Today is Valentine’s Day.
So I would like to share quotes about love from the people who have walked this earth before us (and from a few who are still here).
Timeless and inspiring thoughts written down and spread throughout the decades, centuries and, yes, even millenniums.
Thoughts not only about happy, romantic love but also the love between friends and family.
And about the love that is often neglected or pushed to the side: the love you have for yourself (if you want more on that then check out this post with quotes on self care).
This is 141 of the most touching, thought-provoking, helpful and…
Inspiring Quotes on Love
“Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.”
— James Baldwin
“Love yourself first and everything else falls into line. You really have to love yourself to get anything done in this world.”
— Lucille Ball
“Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human beings infinite distances continue, a wonderful living side by side can grow, if they succeed in loving the distance between them which makes it possible for each to see the other whole against the sky.”
— Rainer Maria Rilke
“The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and to let it come in.”
— Morrie Schwartz
“Love will find a way through paths where wolves fear to prey.”
— Lord Byron
“If I know what love is, it is because of you.”
— Herman Hesse
“I love you not because of who you are, but because of who I am when I am with you.”
— Roy Croft
“Love is a friendship set to music.”
— Joseph Campbell
“We are shaped and fashioned by what we love.”
— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“When we are in love we seem to ourselves quite different from what we were before.”
— Blaise Pascal
“Love in its essence is spiritual fire.”
— Seneca
“The way to love anything is to realize that it may be lost.”
— Gilbert K. Chesterton
“It takes courage to love, but pain through love is the purifying fire which those who love generously know. We all know people who are so much afraid of pain that they shut themselves up like clams in a shell and, giving out nothing, receive nothing and therefore shrink until life is a mere living death.”
— Eleanor Roosevelt
“Don’t brood. Get on with living and loving. You don’t have forever.”
— Leo Buscaglia
“Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope.”
— Maya Angelou
“There is only one happiness in this life, to love and be loved.”
— George Sand
“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”
— Rumi
“Love is of all passions the strongest, for it attacks simultaneously the head, the heart and the senses.”
— Lao Tzu
“You know it’s love when all you want is that person to be happy, even if you’re not part of their happiness.”
— Julia Roberts
“At the touch of love everyone becomes a poet.”
— Plato
“If I had a flower for every time I thought of you… I could walk through my garden forever.”
— Alfred Tennyson
“When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive – to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.”
— Marcus Aurelius
“The best and most beautiful things in this world cannot be seen or even heard, but must be felt with the heart.”
— Helen Keller
“Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead.”
— Oscar Wilde
“The only thing we never get enough of is love; and the only thing we never give enough of is love.”
— Henry Miller
“Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down.”
— Oprah Winfrey
“You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.”
– Buddha
“You know you’re in love when you don’t want to fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.”
— Dr. Seuss
“Life without love is like a tree without blossoms or fruit.”
— Khalil Gibran
“’Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”
— Alfred Lord Tennyson
“Love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is done well.”
— Vincent Van Gogh
“The art of love is largely the art of persistence.”
— Albert Ellis
“If you would be loved, love, and be loveable.”
— Benjamin Franklin
“When you adopt the viewpoint that there is nothing that exists that is not part of you, that there is no one who exists who is not part of you, that any judgment you make is self-judgment, that any criticism you level is self-criticism, you will wisely extend to yourself an unconditional love that will be the light of the world.”
– Harry Palmer
RELATED: 101 Monday Motivation Quotes
“Friends show their love in times of trouble, not in happiness.”
— Euripides
“Love does not dominate; it cultivates.”
— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“Love is an untamed force. When we try to control it, it destroys us. When we try to imprison it, it enslaves us. When we try to understand it, it leaves us feeling lost and confused.”
— Paulo Coelho
“I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.”
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
“A healthy self-love means we have no compulsion to justify to ourselves or others why we take vacations, why we sleep late, why we buy new shoes, why we spoil ourselves from time to time. We feel comfortable doing things which add quality and beauty to life.”
– Andrew Matthews
“We are most alive when we’re in love.”
— John Updike
“The love we give away is the only love we keep.”
— Elbert Hubbard
“The giving of love is an education in itself.”
— Eleanor Roosevelt
“The more one judges, the less one loves.”
— Honore de Balzac
“Love is so short, forgetting is so long.”
— Pablo Neruda
“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity and an understanding of life that fills them with compassions, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.”
– Elizabeth Kubler-Ross
“A kiss is a lovely trick designed by nature to stop speech when words become superfluous.”
— Ingrid Bergman
“You’re always with yourself, so you might as well enjoy the company.”
— Diane Von Furstenberg
“Immature love says: ‘I love you because I need you.’ Mature love says ‘I need you because I love you.’”
— Erich Fromm
“Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.”
— Lao Tzu
“One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life: That word is love.”
— Sophocles
“The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain. Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven? And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives? When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy. When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see in truth that you are weeping for that which has been your delight.”
— Kahlil Gibran
“Love is when you meet someone who tells you something new about yourself.”
— Andre Breton
“Better to have lost and loved than never to have loved at all.”
— Ernest Hemingway
“A friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you.”
— Elbert Hubbard
“I found in my research that the biggest reason people aren’t more self-compassionate is that they are afraid they’ll become self-indulgent. They believe self-criticism is what keeps them in line. Most people have gotten it wrong because our culture says being hard on yourself is the way to be.”
— Kristen Neff
“Love is a better teacher than duty.”
— Albert Einstein
“True love comes quietly, without banners or flashing lights. If you hear bells, get your ears checked.”
— Erich Segal
“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
“The greatest healing therapy is friendship and love.”
— Hubert H. Humphrey
“Every person has to love at least one bad partner in their lives to be truly thankful for the right one.”
— Unknown
“There came a time when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”
– Anaïs Nin
“Love is what you’ve been through with somebody.”
— James Thurber
“The best proof of love is trust.”
— Joyce Brothers
“A woman knows the face of the man she loves as a sailor knows the open sea.”
— Honore de Balzac
“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
“A dog is the only thing on earth that loves you more than you love yourself.”
— Josh Billings
“Fortune and love favor the brave.”
— Ovid
“For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love.”
— Carl Sagan
“To love is nothing. To be loved is something. But to love and be loved, that’s everything.”
— T. Tolis
“Love is not only something you feel, it is something you do.”
— David Wilkerson
“Loving people live in a loving world. Hostile people live in a hostile world. Same world.”
— Wayne Dyer
“Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don’t know how to replenish its source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of witherings, of tarnishings.”
— Anaïs Nin
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”
— Martin Luther King Jr.
“Where there is love there is life.”
— Mahatma Gandhi
“Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.”
— Robert A. Heinlein
“And in the end, the love you take, is equal to the love you make.”
— Paul McCartney
“If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day so I never have to live without you.”
— A. A. Milne
“There is no charm equal to tenderness of heart.”
— Jane Austen
“It’s easy to fall in love. The hard part is finding someone to catch you.”
— Bertrand Russell
“You’ve gotta dance like there’s nobody watching,
Love like you’ll never be hurt,
Sing like there’s nobody listening,
And live like it’s heaven on earth.”
— William W. Purkey
“Nobody has ever measured, not even poets, how much the heart can hold.”
— Zelda Fitzgerald
“When you love someone, you love the person as they are, and not as you’d like them to be.”
— Leo Tolstoy
“In all the world, there is no love for you like mine.”
— Maya Angelou
“We accept the love we think we deserve.”
— Stephen Chbosky
“To the world, you may be one person, but to one person you are the world.”
— Dr. Seuss
“To be brave is to love someone unconditionally, without expecting anything in return.”
— Madonna
“The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing.”
— Blaise Pascal
“A lady’s imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony in a moment.”
— Jane Austen
“Patience is the mark of true love. If you truly love someone, you will be more patient with that person.”
— Thich Nhat Hanh
“It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.”
— Andre Gide
“The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves.”
— Victor Hugo
“Above all, don’t lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love.”
— Fyodor Dostoevsky
“Love is an endless act of forgiveness.”
— Beyoncé
“They say a person needs just three things to be truly happy in this world: someone to love, something to do, and something to hope for.”
— Tom Bodett
“You always gain by giving love.”
— Reese Witherspoon
“He’s not perfect. You aren’t either, and the two of you will never be perfect. But if he can make you laugh at least once, causes you to think twice, and if he admits to being human and making mistakes, hold onto him and give him the most you can. He isn’t going to quote poetry, he’s not thinking about you every moment, but he will give you a part of him that he knows you could break. Don’t hurt him, don’t change him, and don’t expect for more than he can give. Don’t analyze. Smile when he makes you happy, yell when he makes you mad, and miss him when he’s not there. Love hard when there is love to be had. Because perfect guys don’t exist, but there’s always one guy that is perfect for you.”
— Bob Marley
“Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.”
— William Shakespeare
“The best thing to hold onto in life is each other.”
— Audrey Hepburn
“The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is to love and be loved in return.”
— Nat King Cole
“There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love.”
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
“First and foremost, self-love, and then give love away.”
— Katy Perry
“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
“Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn’t it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up.”
— Neil Gaiman
“A simple “I love you” means more than money.”
— Frank Sinatra
“Love is the flower; you’ve got to let it grow.”
— John Lennon
“The real lover is the man who can thrill you by kissing your forehead or smiling into your eyes or just staring into space.”
— Marilyn Monroe
“I love her, and that’s the beginning and end of everything.”
— F. Scott Fitzgerald
“Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind,
And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.”
— William Shakespeare
“There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends. I have no notion of loving people by halves, it is not my nature.”
— Jane Austen
“We love the things we love for what they are.”
— Robert Frost
“Never love anyone who treats you like you’re ordinary.”
— Oscar Wilde
“Love and kindness are never wasted. They always make a difference. They bless the one who receives them, and they bless you, the giver.”
— Barbara De Angelis
“Love is something sent from heaven to worry the hell out of you.”
— Dolly Parton
“You must love in such a way that the person you love feels free.”
— Thich Nhat Hanh
“All you need is love.”
— The Beatles
“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
“Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.”
— Rainer Maria Rilke
“Sometimes it’s a form of love just to talk to somebody that you have nothing in common with and still be fascinated by their presence.”
— David Byrne
“To feel the love of people whom we love is a fire that feeds our life.”
— Pablo Neruda
“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
“You don’t love someone for their looks, or their clothes, or for their fancy car, but because they sing a song only you can hear.”
— Oscar Wilde
“If you love them in the morning with their eyes full of crust; if you love them at night with their hair full of rollers, chances are, you’re in love.”
— Miles Davis
“I love being married. It’s so great to find one special person you want to annoy for the rest of your life.”
— Rita Rudner
“Before you marry a person, you should first make them use a computer with slow Internet service to see who they really are.”
— Will Ferrell
“Love can change a person the way a parent can change a baby—awkwardly, and often with a great deal of mess.”
— Lemony Snicket
“I love you like a fat kid loves cake.”
— Scott Adams
“I haven’t spoken to my wife in years. I didn’t want to interrupt her.”
— Rodney Dangerfield
“Love is telling someone their hair extensions are showing.”
— Natasha Leggero
“I love you no matter what you do, but do you have to do so much of it?”
— Jean Illsley Clarke
“Whatever you may look like, marry a man your own age – as your beauty fades, so will his eyesight.”
— Phyllis Diller
“Love is an exploding cigar we willingly smoke.”
— Lynda Barry
“A guy knows he’s in love when he loses interest in his car for a couple of days.”
— Tim Allen
“Love is a fire. But whether it is going to warm your heart or burn down your house, you can never tell.”
— Joan Crawford
“My friends tell me I have an intimacy problem. But they don’t really know me.”
— Garry Shandling
“As a man in a relationship, you have a choice: You can be right or you can be happy.”
— Ralphie May
“Spend a few minutes a day really listening to your spouse. No matter how stupid his problems sound to you.”
— Megan Mullally
“A youth with his first cigar makes himself sick. A youth with his first girl makes everybody sick.”
— Mary Wilson
“Marriage is not just spiritual communion and passionate embraces; marriage is also three-meals-a-day and remembering to carry out the trash.”
— Joyce Brothers
“Love thy neighbor — and if he happens to be tall, debonair and devastating, it will be that much easier.”
— Mae West
“Men want the same thing from their underwear that they want from women; a little bit of support and a little bit of freedom.”
— Jerry Seinfeld
“All you need is love. But a little chocolate now and then doesn’t hurt.”
— Charles Schulz
What is your favorite quote on love? Feel free to share the best one(s) you have found in this article or in your own life in the comments section below.
[Note: the original version of this post contained 78 love quotes but it has now been updated with 63 additional quotes on love.]
Comments on this entry are closed.
Number 15 is my favourite. I’ve loved someone so much and when I realized they didn’t love me, though it hurt I let them go. Within weeks he was with someone he actually wanted to be with.
U r d man.tnx 4 every tin.i love you
All of these quotes are amazing and they’re all by amazing people.
My favorites are:
“You know it’s love when all you want is that person to be happy, even if you’re not part of their happiness.”
— Julia Roberts
“Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down.”
— Oprah Winfrey
I like the first quote because it’s a realization that when you’re no longer the one making the other person happy, it’s best to let go so they can be happy. True love is wanting happiness for the person you love, whether it’s you making that person happy or someone else.
The second quote i really like because it is a quote that could be applied to many different situations. You want someone that is there through the good and the bad, not just when times are good.
This is a great post Henrik! Every single quote is helpful and inspiring.
Thanks for filling my heart with love and every positive emotion. The big romantic in me is very grateful! I mirror love back to you and all who read your smile-maker quotes! “Love in your heart wasn’t put here to stay. Love isn’t love till you give it away.”
Thank you Henrik.
I read your encouraging words of love.life.being positive.
These last 4 years have been very tough.
Thanks to your emails,I will keep staying positive.
Best regards
Peter
Number 6 is my favorate. Thanks for sharing
Hello Henrik
Thank you very much for taking the time
to compile this list of so many wonderful Quotes!
My Husband just got out of Angioplasty Surgery
Yesterday, so this helps so much.
This is my favorite
No 13
“It takes courage to love, but pain through love is the purifying fire which those who love generously know. We all know people who are so much afraid of pain that they shut themselves up like clams in a shell and, giving out nothing, receive nothing and therefore shrink until life is a mere living death.”
— Eleanor Roosevelt
Of course I found many others
that will give me guidance on how to
live better, by helping others.
God Bless You and Happy Valentines Day
to You and Yours.
Monika
What a lovely post! Thank you so much!
All the quotes are amazing. Thanks for sharing I love all of them from amazing people but I want only to add and quote in the Bible in 1 John 4:16 l
AND WE KNOW AND BELIEVED THE LOVE THAT GOD HATH TO US. GOD IS LOVE; AND HE THAT DWELLETH IN LOVE DWELLETH IN GOD, AND GOD IN HIM.
Thank you for taking the time and effort ( an act of Love itself) to bring us these encouraging, affirmative quotes regarding that which ( whether we know it or not) we are all seeking in our own inimitable ways—However, I was wondering why there weren’t any biblical quotes regarding Love, which is referenced so often in poetry and prose— The Song of Solomon is one big love letter to an adored special someone . ” Perfect Love casts out fear ” is a great example. If I’m not not mistaken, 1 Corinthians: 13 is one big list of what True Love is or isn’t. It’s been read at many weddings of all denominations.
I’m not talking about evangelizing , proselytizing or ” religious ” propaganda —I’m talking about biblical references about unconditional Love that could cross over and touch the hearts and minds of anyone of any religious or non-religious persuasion—Just a thought—-Thanks for kind attention and consideration,
1 Corinthians 13:4-7 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Thank you for these beautiful words of wisdom, hope and love
Thank you. This site has helped me personally, and helped me help others. I am so glad you decided that you need to pass it on, because we all need it passed on.