Quotes about love

34 real sentences about love, left by people who came before us, from 3rd century BC to 1923, oldest first. Each one has its source and the original text.

Nossis Νοσσίς

3rd century BC · Locri, southern Italy

Nothing is sweeter than love; every other blessing comes second. Even honey I have spat from my mouth.

ἅδιον οὐδὲν ἔρωτος, ἃ δʼ ὄλβια, δεύτερα πάντα ἐστὶν ἀπὸ στόματος δʼ ἔπτυσα καὶ τὸ μέλι.

Greek Anthology 5.170

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Catullus Gaius Valerius Catullus

c. 55 BC · Roman Republic

I hate and I love. Why do I do it, you may ask. I do not know, but I feel it happening, and I am in torment.

Odi et amo. quare id faciam, fortasse requiris. nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior.

Poem 85

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Catullus Gaius Valerius Catullus

c. 55 BC · Roman Republic · To his lover Lesbia

Give me a thousand kisses, then a hundred, then another thousand, then a second hundred, then yet another thousand, then a hundred.

da mi basia mille, deinde centum, dein mille altera, dein secunda centum, deinde usque altera mille, deinde centum.

Poem 5

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Ovid Publius Ovidius Naso

c. 16 BC · Roman Empire

They struggle, and pull my light heart opposite ways, love on this side, hate on that. But love, I think, is winning. I shall hate if I can. If not, I shall love against my will.

Luctantur pectusque leve in contraria tendunt hac amor hac odium, sed, puto, vincit amor. odero, si potero; si non, invitus amabo.

Amores (Loves) 3.11

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Paul Παῦλος

c. AD 55 · Roman Empire

Love is patient, love is kind. Love does not envy, does not boast, is not puffed up. It is not rude, does not seek its own, is not provoked, keeps no account of wrong.

ἀγάπη μακροθυμεῖ, χρηστεύεται, ἡ ἀγάπη οὐ ζηλοῖ, οὐ περπερεύεται, οὐ φυσιοῦται, οὐκ ἀσχημονεῖ, οὐ ζητεῖ τὰ ἑαυτῆς, οὐ παροξύνεται, οὐ λογίζεται τὸ κακόν

First Letter to the Corinthians 13:4–5

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Paul Παῦλος

c. AD 55 · Roman Empire

And now there remain faith, hope, love, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

νυνὶ δὲ μένει πίστις, ἐλπίς, ἀγάπη· τὰ τρία ταῦτα, μείζων δὲ τούτων ἡ ἀγάπη.

First Letter to the Corinthians 13:13

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The old man leading a cow

early 8th century · Silla Korea

By the dark red rock, if you will let me loose the cow I am holding, and if you are not ashamed of me, I shall pick the flowers and offer them to you.

紫布岩乎邊希執音乎手母牛放敎遣吾肹不喩慙肹伊賜等花肹折叱可獻乎理音如

"Song of Offering Flowers" (Heonhwaga), in the Samguk yusa

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Ono no Komachi 小野小町

9th century · Heian Japan

What fades without its colour ever showing is the flower in the hearts of the people of this world.

色見えで移ろふものは世の中の人の心の花にぞありける

Kokin wakashu, poems of love

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To meet is hard, and to part is hard too. The east wind has no strength and the hundred flowers wither. The spring silkworm spins its thread until it dies. The candle's tears dry only when it has turned to ash.

相見時難別亦難，東風無力百花殘。春蠶到死絲方盡，蠟炬成灰淚始乾。

"Untitled"

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The Priestess of Ise 伊勢の斎宮

9th century · Ise, Heian Japan · The morning after she had gone by night to the man, who had come as an imperial huntsman, and returned: a poem sent with no other word

Did you come to me, or did I go to you? I cannot tell. Was it a dream or was it real? Was I asleep or awake?

君や来しわれや行きけむ思ほえず夢かうつつか寝てか覚めてか

Tales of Ise, episode 69

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Ariwara no Narihira 在原業平

9th century · Heian Japan · The answering poem the man made, weeping bitterly

I too went astray in the darkness of a heart gone black. Whether it was dream or real, decide tonight.

かきくらす心のやみに惑ひにき夢うつつとは今宵定めよ

Tales of Ise, episode 69

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The Priestess of Ise 伊勢の斎宮

9th century · Ise, Heian Japan · At dawn on the day he left, never having met her again, a sake dish was sent out from her side with only the first half of a poem written on it

Since ours was a bond so shallow that one could wade across and not be wet

かち人の渡れど濡れぬえにしあれば

Tales of Ise, episode 69

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Ariwara no Narihira 在原業平

9th century · Heian Japan · He wrote the second half on the same dish, with charcoal from a pine torch

I shall cross the Barrier of Meeting, Osaka, once more.

また逢坂の関は越えなむ

Tales of Ise, episode 69

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Liu Yong 柳永

earlier 11th century · Song China

My belt grows looser and looser, and I shall never regret it. For her it is worth wasting away like this.

衣帶漸寬終不悔，爲伊消得人憔悴。

To the tune "Butterflies Love Flowers"

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Ibn Hazm ابن حزم

c. 1022 · Córdoba, al-Andalus

Love has signs that the sharp-eyed follow and the clever find their way to. The first is the endless gaze. The eye is the wide gate of the soul: it searches out its secrets, tells its thoughts and makes plain what is hidden within. So you see the one who gazes never blink. He moves when the beloved moves, draws aside when the beloved draws aside, and leans wherever the beloved leans, like the chameleon with the sun.

وللحب علامات يقفوها الفطن، ويهتدي إليها الذكي. فأولها إدمان النظر، والعين باب النفس الشارع، وهي المنقبة عن سرائرها، والمعبرة لضمائرها والمعربة عن بواطنها. فترى الناظر لا يطرف، يتنقل بتنقل المحبوب وينزوي بانزوائه، ويميل حيث مال كالحرباء مع الشمس

The Ring of the Dove (Tawq al-Hamama), the chapter on the signs of love

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Heloise Heloysa

1130s · Paris, France · the Paraclete

To her lord, or rather her father; to her husband, or rather her brother; from his handmaid, or rather his daughter; his wife, or rather his sister: to Abelard, Heloise.

Domino suo, immo patri; coniugi suo, immo fratri; ancilla sua, immo filia; ipsius uxor, immo soror, Abaelardo Heloysa.

The salutation of her first letter to Abelard

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Saadi سعدی

13th century · Shiraz, Persia

I am glad in the world because the world is glad through Him. I am in love with the whole world, because the whole world comes from Him.

به جهان خرم از آنم که جهان خرم ازوست عاشقم بر همه عالم که همه عالم ازوست

A ghazal of Saadi

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Hafez حافظ

14th century · Shiraz, Persia

Come, cupbearer, pass the cup round and hand it to me too, for love looked easy at first, and then the troubles came.

الا یا ایها الساقی ادر کأسا و ناولها که عشق آسان نمود اول ولی افتاد مشکل ها

Divan of Hafez, the first ghazal

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Hafez حافظ

14th century · Shiraz, Persia

If that Turk of Shiraz would take my heart in hand, for the dark mole on that cheek I would give Samarkand and Bukhara.

اگر آن ترک شیرازی به دست آرد دل ما را به خال هندویش بخشم سمرقند و بخارا را

Divan of Hafez, a ghazal

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William Shakespeare

c. 1598 · England

Silence is the perfectest herald of joy: I were but little happy, if I could say how much.

Much Ado About Nothing, Act 2, scene 1, spoken by Claudio

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William Shakespeare

published 1609 · England

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer's lease hath all too short a date

Sonnets, 18

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William Shakespeare

1609 · England

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

Sonnet 116

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Nalan Xingde 納蘭性德

c. 1680 · Qing China

If life could always be as it was when we first met, why would there be a painted fan to mourn, cast aside in the autumn wind?

人生若只如初見，何事秋風悲畫扇。

To the tune "Magnolia Flower": a song of breaking off, in the old style

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Nameless singers 蔓橫淸類無名氏

before 1728 · Joseon Korea

My love said he would come, so I cooked supper early and ate. Out through the inner gate, out through the main gate, I ran up and sat on the doorsill, shaded my eyes with my hand and looked across at the far hill: is he coming or not? Something dark and pale was standing there. That must be him! Stockings off and tucked in my bosom, shoes off and held in my hand, tumbling and scrambling, helter-skelter, through wet and dry alike I splashed across, ready to say tender things, and stole a sideways glance: a stripped hemp stalk, peeled on the thirteenth of the seventh month last year, had fooled me completely. A good thing it was night. Had it been day, how people would have laughed.

님이 오마 ᄒᆞ거ᄂᆞᆯ 져녁밥을 일 지어 먹고 中門 나셔 大門 나가 地方 우희 치ᄃᆞ라 안자 以手로 加額ᄒᆞ고 오ᄂᆞᆫ가 가ᄂᆞᆫ가 건넌山 ᄇᆞ라보니 거머흿들 셔 잇거ᄂᆞᆯ 져야 님이로다 보션 버서 품에 품고 신 버서 손에 쥐고 곰븨님븨 님븨곰븨 쳔방지방 지방쳔방 즌 듸 ᄆᆞ른 듸 ᄀᆞᆯ희지 말고 워렁충창 건너가셔 情엣 말 ᄒᆞ려 ᄒᆞ고 겻눈을 흘긧 보니 上年七月 열사흔날 ᄀᆞᆯ가 벅긴 주추리 삼대 ᄉᆞᆯ드리도 날 소겨다 모쳐라 밤일싀만졍 ᄒᆡᆼ혀 낫이런들 ᄂᆞᆷ 우일 번ᄒᆞ괘라

Cheonggu yeongeon, the long songs at the end

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Ludwig van Beethoven

thought to be July 6, 1812 · Bonn · Vienna

MY ANGEL! MY ALL! MY SECOND SELF! Only a few words to-day, written with a pencil (your own). My residence cannot be settled till to-morrow. What a tiresome loss of time! Why this deep grief when necessity compels?--can our love exist without sacrifices, and by refraining from desiring all things?

The unsent letter "To the Immortal Beloved" · in place of the original: the English translation by Lady Wallace (1866)

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Jane Austen

1813 · England

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.

Pride and Prejudice, the first sentence

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John Keats

October 13, 1819 · England

I cannot exist without you. I am forgetful of everything but seeing you again—my Life seems to stop there—I see no further.

Letter to Fanny Brawne

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Charlotte Bronte Charlotte Brontë

1847 · Haworth, Yorkshire, England

Reader, I married him.

Jane Eyre, the last chapter

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Elizabeth Barrett Browning

1850 · London, England · Florence, Italy

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.

Sonnets from the Portuguese, 43

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Fyodor Dostoevsky Фёдор Достоевский

1880 · St. Petersburg, Russia · Set down as the teaching left by the old monastery elder Zosima

Love all God’s creation, the whole and every grain of sand in it. Love every leaf, every ray of God’s light. Love the animals, love the plants, love everything.

The Brothers Karamazov, book 6 · in place of the original: the English translation by Constance Garnett (1912)

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