.

2. Sometimes, It’s Not You, or the Math

By Sara Eckel

He didn’t care that I was 39 and hadn’t had a serious boyfriend in eight years.

3. Am I Gay or Straight? Maybe This Fun Quiz Will Tell Me

By Katie Heaney

A young woman seeks answers to her sexual orientation online, where the endless quizzes she takes deliver whatever label she wants.

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Blog – Posted on Tuesday, Sep 14

65 beautiful love poems everyone should know.

There’s nothing quite so moving as beautiful love poems. Luckily for us romantics, they’ve been in abundant supply throughout history! From Rumi in the Islamic Golden Age, to iconic playwright William Shakespeare, to modern-day “Instapoets” like Rupi Kaur, love has been one of the most-explored themes among writers and poets for centuries. 

In this post, we’ve put together the 65 most beautiful love poems ever written. Whether you’re looking for something to share with your partner, seeking solace after a breakup, or craving inspiration for how to write your own passionate prose , there’s bound to be a poem on this list which speaks to your heart. 

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1. “Come, And Be My Baby” by Maya Angelou

Maya Angelou was one of America’s most acclaimed poets and storytellers, as well as a celebrated educator and civil rights activist. In ‘Come, And Be My Baby’, Angelou beautifully captures how overwhelming modern life can be and the comfort that love can provide during times of hardship — even if only for a moment.

2. "Bird-Understander" by Craig Arnold

These are your own words

your way of noticing

and saying plainly

of not turning away

you have offered them 

to me    I am only 

giving them back 

if only I could show you

how very useless 

they are not

The raw honesty of Craig Arnold’s poetry makes ‘Bird-Understander’ an easy pick for our list of the most beautiful love poems. In this piece, Arnold recounts a moment with his partner that makes his love grow even stronger. The language is simple yet evocative, putting a strong metaphor in the reader’s mind and facilitating a deeper understanding of Arnold’s feelings.

3. "Habitation" by Margaret Atwood

at the back where we squat 

outside, eating popcorn

the edge of the receding glacier

where painfully and with wonder

at having survived even

we are learning to make fire

Best known for her alarmingly realistic dystopian novel The Handmaid’s Tale , Margaret Atwood demonstrates similar strengths in this poem: ‘Habitation’ is strikingly real. For context, Atwood here admits to the challenges of marriage and acknowledges the work needed to overcome them. It is this candor which makes the poem so beautiful.

4. "Variations on the Word Love" by Margaret Atwood

One of the most fascinating things about love is that it can come in so many different forms — platonic, passionate, or even patronizing. Margaret Atwood unflinchingly lays out some of these in her poem ‘Variations on the Word Love’.

5. "The More Loving One" by W.H. Auden 

Were all stars to disappear or die, 

I should learn to look at an empty sky

And feel its total dark sublime, 

Though this might take me a little time.

Whilst poems about heartbreak might not be as uplifting as those about the joys of love, they can be equally as beautiful and meaningful. The celestial extended metaphor of W.H. Auden’s ‘The More Loving One’ demonstrates this — though ultimately he would rather be ‘the more loving one’ himself, Auden perfectly encapsulates the pain of loss when love ends.

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6. "To My Dear and Loving Husband" by Anne Bradstreet 

Thy love is such I can no way repay;

The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray.

Then while we live, in love let’s so persever, 

That when we live no more, we may live ever.

Anne Bradstreet’s Puritan belief that marriage is a gift from God comes across strongly in ‘To My Dear and Loving Husband.’ Reading it through a modern lens, it’s easy to start the poem feeling a little skeptical; however, Bradstreet’s genuine gratitude and dedication to her husband soon manifests to make it a deeply moving assertion of true love.

7. "Always For The First Time" by André Breton

There is a silk ladder unrolled across the ivy

That leaning over the precipice 

Of the hopeless fusion of your presence and absence 

I have found the secret 

Of loving you

Always for the first time

‘Always For The First Time’ is André Breton’s ode to a woman he has not met, but is willing to wait every day for. Breton was the French founder of the surrealist movement, which aimed to blur the lines between dreams and reality in art — explaining the rather whimsical nature of this beautiful love poem. 

8. "Love and Friendship" by Emily Brontë

Love doesn’t have to be confined to romance — love between friends can be just as strong and beautiful. In ‘Love and Friendship’, Emily Brontë compares romantic love to a rose — stunning but short-lived — and friendship to a holly tree which can endure all seasons.

9. "To Be In Love" by Gwendolyn Brooks

Next on our list of the most beautiful poems about love is ‘To Be in Love’ by Gwendolyn Brooks. Brooks was a poet, author, and teacher — and perhaps most notably, in 1950, was also the first African-American writer to receive a Pulitzer Prize. In this powerful poem, Brooks conveys the intense emotions which come with falling in love and how it can change your entire outlook on life.

To be in love

Is to touch with a lighter hand.

In yourself you stretch, you are well.

10. "How Do I Love Thee? (Sonnet 43)" by Elizabeth Barrett Browning 

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. 

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height

My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight

For the ends of being and ideal grace.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning was a renowned Victorian poet who influenced the work of many later English-language poets, including Emily Dickinson. ‘How Do I Love Thee?’ is one of Browning’s most recognizable poems, and indeed one of the most famous love poems ever written — its ardent yet clear declaration of love has resonated with readers for over 150 years. 

11. "A Red, Red Rose" by Robert Burns 

Similar to Browning, Robert Burns’ profound love is evident in his poem ‘A Red, Red Rose’. Burns declares this love to be both passionate and refreshing — with each comparison, we see that even the loveliest language pales next to the depth of Burns’ ‘Luve’. 

12. "She Walks in Beauty" by Lord Byron 

She walks in beauty, like the night 

Of cloudless climes and starry skies; 

And all that’s best of dark and bright

Meet in her aspect and her eyes; 

Thus mellowed to that tender light

Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

Though its author was known for a life of adventure and scandal, Lord Byron’s poem ‘She Walks in Beauty’ refers notably less to passionate or sexual love compared to his other works. That said, his astonishment at this woman’s beauty comes across instantly, making this a beautifully romantic poem.

13. "Love is a fire that burns unseen" by Luís Vaz de Camões

Love is a fire that burns unseen, 

a wound that aches yet isn’t felt, 

an always discontent contentment, 

a pain that rages without hurting,

One of Portugal’s greatest poets, Luís Vaz de Camões is known for his lyrical poetry and dramatic epics. ‘Love is a fire that burns unseen’ is an example of the former, reflecting his numerous turbulent love affairs and how each brought a complex fusion of pleasure and pain.

14. "Beautiful Signor" by Cyrus Cassells

This is the endless wanderlust:

yours is the April-upon-April love

that kept me spinning even beyond your eventful arms 

toward the unsurpassed:

the one vast claiming heart, 

the glimmering, 

the beautiful and revealed Signor.

‘Beautiful Signor’ is an entry from Cyrus Cassells’ poetry collection of the same name, which he dedicated to ‘Lovers everywhere’. Culturally set against the backdrop of the AIDS epidemic, the collection aims to remind people of the potent beauty of romantic love.

15. "Rondel of Merciless Beauty" by Geoffrey Chaucer 

Upon my word, I tell you faithfully

Through life and after death you are my queen;

For with my death the whole truth shall be seen.

Your two great eyes will slay me suddenly;

Their beauty shakes me who was once serene;

Straight through my heart the wound is quick and keen.

Widely regarded as the ‘Father of English poetry’, Geoffrey Chaucer wrote some of the most renowned works of the English language, including ‘The Canterbury Tales’ and ‘The Book of the Duchess’. The standalone poem ‘Rondel of Merciless Beauty’ (here translated from Middle English) recounts Chaucer’s heartbreak after being left by the love of his life, pledging his everlasting devotion to her even though it pains him.

16. "Love Comes Quietly" by Robert Creeley 

Robert Creeley’s short but striking love poem aptly summarizes the feeling of never wanting to be apart from the person you love, almost making you forget what life was like before you met them.

17. "[i carry your heart with me(i carry it in]" by E. E. Cummings 

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in

my heart)i am never without it(anywhere

i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done 

by only me is your doing,my darling)

As one of America’s most prolific twentieth century poets, E.E. Cummings needs no introduction. Many of his poems centered around love and ‘[i carry your heart with me(i carry it in]’ is perhaps the best-known of them all. The rich imagery and intimate infatuation earns it a prominent spot on our list of the most beautiful love poems ever written.

18. "[love is more thicker than forget]" by E.E. Cummings

love is more thicker than forget 

more thinner than recall

more seldom than a wave is wet 

more frequent than to fail

Another brilliant example of Cummings’ love poetry is [love is more thicker than forget]. This poem explores the complexity of love, expressing that it cannot simply be defined as one thing or another — and indeed, painting love as a paradox of rarity and frequency, modesty and profundity, sanity and madness, and much more.

19. "Sthandwa sami (my beloved, isiZulu)" by Yrsa Daley-Ward

my thoughts about you are frightening but precise

I can see the house on the hill where we make our own vegetables out back

and drink warm wine out of jam jars

and sing songs in the kitchen until the sun comes up

wena you make me feel like myself again.

Yrsa Daley-Ward’s ‘Sthandwa sami (my beloved, isiZulu)’ is one of the most personal and revealing accounts of love on this list. The poem comes from her collection bone, which tackles some of the deepest aspects of humanity, including religion, desire, womanhood, race, and vulnerability.

20. "Married Love" by Guan Daosheng

Have so much love, 

Burns like a fire, 

In which we bake a lump of clay

Molded into a figure of you

And a figure of me.

Guan Daosheng was a Chinese painter and poet of the early Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368). ‘Married Love’ uses the image of clay figurines to represent two lovers being united as one through the sacred act of marriage, just as clay solidifies in a kiln.

21. "Heart, we will forget him!" by Emily Dickinson 

Heart, we will forget him!

You and I, to-night!

You may forget the warmth he gave, 

I will forget the light.

‘Heart, we will forget him!’ aligns with the forceful nature of so many Emily Dickinson poems . It is a powerful reflection of the fallout after a passionate love affair and how she tried to move on, going so far as to command her heart to do so, even knowing it’s futile.

22. "Air and Angels" by John Donne 

John Donne’s work is known for tackling faith and salvation, as well as both human and divine love. In ‘Angels and Air’, Donne compares his love to the movement of angels — pure and elegant. His conclusion that two lovers can come together and grow stronger adds another layer to this already quite romantic poem.

23. "Flirtation" by Rita Dove 

Outside the sun 

has rolled up her rugs

and night strewn salt 

across the sky. My heart 

is humming a tune

I haven’t heard in years!

The sparkling flirtation at the start of a new relationship is surely one of the most exciting parts of love. ‘Flirtation’ by Rita Dove eloquently captures this joy and anticipation, and is one of the most relatable poems about this aspect of love. 

24. "Heart to Heart" by Rita Dove 

It’s neither red

It doesn’t melt

or turn over,

break or harden,

so it can’t feel

In ‘Heart to Heart’, Rita Dove rejects the typical clichés that come with falling in love. With her down-to-earth approach to the topic, she assures the intended reader that although she may struggle to show her love, that doesn’t mean it’s not there. 

25. "Love" by Carol Ann Duffy 

you’re where I stand, hearing the sea, crazy 

for the shore, seeing the moon ache and fret

for the earth. When morning comes, the sun, ardent, 

covers the trees in gold, you walk 

towards me,

out of the season, out of the light love reasons.

In 2009, Carol Ann Duffy made history when she was appointed the first female and openly lesbian British poet laureate. ‘Love’ is a perfect example of the monologue-style poems she is known for, fitting in with her usual sensory and emotional style of writing; here, she describes love as beautifully boundless, like the light of the sun or the crashing sound of waves. 

26. "The Love Poem" by Carol Ann Duffy 

‘The Love Poem’ takes a different tack, depicting Duffy’s struggle to find the right words to describe her love. It comes from her 2005 collection Rapture, which charts the speaker’s journey through a love affair; at this stage, Duffy gets metafictional about love poetry, striving to explain the challenges of writing it (and invoking several other famous poems along the way).

27. "Before You Came" by Faiz Ahmed Faiz

Don’t leave now that you’re here—

Stay. So the world may become like itself again:

so the sky may by the sky,

the road a road,

and the glass of wine not a mirror, just a glass of wine.

Faiz Ahmed Faiz wrote of love, politics, and community throughout his tumultuous life, and has been especially acknowledged for his contributions to traditional Urdu poetry. In ‘Before You Came’, Faiz writes about how his perspective on life changed after falling in love and how he never wants to be without his lover, who helps him see things as they truly are.

28. "Lines Depicting Simple Happiness" by Peter Gizzi

It feels right to notice all the shiny things about you

About you there is nothing I wouldn’t want to know 

With you nothing is simple yet nothing is simpler

About you many good things come into relation

The beauty in Peter Gizzi’s poetry stems from its simplicity. In ‘Lines Depicting Simple Happiness’, Gizzi’s adoration for his love is clear — however, he avoids overused clichés, meaning the poem is both more personal and less mawkish than other modern love poems.

29. "Six Sonnets: Crossing the West" by Janice Gould 

In that communion of lovers, thick sobs

break from me as I think of my love 

back home, all that I have done

and cannot say. This is the first time 

I have left her so completely, so alone.

Janice Gould’s work homes in on themes of love and connection, with strong links to her identity as a Maidu lesbian. In ‘Six Sonnets: Crossing the West’, Gould equates her lover to a dream, never running short on ethereal ways to describe her... and mourning when she slips away, even temporarily.

30. "For Keeps" by Joy Harjo 

Contrasting love with the beauty of nature helps to create an unbreakable bond between the two. This comparison helps illustrate Joy Harjo’s feelings for her lover in her marvelous poem, ‘For Keeps’.

31. "You Are the Penultimate Love of My Life" by Rebecca Hazelton 

  The garden you plant and I plant

                             is tunneled through by voles,

                                                         the vowels                                          

              we speak aren’t vows,

               but there’s something

                             holding me here, for now,  

             like your eyes, which I suppose                                               

              are brown, after all.’

‘You Are the Penultimate Love of My Life’ is an unorthodox love poem, focusing on the realities rather than the fantasies of being in love. Rebecca Hazelton isn’t writing about her soulmate, and she’s aware of that — but that doesn’t make the love they share any less special.

32. "Yours" by Daniel Hoffman 

I am yours as the summer air at evening is 

Possessed by the scent of linden blossoms, 

As the snowcap gleams with light 

Lent it by the brimming moon. 

Without you I’d be an unleaded tree

Blasted in a bleakness with no Spring.

Daniel Hoffman’s carefully chosen metaphors make ‘Yours’ a truly beautiful love poem. Hoffman’s complete dedication to his lover is obvious — in comparing her to everything from summer evenings to snow-capped mountains, it seems he cannot stop thinking about her throughout the changing seasons.

33. "A Love Song for Lucinda" by Langston Hughes 

Is a high mountain 

Stark in a windy sky.

Would never lose your breath 

Do not climb too high.

Each stanza of Langston Hughes’ ‘A Love Song for Lucinda’ compares love to a specific feeling, all of which are linked to the natural world. This poem emphasizes the exhilaration of falling in love and the all-encompassing enchantment that comes with it.

34. "Poem for My Love" by June Jordan 

Political activist, poet, and essayist June Jordan is one of the most widely-published Jamaican American writers of her generation. In her ‘Poem for My Love’, the speaker is in absolute spiritual awe of her partner and the way she feels about their transcendent love.

35. "for him" by Rupi Kaur

be love at 

first sight when 

we meet it’ll be love 

at first remembrance 

‘cause i’ve recognized you 

in my mother’s eyes when she tells me, 

marry the type of man you’d want to raise your son to be like.

At just 21 years old, Rupi Kaur wrote, illustrated, and self-published her first poetry collection, milk and honey. She describes her poetry as ‘simple and accessible’ — which has allowed it to reach millions of readers worldwide, particularly through Instagram presence. ‘for him’ is a perfect example of a beautiful, powerful love poem which doesn’t have to try too hard to pack a punch.

36. Untitled by Rupi Kaur

love will hurt you but 

love will never mean to 

love will play no games

cause love knows life 

has been hard enough already

Another entry from milk and honey, this short, untitled poem takes a bittersweet and world weary, but ultimately generous look at love and its challenges.

37. "Poem To An Unnameable Man" by Dorothea Lasky

And I will not cry also 

Although you will expect me to

I was wiser too than you had expected 

For I knew all along you were mine

Prolific poet Dorothea Lasky has written multiple collections and currently directs the poetry programme at Columbia University. In ‘Poem To An Unnameable Man’, she uses celestial imagery to explore a romantic relationship, describing her power and strength to the lover who underestimates her.

38. "Movement Song" by Audre Lorde

‘Movement Song’ by Audre Lorde is about the end of a relationship. While the sorrow felt after the speaker’s heart has been broken is clear, the poem ultimately ends with hope that the pair can both have a new beginning — albeit apart.

39. "Camomile Tea" by Katherine Mansfield 

We might be fifty, we might be five,

So snug, so compact, so wise are we!

Under the kitchen-table leg

My knee is pressing against his knee.

Our shutters are shut, the fire is low,

The tap is dripping peacefully;

The saucepan shadows on the wall

Are black and round and plain to see.

Katherine Mansfield has been praised for her ability to simplify complex emotions through short stories and poetry. One of the more tranquil poems on this list, ‘Camomile Tea’ paints a picture of a couple who are calm and quiet and happy with the life they’ve made for themselves, highlighting the underrated joy that peaceful familiarity and comfort can bring in a relationship.

40. "Love Elegy in the Chinese Garden, with Koi" by Nathan McClain 

Because who hasn’t done that —

loved so intently even after everything

has gone? Love something that has washed

its hands of you? I like to think I’m different now, 

that I’m enlightened somehow, 

but who am I kidding?

Nathan McClain’s inspiration for ‘Love Elegy in the Chinese Garden, with Koi’ was a date to the Huntington Botanical Gardens. In the poem, McClain aimed to ‘explore the sense of anxiety’ between two potential lovers, and the weighty emotional baggage that previous failed relationships can bestow upon you.

41. "I think I should have loved you presently (Sonnet IX)" by Edna St. Vincent Millay 

I think I should have loved you presently, 

And given in earnest words I flung in jest;

And lifted honest eyes for you to see, 

And caught your hand against my cheek and breast;

And all my pretty follies flung aside

That won you to me, and beneath you gaze

Edna St. Vincent Millay’s ‘I think I should have loved you presently’ serves as a subversion of the traditional sonnet form. In the poem, the speaker laments their inability to reciprocate their lover’s earnest affection, instead choosing sweet nothings and superficial flirtation over genuine connection.

42. "Love Sonnet XI" by Pablo Neruda

I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.

Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets. 

Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts

me, all day

I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps.

There is a strong sense of longing in Pablo Neruda’s ‘Love Sonnet XI’, as our speaker confesses  the thought of his love never leaves his mind, driving him to the point of distraction. Evocative and at times alarming, it's a love poem which perfectly treads the blurred line between romance and obsession. 

43. "Your Feet" by Pablo Neruda 

In ‘Your Feet’, Neruda expresses a similar devotion to his love as he explains his love for her from head to toe, and gives thanks for the forces he feels brought them together inevitably.

44. "Dear One Absent This Long While" by Lisa Olstein

I expect you. I thought one night it was you

at the base of the drive, you at the foot of the stairs

you in a shiver of light, but each time

leaves in wind revealed themselves, 

the retreating shadow of a fox, daybreak. 

We expect you, cat and I, bluebirds and I, the stove.

The speaker in Lisa Olstein’s ‘Dear One Absent This Long While’ is anxiously waiting for her loved one to return home. The nervous buzz of anticipation as the speaker waits to return to a life of comfort and mundanity, a puzzle from which their lover is the only missing piece, gives this love poem a beautiful raw honesty.

45. "My Lover Is a Woman" by Pat Parker

my lover is a woman 

& when i hold her

feel her warmth

i feel good

Pat Parker was an American poet and activist who drew great inspiration from her life as an African-American lesbian feminist. ‘My Lover Is a Woman’ is about the struggles Parker faced as an openly queer woman of colour, and the safe harbour her lover represents in that storm.

46. "It Is Here" by Harold Pinter 

What is this stance we take,

To turn away and then turn back?

What did we hear?

It was the breath we took when we first met.

Listen. It is here.

Relationships have a funny way of transcending time and space,  and that transcendence isexpressed in Harold Pinter’s beautiful love poem ‘It Is Here’ as he asks his lover to think back to the beginning of their relationship, and in doing so brings the long-passed moment to life.

47. "Untitled" by Christopher Poindexter

I miss you even when you

are beside me. 

I dream of your body

even when you are sleeping

in my arms.

The words I love you

could never be enough.

Christopher Poindexter here presents a deeply honest and relatable portrait of a love that goes beyond the limits of language, as he describes the overwhelming and paradoxical longing it’s possible to feel even when your lover is right by your side. 

48. “Love Is Not A Word” by Riyas Qurana 

Amidst all this 

I keep a falling flower in the mid-air

Not to fall on the earth 

Is it not up to you who search for it

To come and sit on it

And make love?

Don’t forget to bring the word

When you come.

Written from the point of view of a personified love, “Love Is Not A Word” is a rather ambiguous poem. Riyas Qurana explores the notion of love as a whole and relates the concept to nature to emphasize how elemental it is to the human experience. 

49. "[Again and again, even though we know love’s landscape]" by Rainer Maria Rilke 

Again and again, even though we know love’s landscape

and the little churchyard with its lamenting names

and the terrible reticent gorge in which the others

end: again and again the two of us walk out together 

under the ancient trees, lay ourselves down again and  

among the flowers, and look up into the sky.

Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke believed that it was ‘perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks’ for one human to love another (Letters to a Young Poet, 1929). In ‘[Again and again, even though we know love’s landscape]’, Rilke celebrates the continuous, everyday love that two people can share, and the strength that comes from making one vulnerable enough to love another, despite knowing the risk of heartbreak.

50. "Echo" by Christina Rossetti

In ‘Echo’, Christina Rossetti reflects on a lost love and how she wishes it would come back to her like an echo. Rossetti is in despair, longing for her ex-lover, and the resulting yearning creates an equally heartbreaking and beautiful love poem. 

51. "I loved you first: but afterwards your love" by Christina Rossetti

I loved you first: but afterwards your love 

Outsoaring mine, sang such a loftier song

As drowned the friendly cooings of my dove.

Which owes the other most? my love was long, 

And yours one moment seemed to wax more strong

Despite a concern with reciprocity (or a lack thereof) in these opening lines, a feeling of ‘oneness’ in fact runs throughout ‘I loved you first: but afterwards your love’, also by Rossetti. This poem reflects the feeling of complete understanding between two people who love each other deeply, as Rossetti explains how their individual feelings combine to create one love, a whole greater than the sum of its parts.

52. "Defeated by Love" by Rumi 

The sky was lit

by the splendor of the moon 

So powerful 

I fell to the ground 

has made me sure 

I am ready to forsake 

this worldly life 

and surrender 

to the magnificence 

of your Bering

The words of 13th-century Persian poet Rumi have transcended national, ethnic, and religious divides for centuries. The passion and dedication in ‘Defeated by Love’ is apparent in each line, making this enduring testament to the power of love one of the most beautiful love poems on our list. 

53. "Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? (Sonnet 18)" by William Shakespeare 

Although William Shakespeare may not have have written any romance novels , there are few more celebrated love poets and ‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?’ is perhaps the most iconic and recognizable opening line of any love poem. Its simplicity compared to some of Shakespeare’s other sonnets makes it stand out against an incomparable library of work, but the hidden depths and layers of meaning in this densely packed mini-masterpiece have kept readers returning for centuries.

54. "Let me not to the marriage of true minds (Sonnet 116)" by William Shakespeare

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds, 

Or bends with the remover to remove.

O no! it is an ever-fixed mark

In ‘Sonnet 116’, Shakespeare talks about the permanence of love — even if the people change as time goes on, the love between them will remain true and strong, or else it isn’t love at all.

55. "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun" (Sonnet 130) by William Shakespeare

I grant I never saw a goddess go;

My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:

And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare

As any she belied with false compare. 

In Shakespeare’s final entry on our list, he challenges the traditional association of love with beauty. It doesn’t matter what his lover looks like — to him she is the most rare and valuable thing in the world.

56. "Love’s Philosophy" by Percy Bysshe Shelley 

The fountains mingle with the river

And the rivers with the ocean, 

The winds of heaven mix forever

With a sweet emotion;

Nothing in the world is single;

All things by a law divine

In one spirit meet and mingle

Why not I with thine?

‘Love’s Philosophy’, while a beautiful love poem, offers a much more logical take on romance than many of the other poems on our list. Percy Bysshe Shelley expresses to his lover that  their love is as natural as a river meeting the ocean — but equally that all the beauties of nature are meaningless if he doesn’t have her.

57. "One Day I Wrote her Name (Sonnet 75)" by Edmund Spenser 

One day I wrote her name upon the strand, 

But came the waves and washed it away:

Again I wrote it with a second hand, 

But came the tide, and made my pains his prey.

This beautiful love poem is part of Amoretti , a sonnet cycle about Edmund Spenser’s relationship with Elizabeth Boyle. Spenser explains in ‘Sonnet 75’ that — despite the seemingly portentous way his attempts to make a physical monument to his lover by writing her name in the sand is repeatedly foiled — his love for Boyle will never end, and he will do whatever it takes to make it last. 

58. "I Am Not Yours" by Sara Teasdale

A longing for genuine, passionate, all-encompassing love is the central theme of Sara Tesdale’s ‘I Am Not Yours’. The speaker doesn’t feel any sense of belonging in her current relationship, and wants to find a partner who makes her feel lost in their love.

59. "Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson 

Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white;

Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk;

Nor winks the gold fin in the porphyry font.

The firefly wakens; waken thou with me. 

Now drops the milk-white peacock like a ghost,

And like a ghost she glimmers on to me.

‘Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal’ is a song from The Princess, a longer, narrative poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. It was inspired by the ghazal , a Persian form of love poetry which focuses on unsustainable love, and is a classic masterclass in sensual description.

60. "poem I wrote sitting across the table from you" by Kevin Varrone 

I would fold myself 

into the hole in my pocket and disappear 

into the pocket of myself, or at least my pants

but before I did 

like some ancient star

I’d grab your hand

Kevin Varrone confesses how close he feels to his lover in ‘poem I wrote sitting across the table from you’. Written in a moment of procrastination as he worked on a longer verse in a coffee shop, the poem expresses how Varrone wants his lover to partake on all of his adventures, no matter how big or small.

61. "On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous" by Ocean Vuong

Tell me it was for the hunger 

& nothing less. For hunger is to give

the body what it knows 

it cannot keep. That this amber light 

whittled down by another war 

is all that pins my hand 

to your chest.

While you’re probably familiar with Vuong’s 2019 novel by the same name, you may not be familiar with the poem that came first. Ocean Vuong’s writing invites the reader to slow down and understand every word, and ‘On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous’ explores themes of desire, impermanence, and craving when in love.

62. "Love After Love" by Derek Walcott

You will love again the stranger who was your self. 

Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart

to itself, to the stranger who has loved you 

all your life, whom you ignored 

for another, who knows you by heart.

Nobel Prize winning poet Derek Walcott offers advice and reassurance to anyone experiencing a breakup in his poem ‘Love After Love’. Encouraging the reader to return to themselves, the poem is a tonic in a world full of love poetry which expects us to hand ourselves over to lovers completely. 

63. "I Love You" by Ella Wheeler Wilcox 

I love your lips when they’re wet with wine

And red with a wild desire;

I love your eyes when the lovelight lies

Lit with a passionate fire. 

I love your arms when the warm white flesh

Touches mine in a fond embrace;

I love your hair when the strands enmesh

Your kisses against my face.

In ‘I Love You’, Ella Wheeler Wilcox lays out the tiny moments that add up to why the speaker feels so passionately about her love, before going on to describe the colder attributes she’s not looking for in a relationship. This juxtaposition helps to make the initial love she describes all the more special.

64. "We Have Not Long to Love" by Tennessee Williams

Though better known for his plays than as a romance author , Tennessee Williams was also an accomplished poet. In ‘We Have Not Long to Love’ Williams stresses the importance of appreciating the time we do have and cherishing the love that comes with it, remembering that nothing will last forever.

65. "Poem to First Love" by Matthew Yeager 

To have been told “I love you” by you could well be, for me, 

the highlight of my life, the best feeling, the best peak 

on my feeling graph, in the way that the Chrysler building

might not be the tallest building in the NY sky but is

the best, the most exquisitely spired

Matthew Yeager’s ‘Poem to First Love’ is a bittersweet young romance where, as the title suggests, the speaker is reminiscing about his relationship with his first love, and explores the different ways one might try to logically quantify the utterly illogical force of love. 

Looking to dive a little deeper into the world of poetry? Check out our post on the 60+ best poetry books of all time !

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18 Of The Most Illuminating Literary Passages On Love, Life, And Romance By Beau Taplin

• https://thoughtcatalog.com/?p=484337

I can’t remember exactly when I first stumbled upon Beau Taplin’s writing. I suppose it was when I found myself in a used bookstore a few weeks ago with a copy of  Hunting Season in my hands. Then I remembered, later, a friend from Australia had told me some time ago when we were in Nicaragua that he was one of her favorites. Beau’s work largely exists online, on posts that get reblogged thousands of times and on his website – the only place you can buy copies of his books. Here are a select few of some of the most beautiful and illuminating passages from his work.

“ Listen to me, your body is not a temple. Temples can be destroyed and desecrated. Your body is a forest—thick canopies of maple trees and sweet scented wildflowers sprouting in the under wood. You will grow back, over and over, no matter how badly you are devastated. ”

“ often, when we have a crush, when we lust for a person, we see only a small percentage of who they really are. the rest we make up for ourselves. rather than listen, or learn, we smother them in who we imagine them to be, what we desire for ourselves, we create little fantasies of people and let them grow in our hearts. and this is where the relationship fails. in time, the fiction we scribble onto a person falls away, the lies we tell ourselves unravel and soon the person standing in front of you is almost unrecognizable, you are now complete strangers in your own love. and what a terrible shame it is. my advice: pay attention to the small details of people, you will learn that the universe is far more spectacular an author than we could ever hope to be. ”, human beings are made of water–-, we were not designed to hold ourselves together, rather run freely like oceans like rivers, “ one day, whether you are 14, 28 or 65, you will stumble upon someone who will start a fire in you that cannot die. however, the saddest, most awful truth you will ever come to find – is they are not always with whom we spend our lives. ”, “ home is not where you are from, it is where you belong. some of us travel the whole world to find it. others, find it in a person.”, “ it’s 4am and i can’t remember how your voice sounds anymore. ”, “ it’s strange how your childhood sort of feels like forever. then suddenly you’re sixteen and the world becomes an hourglass and you’re watching the sand pile up at the wrong end. and you’re thinking of how when you were just a kid, your heartbeat was like a kick drum at a rock show, and now it’s just a time bomb ticking out. and it’s sad. and you want to forget about dying. but mostly you just want to forget about saying goodbye. ”, “ there was never going to be an “us” because you wanted to be missed more than you wanted to be loved. ”, “ it is a frightening thought, that in one fraction of a moment you can fall in the kind of love that takes a lifetime to get over. ”, “ the one thing i know for sure is that feelings are rarely mutual, so when they are, drop everything, forget belongings and expectations, forget the games, the two days between texts, the hard to gets because this is it, this is what the entire world is after and you’ve stumbled upon it by chance, by accident – so take a deep breath, take a step forward, now run, collide like planets in the system of a dying sun, embrace each other with both arms and let all the rules, the opinions and common sense crash down around you. because this is love kid, and it’s all yours. believe me, you’re in for one hell of a ride, after all – this is the one thing i know for sure. ”, “ the single greatest thing about love, in my experience, is the way it is doomed to pain and loss from its onset. whether it is the spouse that outlives their lover, or loses them to another, there is no escaping that most solemn of inevitabilities. that two people can commit themselves to all this sadness and heartache in the name of such brief happiness, the warm touch of familiar skin, the unrivalled pleasantness in waking up beside the same person you spent the entire night with in your dreams, is all the proof i need that insanity exists, and it is fucking beautiful. ”, “ it’s you. it’s been you for as long as i can remember. everyone else has just been another failed attempt at perfecting the art of pretending you’re not. i miss you. ”, “ i want somebody with a sharp intellect and a heart from hell. somebody with eyes like starfire and a mouth with a kiss like a bottomless well. but mostly i just want someone who will love me. when i do not know how to love myself. ”, “ do not call me perfect, a lie is never a compliment. call me an erratic damaged and insecure mess. then tell me that you love me for it. ”, “ the hours between 12am and 6am have a funny habit of making you feel like you’re either on top of the world, or under it. ”, “ my heart beats in almosts. it’s constantly in pursuit of those whom it desires but the moment it comes too close, it stops, turns, and bolts in the other direction. i hold onto what makes me miserable and i let the good things go. i’m self destructive.” i said. “it’s the way i’ve always been.”

“and why do you think that is” 

“because it’s simpler to destroy something you love,” i said. 
“than it is to watch it leave. ”, “ i just want to be the person you miss at 3am. ”, “ she was unstoppable. not because she did not have failures or doubts, but because she continued on despite them. ”, for more from koty follow her on facebook ..

About the author

Koty Neelis

Former senior staff writer and producer at Thought Catalog.

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Essay on Love for Students and Children

500+ words essay on love.

Love is the most significant thing in human’s life. Each science and every single literature masterwork will tell you about it. Humans are also social animals. We lived for centuries with this way of life, we were depended on one another to tell us how our clothes fit us, how our body is whether healthy or emaciated. All these we get the honest opinions of those who love us, those who care for us and makes our happiness paramount.

What is Love?

Love is a set of emotions, behaviors, and beliefs with strong feelings of affection. So, for example, a person might say he or she loves his or her dog, loves freedom, or loves God. The concept of love may become an unimaginable thing and also it may happen to each person in a particular way.

Love has a variety of feelings, emotions, and attitude. For someone love is more than just being interested physically in another one, rather it is an emotional attachment. We can say love is more of a feeling that a person feels for another person. Therefore, the basic meaning of love is to feel more than liking towards someone.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Need of Love

We know that the desire to love and care for others is a hard-wired and deep-hearted because the fulfillment of this wish increases the happiness level. Expressing love for others benefits not just the recipient of affection, but also the person who delivers it. The need to be loved can be considered as one of our most basic and fundamental needs.

One of the forms that this need can take is contact comfort. It is the desire to be held and touched. So there are many experiments showing that babies who are not having contact comfort, especially during the first six months, grow up to be psychologically damaged.

Significance of Love

Love is as critical for the mind and body of a human being as oxygen. Therefore, the more connected you are, the healthier you will be physically as well as emotionally. It is also true that the less love you have, the level of depression will be more in your life. So, we can say that love is probably the best antidepressant.

It is also a fact that the most depressed people don’t love themselves and they do not feel loved by others. They also become self-focused and hence making themselves less attractive to others.

Society and Love

It is a scientific fact that society functions better when there is a certain sense of community. Compassion and love are the glue for society. Hence without it, there is no feeling of togetherness for further evolution and progress. Love , compassion, trust and caring we can say that these are the building blocks of relationships and society.

Relationship and Love

A relationship is comprised of many things such as friendship , sexual attraction , intellectual compatibility, and finally love. Love is the binding element that keeps a relationship strong and solid. But how do you know if you are in love in true sense? Here are some symptoms that the emotion you are feeling is healthy, life-enhancing love.

Love is the Greatest Wealth in Life

Love is the greatest wealth in life because we buy things we love for our happiness. For example, we build our dream house and purchase a favorite car to attract love. Being loved in a remote environment is a better experience than been hated even in the most advanced environment.

Love or Money

Love should be given more importance than money as love is always everlasting. Money is important to live, but having a true companion you can always trust should come before that. If you love each other, you will both work hard to help each other live an amazing life together.

Love has been a vital reason we do most things in our life. Before we could know ourselves, we got showered by it from our close relatives like mothers , fathers , siblings, etc. Thus love is a unique gift for shaping us and our life. Therefore, we can say that love is a basic need of life. It plays a vital role in our life, society, and relation. It gives us energy and motivation in a difficult time. Finally, we can say that it is greater than any other thing in life.

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Bible Verses About Love

The Bible has a lot to say about love. The word "love" is mentioned over 500 times in the Bible, with many verses that speak to love's power, importance, and beauty.

Here, we have gathered a compilation of Bible verses about love for marriage , among friends , and even loving your neighbors and enemies. 

The Bible says that God is love , which makes the Word of God the perfect source to know what true love means and how we can love others as God loves us. Bible verses about love reveal that our world has skewed the meaning of real love, but God's Word remains the steadfast source of divine knowledge and wisdom. 

Download your  copy of these beautiful Scripture quotes HERE . Print these beautiful Bible verses to keep by your bed, at work, or anywhere you need to be reminded of the power of God's love in your life.

Popular Bible Verses about Love

Read and meditate on this list of scriptures about love from the Holy Bible and begin seeing the change in your heart and mind that comes from pursuing selfless love! Here are some of the most inspiring and beautiful Bible verses about love:

1 Corinthians 16:14

Let all that you do be done in love.

1 Corinthians 13:4-7

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Colossians 3:14

And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.

1 Corinthians 13:13

So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

1 John 4:7-8

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

1 Peter 4:8

Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins.

Ephesians 5:25

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her,

Ephesians 4:2

With all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love,

If you love me, you will keep my commandments.

Find more Bible verses about love by categories below:

Table of Contents

• Bible Verses About God's Love

Bible Verses About Marriage

Bible verses about relationships, bible verses about loving your enemies, a prayer to love, christian resources on love.

First, we have gathered some of the most famous and popular Bible verses about love. These scriptures on love are well known for their simple yet powerful message of God's love and the love we should share with others.  Read and pray with these Bible verses about love:

Let all that you do be done in love. - 1 Corinthians 16:14

Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. - 1 John 4:8

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. - 1 John 4:18

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. - John 3:16

Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins . - 1 Peter 4:8

And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. - Colossians 3:14

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another : just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. - John 13:34-35

Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. - John 15:13

So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love. - 1 Corinthians 13:13

We love because he first loved us. - 1 John 4:19

Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all offenses. - Proverbs 10:12

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. - 1 John 4:7

Bible Verses About God's Love

If we want the perfect example of love, it is in our creator God. Often, God's love is referred to as agape love which is the highest form of love that is selfless and sacrificial. It is steadfast, unchanging, and unconditional. Below are a few Scripture examples of God's great love for you! May these Bible verses about the love of God inspire courage and compassion.

Dear friends, let us love one another , for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. - 1 John 4:7-8

This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. - John 4:9-12

And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. - 1 John 4:16-18

As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. - John 15:9-10

My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.  - John 15:12-13

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. - John 3:16

Now therefore that the LORD your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations. - Deuteronomy 7:9

But you, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. - Psalms 86:15

God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. - Romans 5:8

God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ - by grace you have been saved. - Ephesians 2:4-5

See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. - 1 John 3:1

God created and instituted marriage . Bible verses about love show us the importance of marriage and how to be a loving spouse through commitment and appreciation. The Bible is the true source for the definition of marriage and the roles of husband and wife. Whether you are looking for Scripture to include in your wedding vows during the ceremony or looking to renew the love in your marriage, this collection of Bible verses about love will provide excellent encouragement and inspiration.

Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church - for we are members of his body. “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband. - Ephesians 5:22-33

Wives, submit yourselves to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them. - Colossians 3:18-19

He who finds a wife finds what is good and receives favor from the LORD. - Proverbs 18:22

I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine. - Song of Solomon 8:3

I found the one my heart loves. - Song of Solomon 3:4

Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. The man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.” That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh. - Genesis 2:22-24

May your fountain be blessed, and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth. A loving doe, a graceful deer— may her breasts satisfy you always, may you ever be intoxicated with her love. - Proverbs 5:18-19

A wife of noble character who can find? She is worth far more than rubies. Her husband has full confidence in her and lacks nothing of value. She brings him good, not harm, all the days of her life. - Proverbs 31:10-12

Place me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm; for love is as strong as death, its jealousy unyielding as the grave. It burns like blazing fire, like a mighty flame. Many waters cannot quench love; rivers cannot sweep it away. If one were to give all the wealth of one’s house for love, it would be utterly scorned. - Song of Solomon 8:6

Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor: If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up. Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone? Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken. - Ecclesiastes 4:9-12

But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female.’ ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one s-eparate.   Mark 10:9-6

As Christians and followers of Jesus Christ, the Bible tells us that the world will know us by our love. The greatest testimony that we can be is to love those around us - whether family, friends, or strangers. The below Scriptures about love will guide you in choosing to "put on love"! May we know the love of God and share that love with others throughout our life.

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. -  1 Corinthians 13:1-3

Love is patient , love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. - 1 Corinthians 13:4-8

Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. -   Romans 12:9-10

"The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’There is no commandment greater than these." - Mark 12:29-31

Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. -   Romans 13:8

A friend loves at all times. -   Proverbs 17:17

Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law. -   Romans 13:10

Many claim to have unfailing love, but a faithful person who can find? The righteous lead blameless lives; blessed are their children after them. - Proverbs 20:6-7

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. - 1 Corinthians 13:13

Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. -   Ephesians 4:2-3

Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins. - 1 Peter 4:8

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. - 1 John 4:7

Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. - 1 John 4:11

And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister. - 1 John 4:21

And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. - Colossians 3:14

This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth. - 1 John 3:16-18

Do everything in love. - 1 Corinthians 16:14

The idea of loving and forgiving our enemies sounds completely ridiculous at times. It is our human nature to want to defend ourselves and fight back. However, if we are called to be like Jesus, we are called to forgive those who hurt us. Loving your enemy is less about reconciling a relationship and more about the condition of your heart! Here is a collection of Scriptures about love that will bring you peace and encourage forgiveness for those who trespass against us.

But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them. Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you." - Luke 6:27-31

But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. - Luke 6:35

You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect". - Matthew 5:43-48

On the contrary: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." - Romans 12:20-21

Hatred stirs up conflict, but love covers over all wrongs. - Proverbs 10:12

Let love and faithfulness never leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart. Then you will win favor and a good name in the sight of God and man. - Proverbs 3:3-4

Dear God, Thank you that you are a loving, gracious God. Thank you that you’ve offered us forgiveness and the gift of new life in you. Thank you that your love is perfect, it never fails, and that nothing can separate us from your love.

We pray that our lives would be filled and overflowing with the power of your love so we can make a difference in this world and bring honor to you. We ask for your help in reminding us that the most important things are not what we do outwardly, it’s not based on any talent or gift, but the most significant thing we can do in this life is simply to love you and to choose to love others.

Lord thank you that your love is patient . Help us show patience with those around us. Lord thank you that your love is kind. Help us to extend kindness to others. Lord thank you that your love does not take into account a wrong suffered. Lord help us not to hold grudges, but to choose to forgive, even when it’s difficult.

Help us to love as you love. Fill us with your Spirit so that we can choose what is best. We are weak Lord, but we know also, that even when we are weak, you are strong within us. Thank you that it’s not all up to us. Thank you that you equip us to face each day with the power of your love, your forgiveness, and your grace. In Jesus' name, Amen. 

- Debbie McDaniel

• Love Quotes - Read quotes and verses about loving others, your enemy, God, and even yourself.
• 8 Simple Ways to Love and Encourage Your Husband   - There’s hope for us all, and all we have to do is commit to making an effort. So, if you’re wondering how you can start loving and encouraging your husband better, here are eight ways to get started (eight ways that are husband approved, I should add!)
• What Does the Bible Say About Marriage? Today’s view of marriage seems to teach that marriage is based on your happiness and can be temporary. I’m worried that I’m not prepared for how God wants me to view marriage. What does the Bible say about marriage?
• 10 Things You Should Know About the Love of God
• What to Do When You Fall Out of Love - Here are a few practical steps you can take to bring love back into your marriage
• A Prayer of Love

70+ Twin Quotes That Are Double the Fun

The twin bond may be indescribable, but these twin quotes try to sum it up. Whether you have a twin or just know one, check out these #twinning quotes.

Megan's contributed both writing and research to a myriad of associations including academic publications, cultural institutions, non-fiction works, and experimental collaborative projects.

Learn about our Editorial Policy .

Twins share a special, often unexplainable bond for eternity. Being by each other's side, in soul and spirit, is the only thing they've ever known. These twin quotes celebrate the love, the hijinks, and that secret sauce that makes being a twin so darn incredible. 

Funny Quotes for Parents of Twins

Sometimes, to survive the crazy parenthood journey, all you can do is laugh — and twin parents know this better than most. While multiples can give you a run for your money (and boy will they), conquering the early years will make you feel like you can do anything. These funny quotes for twin parents are so true and oh-so relatable.

• Being a twin parent means never leaving the house again without looking like you're moving house.
• Parenting twins means that you've created your very own little army that will spend the next 18 years revolting against you.
• While twin parents pray for silence all day long, there is nothing more frightening than the moment the sounds cease. Only then do you know those twins are up to no good.
• When you discover you are expecting twins, it's like the universe said, "Let's see what you are really made of."
• Parenting twins means you'll never love so hard and sleep so little.
• I grew two humans at once. That's my superpower.
• You can't scare me. I'm currently raising twins.
• Parents carry the weight of the world. Twin parents carry a lot more than that.
• If you're expecting twins, be sure to ask for things like naps, patience, and prayers on your baby registry.
• Raising twins: It was a good day if everyone is still there at the day's end.
• You're not inducted into the identical twin parents order until you've mixed up their names at least once. 
• Other parents love twin moms and dads because they've always got extras. 
• Filing taxes may be hard, but raising twins is harder. 
• 104 Birthday Signature Drink Names That Age as Well as You Do

Funny Quotes About Being a Twin

If you're a twin, you know your sibling is the best thing and the worst thing to ever happen to you. These hilarious quotes on the twin experience hit the nail on the head when it comes to spending a life sharing your stuff (and sometimes your face)!

• Having another person know your every thought can be a real gift and a real curse.
• Being a twin means spending your life arguing about who is the original and who is the remix.
• Having a twin means always having someone to blame.
• You don't know how wild you can be until you bicker with an identical twin over who's smarter.
• Cross one of us, and it'll be both you have to deal with.
• You can try to break into our secret twin circle, but it's going to be difficult.
• The greatest ideas I ever had started with me and ended with my plotting twin.
• Two brains cooking up mischief 24-7. That's what it's like having a twin.
• When people ask if we are natural twins, we say, "Why, yes. Naturally awesome."
• At least we'll never forget each other's birthdays!
• We're double the trouble and double the fun. 
• Sharing takes on a whole other meaning when you're a twin. 
• Having a twin means getting double the friends for half the work. 
• Blessed be the twins who have built-in study buddies. 
• You think horror movies are scary? Wait until you see the old VHS of our unique twin speak. 
• What's yours is mine, and what's mine is...sometimes yours. 
• Who needs the chicken and the egg when you've got the age-old question — who was born first? 
• #IVisitedTheWombAndAllIGotWasThisLousyTwin
• We're #twinning!
• We're the Buy 1 Get 1 Free our parents never asked for. 

Famous Quotes About the Twin Bond

These wise (and funny) quotes on the twin bond help illustrate just how incredible the experience is for twins... and how challenging it can be for their parents.

• "There are two things in life for which we are never truly prepared: twins." - Josh Billings
• "Sometimes miracles come in pairs." - Richard Branson
• "Being a twin is like being born with a best friend." - Tricia Marrapodi
• "In every set of twins, there is one angel, one devil. The right-handed twin tells the truth, the left-handed twin tells lies." - Jandy Nelson
• "After raising twins, you get organized." - Scott Ellis
• "Some twins feel like they need to compare themselves to each other, but we're not that way. That's because of my parents, though, and having six kids in the family." - Ashley Olsen
• "I may be a twin, but I am one-of-a-kind." - Jerry Smith
• "You can spend too much time wondering which of identical twins is the more alike." - Robert Brault
• "Look at identical twins. When you get closer, you start to see the small differences. It all depends on how much you magnify it." - Brian Swanson
• "They're not just sisters and twins. They're best friends, and they care genuinely about each other." - Chelsi Welch

Related: 11 Twin Birthday Party Theme Ideas for Your Dynamic Duo

Heartfelt Twin Quotes to Honor Their Special Relationship

For a twin, nobody's closer to you than the person you shared the womb with. Sharing that instant bond is extremely special. Lucky are those who are a part of the twin bond, and we honor it through these heartfelt sayings. 

• A twin doesn't go through life searching for their other half. They were born with it.
• Twice the love, twice the win. You hit the double jackpot when you have twins.
• Twin bonds are the most unbreakable, sacred bonds in the whole world.
• Because I have my twin, I have everything.
• No matter what you do in life, know I am right here beside you, twin.
• Even when distance separates us, we are never far from one another because we live in each other's hearts.
• We are two beautiful flowers that grew on the same stem.
• My twin, you are a shoulder to cry on, a listening ear. Because I have you, there is no sadness or fear.
• No matter what happens in life, our bond is the one constant I can always count on.
• Not only were you the first person I ever met, but you were the first one who taught me love.
• The universe knew you wouldn't know what to do without me, so it made sure we entered it together. 

Short-and-Sweet Quotes About Twins

These short and sweet quotes will give any twin or parents of twins the warm and fuzzies. They prove that few words are needed to describe the depth of the twin bond. 

• Definition of twin: two bodies, one heart.
• Born with a built-in bestie.
• Twins are double the work and double the joy.
• BFF: Born Forever Friends
• Twins are a wish that came true twice.
• Twins are rare and magical, like a unicorn.
• Twins prove that miracles really do exist.
• Congrats on the twins. You are officially outnumbered now.
• Twin parent here. Send caffeine  stat. 
• Blessed with a best.

10 Things to Say From One Twin to the Other

Whether you talk every day or have an annual check-in, why not share a quote with your twin? You shared everything in life for years, so why not add a few little words on top of it all? 

• Twin, I know that no matter what the world throws my way, you will be in my heart and by my side.
• Twin, do you feel as sorry for all those single-birthed babies as I do?
• If I have to look exactly like somebody else, I'm glad it is you.
• Best of luck to the first person who tries to date one of us.
• Joy is sharing a soul with you.
• Twin, I know you've got my back... and my nose... and eyes... and lips.
• I may have gotten the looks, but thank God you have the brains — I'm going to need them one day. 
• You're the best roommate I've ever had, and that's not saying much. 
• I'm thinking we should buy companion plots at the cemetery. We came into this world together, so we might as well leave it in the same way. 
• I noticed the other day that I'm aging like fine wine, so you must not be doing too badly yourself. 

Living the Twin Life Is Like Rolling Doubles Every Day 

From the spills, the messes, and the mischief to the snuggles, kisses, and love, twins are double the work and double the fun. They share such a strong bond that it's hard to describe it in words. But these quotes do a great job of capturing the magical relationship between the interconnected life forces that are twins.

30 Best Dog Mom Quotes That Are Just So Paw-fect

“You’ll never get the dog that you want; you’ll always get the dog that you need.”

Here, you'll find dog mom quotes that speak to the sort of devotion, patience, and sheer love that comes with caring for a pup—the kind of quotes that will make you want to run to the treat jar. A few of these dog quotes are funny, some are sentimental, and several are just plain joyful ( happy quotes for the win!). But all will have you feeling warm and fuzzy about the canines in your life—whether your home is full of small dog breeds , medium-sized dogs , or large dog breeds . After all, as Caroline Knapp says, “Fall in love with a dog, and in many ways you enter a new orbit, a universe that features not just new colors but new rituals, new rules, a new way of experiencing attachment.”

Konrad Lorenz

“The fidelity of a dog is a precious gift.”

Cesar Milan

Patrick Demarchelier

“The dog is the perfect portrait subject. He doesn’t pose. He isn’t aware of the camera.”

Kristan Higgins

“When an 85 pound mammal licks your tears away, and then tries to sit on your lap, it’s hard to feel sad.”

Jill Abramson

“You know, a dog can snap you out of any kind of bad mood that you’re in faster than you can think of.”

Judy Desmond

“A dog is the only thing that can mend a crack in your broken heart.”

Caroline Knapp

“Fall in love with a dog, and in many ways you enter a new orbit, a universe that features not just new colors but new rituals, new rules, a new way of experiencing attachment.”

Janet Schnellman

“There’s just something about dogs that makes you feel good. You come home, they’re thrilled to see you. They’re good for the ego.”

Kate Jackson

“People have been asking me if I was going to have kids, and I had puppies instead.”

Jennifer Westfeldt

“Dogs just need you and love, that’s all.”

John Grogan

“It’s just the most amazing thing to love a dog, isn’t it? It makes our relationships with people seem as boring as a bowl of oatmeal.”

Nora Roberts, 'The Search'

“Everything I know, I learned from dogs.”

Josh Grogan

“A dog doesn't care if you're rich or poor, educated or illiterate, clever or dull. Give him your heart and he will give you his.”

Anne Raver, 'The New York Times'

“To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing was not boring— it was peace.”

John Holmes

“A dog is not 'almost human' and I know of no greater insult to the canine race than to describe it as such.”

Christopher Morley

"No one appreciates the very special genius of your conversation as the dog does."

Robert Falcon Scott

"The dog lives for the day, the hour, even the moment."

Louis Sabin

"No matter how little money and how few possessions you own, having a dog makes you rich."

Roger Caras

"If you don't own a dog, at least one, there may not necessarily be anything wrong with you, but there may be something wrong with your life."

Will Rogers

"If there are no dogs in heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went."

Josiah Soto is the assistant editor of news and social for The Pioneer Woman. He helps manage the website’s social channels, in addition to writing high-performing news and entertainment content daily. 

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105 self-love quotes to boost your confidence

Like every relationship , the one with yourself requires care and patience. Whether you're already an affirmations aficionado or totally new to the self-care scene, practicing self-love is a great way to boost your confidence .

Self-love can be as simple as journaling, meditating, or just taking a moment to sit with your thoughts every day. Even a simple action like smiling at yourself in the mirror can do wonders for your self-esteem.

Even on those days where you feel like you can't to do anything right, try to hold compassion for yourself and practice positive self-talk. Soon, you won't have to work so hard to remember those affirmations — they'll simply come from within.

It might help to know that you're not alone: some of the most inspiring people in the world have experienced a crisis of confidence.

From Maya Angelou to Michelle Obama, many famous figures have openly spoken about their struggles with imposter syndrome and self-doubt. Luckily, they've also shared words of wisdom and tips to challenge negative thoughts and cultivate a positive inner dialogue.

For those days when you need a little pep talk, these self-love quotes will remind you that you are enough.

Best Self-Love Quotes

• “To bring yourself love and happiness, do what you can to bring them to others.” — Deepak Chopra
• “Love the world and yourself in it, move through it as though it offers no resistance, as though the world is your natural element.” — Audrey Niffenegger, “The Time Traveler's Wife”
• “Until you love yourself, you will never know who you really are and you won’t know what you’re really capable of.” — Louise Hay
• “It is only when you have mastered the art of loving yourself that you can truly love others.” — Robin Sharma
• “Look into a mirror, make eye contact with yourself, and say ‘I love me’ as many times as possible during the day.” — Wayne Dyer

• “Maybe part of falling in love with someone else is also falling in love with yourself.” — Nicola Yoon, “The Sun Is Also a Star”
• “If only you could sense how important you are to the lives of those you meet; how important you can be to people you may never even dream of. There is something of yourself that you leave at every meeting with another person.” — Fred Rodgers
• “You will love again the stranger who was your self.” — Derek Walcott
• “Self-love is an ocean and your heart is a vessel. Make it full, and any excess will spill over into the lives of the people you hold dear. But you must come first.” — Beau Taplin
• “Freeing yourself was one thing, claiming ownership of that freed self was another.” — Toni Morrison, “Beloved”

• “how you love yourself is / how you teach others / to love you.” — Rupi Kaur, “Milk and Honey”
• “I am sure about myself as a person. I am sure of my talent ... I’m very content. I like the kind of person I am.” — Dolly Parton
• “My wealth is in my knowledge of self, love, and spirituality.” — Muhammad Ali
• “Had we not loved ourselves at all, we could never have been obliged to love anything. So that self-love is the basis of all love.” — Thomas Traherne
• “Love yourself first and everything else falls into line. You really have to love yourself to get anything done in this world.” — Lucille Ball

• “When we fulfill our function, which is to truly love ourselves and share love with others, then true happiness sets in.” — Gabrielle Bernstein, “May Cause Miracles”
• “Think thoughts that make you feel good, make choices that make you feel good, and take actions that make you feel good.” — Cheryl Richardson
• “Don’t surrender all your joy for an idea you used to have about yourself that isn’t true anymore.” — Cheryl Strayed, “Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar”
• “If you have the ability to love, love yourself first.” — Charles Bukowski
• “You may cut me with your eyes / You may kill me with your hatefulness / But still, like air, I’ll rise.” — Maya Angelou, “Still I Rise”

• “Love and the self are one, and the discovery of either is the realization of both.” — Leo Buscaglia
• “In your own life it’s important to know how spectacular you are.” — Steve Maraboli, “Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience”
• “May you always be the one / Who notices the little things / That make the light pour through / And may they always remind you / There is more to life and there is more to you.” — Morgan Harper Nichols
• "I like me. I like my story and all the bumps and bruises. That’s what makes me uniquely me.” — Michelle Obama
• “You and you alone are the only person that can live the life that writes the story that you were meant to tell. And the world needs your story because the world needs your voice.” — Kerry Washington

• “You are built not to shrink down to less, but to blossom into more.” — Oprah Winfrey
• “Everyone of us needs to show how much we care for each other and, in the process, care for ourselves.” — Princess Diana
• “To find a happy ending with someone else, first you have to find it alone.” — Soman Chainani, "The Last Ever After"
• “If you don’t get out there and define yourself, you’ll be quickly and inaccurately defined by others.” — Michelle Obama, "Becoming"
• “Inner beauty should be the most important part of improving one’s self.” — Priscilla Presley

• “Don’t forget to tell yourself positive things daily! You must love yourself internally to glow externally.” — Hannah Bronfman
• “I’m really happy to be me, and I’d like to think people like me more because I’m happy with myself and not because I refuse to conform to anything.” — Adele
• “Your self-worth is determined by you. You don’t have to depend on someone telling you who you are.” — Beyoncé Knowles
• “Friendship with oneself is all important because without it one cannot be friends with anyone else in the world.” — Eleanor Roosevelt
• “Be a master at loving yourself and people will follow.” — Kim Guerra

• “You’re always with yourself, so you might as well enjoy the company.” — Diane von Furstenberg, “The Woman I Wanted to Be”
• “This life is mine alone. So, I have stopped asking people for directions to places they’ve never been.” — Glennon Doyle, “Untamed”
• “I’ve come to a realization that I need to be able to forgive myself for making the wrong choice, trusting the wrong person, or figuratively falling on my face in front of everyone. Step into the daylight and let it go.” — Taylor Swift
• “Nourishing yourself in a way that helps you blossom in the direction you want to go is attainable, and you are worth the effort.” — Deborah Day
• “You deserve a love that’s deeper than the ocean / A love that’s brighter than the sun / A love that’s higher than the mountains / A love that you can only find inside yourself.” — Juansen Dizon, “Confessions of a Wallflower”

• “It is confidence in our bodies, minds and spirits that allows us to keep looking for new adventures, new directions to grow in, and new lessons to learn, which is what life is all about.” — Oprah Winfrey
• “If we stop defining each other by what we are not and start defining ourselves by what we are, we can all be freer.” — Emma Watson
• “You alone are enough, you have nothing to prove to anybody.” — Maya Angelou
• “If you’re not someone who has a natural and effortless love for yourself, it’s hard to let go of your desire to please other people, and that’s really not an ingredient for a happy life.” — Anne Hathaway
• “But the most exciting, challenging and significant relationship of all is the one you have with yourself. And if you can find someone to love the you you love, well, that’s just fabulous.” — Sarah Jessica Parker as Carrie Bradshaw, “Sex and the City”

• “We can only love others as much as we love ourselves.” — Brené Brown
• “I believe self-love is a by-product of integrity. Living true to your values—whether you feel like it or not.” — Patricia Moreno 
• “Remember who you were before they told you who to be.” —Dulce Ruby
• “And I can’t help lovin’ myself / And I don’t need nobody else / If I was you I’d wanna be me, too.” — Meghan Trainor, “Me Too”
• “Knowing how to be solitary is central to the art of loving. When we can be alone, we can be with others without using them as a means of escape.” ― Bell Hooks, “All About Love: New Visions”

• “Do not let what he wants eclipse what you need. He is very dreamy … But he is not the sun. You are.” — Sandra Oh as Cristina Yang, "Grey’s Anatomy"
• “I say it ain’t bragging if you can back it up.” — Muhammad Ali
• “i found god in myself / and i loved her / i loved her fiercely.” ― Ntozake Shange, “Lady in Red”
• “Treat yourself like someone you love.” ― Glennon Doyle, “Love Warrior”
• “Nothing you resolve to do will make you worthy of love. You are enough right now.” — Unknown

• “look down at your body / whisper / There is no home like you.—Rupi Kaur, “thank you” from "The Sun and Her Flowers"
• “I may be a senior, but so what? I’m still hot.” — Betty White
• “Let me fall if I must fall. The one I will become will catch me.” —Baal Shem Tov
• “Even when muddy / your wings sparkle bright / wonders that heal broken worlds.” ― Aberjhani, “The River of Winged Dreams”
• “Love is inside me. Other people might awaken it or threaten it, but as a capacity, it’s mine.” — Sharon Salzberg

• “I read and walked for miles at night along the beach, writing bad blank verse and searching endlessly for someone wonderful who would step out of the darkness and change my life. It never crossed my mind that that person could be me.” — Anna Quindlen, “Living Out Loud”
• “You carry so much love in your heart. Give some to yourself.” —Unknown
• “It is so liberating to really know what I want, what truly makes me happy, what I will not tolerate. I have learned that it is no one else’s job to take care of me but me.” — Beyoncé
• “Document the moments you feel most in love with yourself — what you’re wearing, who you’re around, what you’re doing. Recreate and repeat.” — Warsan Shire
• “Self love is not a place we get to but a place we choose.”—Shannon Kaiser, “The Self-Love Experiment”

• “Do your thing and don’t care if they like it.” — Tina Fey, “Bossypants”
• “I knew that was really the only purpose of life: to be our self, live our truth, and be the love that we are.” — Anita Moorjani
• “Nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent.”—Eleanor Roosevelt
• “Nobody is perfect. I just don’t believe in perfection. But I do believe in saying — this is who I am and look at me not being perfect! I’m proud of that.” — Kate Winslet
• “There is no beauty that can compare with the beauty of self-knowledge and the tranquility that comes when you accept yourself as you are.” — Sophia Loren, "Women & Beauty"

• “To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.” — Oscar Wilde, “An Ideal Husband”
• “I am too full to be half-loved.” — Ijeoma Umebinyou, “Questions for Ada”
• “As women, we have to start appreciating our own worth and each other’s worth. Seek out strong women to befriend, to align yourself with, to learn from, to collaborate with, to be inspired by, to support, and enlightened by.” — Madonna 
• “I think in life you should work on yourself until the day you die.” — Serena Williams
• “I promise you, little by little, the healing adds up.” — Ella Hicks

• “Plant your garden and water your soul, instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.” — Jorge Luis Borges, “You Learn”
• “Owning our story and loving ourselves through that process is the bravest thing that we’ll ever do.” — Brené Brown
• “Love is the great miracle cure. Loving ourselves works miracles in our lives.” — Louise Hay
• “Keep watering yourself. You’re growing.” — E. Russell
• “This is not the moment to wilt into the underbrush of your insecurities. You’ve earned the right to grow. You’re going to have to carry the water yourself.” — Cheryl Strayed

• “No other love no matter how genuine it is, can fulfill one’s heart better than unconditional self-love.” — Edmond Mbiaka
• “To fall in love with yourself is the first secret to happiness.” — Robert Morely
• “Keep taking time for yourself until you’re you again.” — Lalah Delia
• “The things that make me different are the things that make me.” — A.A. Milne, “Winnie the Pooh”
• “Daring to set boundaries is about having the courage to love ourselves even when we risk disappointing others.” — Brené Brown

• “You are very powerful, provided you know how powerful you are.” — Yogi Bhajan
• “If you aren’t good at loving yourself, you will have a difficult time loving anyone, since you’ll resent the time and energy you give another person that you aren’t even giving to yourself.” — Barbara De Angelis
• “It took me a long time not to judge myself through someone else’s eyes.” — Sally Field
• “I am my own universe; a galaxy; a solar system. I am the warm-up act, the main event, and the backing singers. And if this is it, if this is all there is—just me and the trees and the sky and the seas—I know now that that’s enough.” — Dolly Alderton, "Everything I Know About Love"
•   “When I loved myself enough, I began leaving whatever wasn’t healthy. This meant people, jobs, my own beliefs and habits–anything that kept me small.  My judgment called it disloyal. Now I see it as self-loving.” — Kim McMillen

• “When you take care of yourself, you’re a better person for others. When you feel good about yourself, you treat others better.” — Solange Knowles
• “You have to believe in yourself when no one else does — that makes you a winner right here.” — Venus Williams
• “Flowers grow back even after the harshest winters. You will, too.” — Jennae Cecelia
• “I’ve learned to embrace all the things I find about myself, if they’re good and even if they’re bad. After all, I fall in love with someone because of their flaws. And I’ve learned to love myself because of my flaws, too.” — Cara Delevigne
• “The same light you see in others is shining within you, too.” — Morgan Harper Nichols

• “I was once afraid of people saying ‘Who does she think she is?’ Now I have the courage to stand and say, ‘This is who I am.’” — Oprah Winfrey
• “You have been criticizing yourself for years and it hasn’t worked. Try approving of yourself and see what happens.” — Louise Hay
• “Be bold, be brave enough to be your true self.” — Queen Latifah
• “One of the best guides to how to be self-loving is to give ourselves the love we are often dreaming about receiving from others.” — Bell Hooks, “All About Love: New Visions”
• “I keep telling myself that I’m a human being, an imperfect human being who’s not made to look like a doll, and that who I am as a person is more important than whether at that moment I have a nice figure.” — Emma Watson

• “To say 'I love you' one must know first how to say the 'I.'” — Ayn Rand, "The Fountainhead"
• “I’m not going to apologize for who I am and I’m going to actually love the skin that I’m in. I’m not gonna be striving for some other version of myself.” — Amy Schumer
• “To be nobody-but-yourself — in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else — means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.”— E. E. Cummings
• “Why are you trying so hard to fit in when you were born to stand out?” — Ian Wallace, "What a Girl Wants"
• “At the end of the day, you won’t be happy until you love yourself.” — Lady Gaga

Quotes for every (and any) occassion

• Life quotes that’ll inspire you to find the good in every day
• Success quotes that'll motivate you to keep moving forward
• Positive quotes to brighten even the rainiest of days
• Inspirational quotes to uplift you during life's toughest moments

Fadzai Mushayamunda is a NBC Page and contributing writer for TODAY.com. Her interests lie in news, lifestyle and pop culture content. She holds a bachelor’s degree in humanities from Wofford College.

Associate Lifestyle Reporter

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50 positive life quotes to inspire, and lift your spirit each day

" Life's a climb. But the view is great ." There are times when things seemingly go to plan, and there are other moments when nothing works out.

During those instances, you might feel lost. But words of encouragement can help. Certain quotes can inspire and remind you to live life to the fullest and persevere through whatever challenges come your way.

If you're looking for more, here is a list of quotes about life throughout the decades:

50 quotes about life

• "You will face many defeats in life, but never let yourself be defeated." – Maya Angelou , "And Still I Rise"
• "In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: It goes on." –  Robert Frost
• "Life is a long lesson in humility." – J.M. Barrie , "The Little Minister"
• "To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all." – Oscar Wilde
• "The most important thing is to enjoy your life–to be happy–it's all that matters." – Audrey Hepburn
• "To succeed in life, you need three things: a wishbone, a backbone and a funnybone." – Reba McEntire
• "We must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us." – Joseph Campbell
• "Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood." – Ralph Waldo Emerson
• "Love the life you live. Live the life you love." – Bob Marley
• "I was taught that the way of progress was neither swift nor easy." – Marie Curie
• "He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how." –  Friedrich Nietzsche
• "You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough." – Mae West
• "The whole secret of a successful life is to find out what is one's destiny to do, and then do it." – Henry Ford
• "In order to write about life first you must live it." – Ernest Hemingway
• "Life has no limitations, except the ones you make." – Les Brown
• "It's your outlook on life that counts. If you take yourself lightly and don't take yourself too seriously, pretty soon you can find the humor in our everyday lives. And sometimes it can be a lifesaver." – Betty White
• "Live for each second without hesitation." – Elton John
• "The most wasted of all days is one without laughter." – E. E. Cummings
• "Start each day with a positive thought and a grateful heart." – Roy Bennett
• "All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence; then success is sure." – Mark Twain
• "I believe that if you'll just stand up and go, life will open up for you. Something just motivates you to keep moving." – Tina Turner
• "Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up." – Thomas Edison
• "I have very strong feelings about how you lead your life. You always look ahead, you never look back." – Ann Richards
• "Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving." – Albert Einstein
• "Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." – Anais Nin
• "You do not find the happy life. You make it." – Camilla Eyring Kimball
• "A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives." – Jackie Robinson
• "The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience." – Eleanor Roosevelt
• "The biggest adventure you can ever take is to live the life of your dreams." – Oprah Winfrey
• "If you own this story you get to write the ending." – Brené Brown
• "Life is like a coin. You can spend it any way you wish, but you only spend it once." – Lillian Dickinson
• "Life is about making an impact, not making an income." – Kevin Kruse
• "There are no regrets in life, just lessons." – Jennifer Aniston
• "Accept no one's definition of your life, define yourself." – Harvey Fierstein
• "The longer I live the more beautiful life becomes." – Frank Lloyd Wright
• "If you love life, don't waste time, for time is what life is made up of." – Bruce Lee
• "Mistakes are a fact of life. It is the response to the error that counts." – Nikki Giovanni
• "Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced." – Soren Kierkegaard
• "Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life." – Steve Jobs
• "If everything was perfect, you would never learn and you would never grow." – Beyoncé
• "If we don't change, we don't grow. If we don't grow, we aren't really living." – Gail Sheehy
• "I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed." – Booker T. Washington
• "Life doesn't have to be perfect to be wonderful." – Annette Funicello
• "The big lesson in life, baby, is never be scared of anyone or anything." – Frank Sinatra
• "I think I've discovered the secret of life – you just hang around until you get used to it." – Charles Schulz
• "Life is very interesting... in the end, some of your greatest pains, become your greatest strengths." – Drew Barrymore
• "Challenges are what make life interesting and overcoming them is what makes life meaningful." – Joshua J. Marine
• "Make it a rule of life never to regret and never to look back. Regret is an appalling waste of energy; you can't build on it; it's only good for wallowing in." – Katherine Mansfield
• "The most important trip you may take in life is meeting people halfway." – Henry Boye
• "Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself." – George Bernard Shaw

Quotes about love: 50 love quotes to express how you feel: 'Where there is love there is life'

Inspirational quotes: 50 motivational motivational words to brighten your day.

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