Quotes and Sayings About Love

It's difficult to sum up what love is. Is it that feeling you get when you finally come face-to-face with that special someone? Is it appreciating the essential goodness of another human being? Is it instant? Does it develop over time? Do we have a choice in who we fall in love with?

No-one really knows for sure - it's different for everyone, but the following quotations do a good job, I think,, of explaining the basics of what it means to love someone.

Some of them are romantic, some are funny, some are sad, and some even make good greetings card messages. I hope you enjoy them.

There are a whole lot of ways to say "I love you," as illustrated by the following quotations.

"Immature love says: 'I love you because I need you.' Mature love says: 'I need you because I love you.'" - Erich Fromm

"I've fallen in love many times... Always with you." - Unknown

"I love you, and because I love you, I would sooner have you hate me for telling you the truth than adore me for telling you lies." - Pietro Aretino

"Some people never say the words 'I love you.' It's not their style to be so bold. Some people never say those words: 'I love you,' but, like a child, they're longing to be told." - Paul Simon

"I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride; so I love you because I know no other way." - Pablo Neruda

"Multiply it by infinity, take it to the depths of forever and you'll still only have a glimpse of how much I love you." - Unknown

"My wife heard me say 'I love you' a thousand times, but she never once heard me say 'sorry'." - Bruce Willis

"I love you more than any word can say... I love you more than every action I take... I'll be right here loving you 'til the end." - Unknown

"I love you not only for what you are, but for what I am when I am with you." - Elizabeth Barrett Browning

"For you see, each day I love you more; Today more than yesterday and less than tomorrow." - Rosemonde Gerard

"I love you when you bow in your mosque, kneel in your temple, pray in your church. For you and I are sons of one religion, and it is the spirit." - Khalil Gibran

"Even though we're far apart, I love you dearly with all my heart." - Unknown

People often use humour when speaking about love if they are unsure of how else to put their feelings into words. Comedians also use their relationship experiences as fodder for their jokes.

"An archeologist is the best husband any woman can have; the older she gets, the more interested he is in her." - Agatha Christie

"I recently read that love is entirely a matter of chemistry. That must be why my wife treats me like toxic waste." -David Bissonette

"Do you know what it means to come home at night to a woman who'll give you a little love, a little affection, a little tenderness? It means you're in the wrong house, that's what it means." - George Burns

"Love, I find, is like singing. Everybody can do enough to satisfy themselves, though it may not impress the neighbours as being very much." - Zora Neale Hurston

"The people people have for friends; Your common sense appall; But the people people marry; Are the queerest folk of all." - Charlotte Perkins Gilman

"My wife and I have sex almost every day of the week. Yes. Almost Monday, almost Tuesday, almost Wednesday." - Milton Berle

"Love at first sight is possible, but it pays to take a second look." - Unknown

"By the time you swear you're his; shivering and sighing; and he vows his passion is infinite - undying; Lady, make note of this - one of you is lying." - Dorothy Parker

"Infatuation is when you think he's as sexy as Robert Redford, as smart as Henry Kissinger, as noble as Ralph Nader, as funny as Woody Allen, and as athletic as Jimmy Conners. Love is when you realise that he's as sexy as Woody Allen, as smart as Jimmy Conners, as funny as Ralph Nader, as athletic as Henry Kissinger, and nothing like Robert Redford - but you'll take him anyway." - Judith Viorst

"It does not matter what you do in the bedroom as long as you do not do it in the street and frighten the horses." - Patrick Campbell

"When a relationship goes flat, so does a couple of sets of car tyers." - Unknown

"A cat does not want the whole world to love her - only those she has chosen to love." - Helen Thomson

"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

The following quotes are from both men and women, but all speak of men and their dealings with love.

"I am in love - and, my God, it is the greatest thing that can happen to a man. I tell you, find a woman you can fall in love with. Do it. Let yourself fall in love. If you have not done so already, you are wasting your life." - D. H. Lawrence

"A man's second childhood begins when a woman gets a hold of him." - James M. Barrie

"The most unsatisfactory men are those who pride themselves on their virility and regard sex as if it were some form of athletics at which you can win cups. It is a woman's spirit and mood a man has to stimulate in order to make sex interesting. The real lover is the man who can thrill you just by touching your head or by smiling into your eyes or just by staring into space." - Marilyn Monroe

"Man was made at the end of a week's work, when God was tired." - Mark Twain

"A woman has to love a bad man once or twice in her life, to be thankful for a good one." - Marjorie Kinnan Rowling

"I date this girl for two years and then the nagging starts: 'I wanna know your name.'" - Mike Binder

"Sexiness wears thin after a while and beauty fades, but to be married to a man who makes you laugh every day, ah, now that's a real treat." - Joanne Woodward

"When a man of forty falls in love with a woman of twenty, it isn't her youth he is seeking but his own." - Lenore Coffee

"No man flatters the woman he truly loves." - Tuckerman

"He who tries to forget a woman, never loved her." - Unknown

"A happy man marries the girl he loves; A happier man loves the girl he marries." - Unknown

"An old man who marries a young wife grows younger - but she grows older." - Folk Saying

Women seem to think they know more about love than men do. I don't know if this is true, but the following quotes are all either from women giving their views on the subject, or men speaking about love and ladies.

"There is simply no dignified way for a woman to live alone. Oh, she can get along financially perhaps (though not nearly as well as a man), but emotionally she is never left in peace. Her friends, her family, her fellow workers never let her forget that her husbandlessness, her childlessness - her selfishness in short - is a reproach to the American way of life." - Erica Mann Jong

"In revenge and love woman is more barbaric than man is." - Friedrich Nietzsche

"Let men tremble to win the heart of a woman, unless they win along with it the utmost passion of her heart." - Nathaniel Hawthorn

"What women want: to be loved, to be listened to, to be desired, to be respected, to be needed, to be trusted, and sometimes, just to be held. What men want: Tickets for the world series." - Dave Barry

"When women love us, they forgive us everything, even our crimes; When they do not love us, they give us credit for nothing, not even our virtues." - Honor de Balzac

"People are always asking couples whose marriage has endured at least a quarter of a century for their secret for success. Actually, it is no secret at all. I am a forgiving woman. Long ago, I forgave my husband for not being Paul Newman." - Erma Louise Bo beck

"It is the plain women who know about love; The beautiful women are too busy being fascinating." - Katharine Hepburn

"Sure, God created men before women, but then again you always make a rough draft before creating the final masterpiece." - Unknown

"We have dreamt of every woman there is, and dreamt too of the miracle that would bring us the pleasure of being a woman, for women have all the qualities - courage, passion, the capacity to love, cunning - whereas all our imagination can do is naively pile up the illusion of courage." - Jean Baudrillard

"When you're in love you never really know whether your relation comes from the qualities of the one you love, or if it attributes them to her; whether the light which surrounds her like a halo comes from you, from her, or from the meeting of your sparks." - Natalie Clifford Barney

"The great question which has never been answered, and which I have not yet been able to answer, despite my thirty years of research into the feminine soul, is "What does a woman want?" - Sigmund Freud

"Women still remember the last kiss after men have forgotten the last." - Remy De Gourmont

Loyalty is the cornerstone of any strong relationship - we stand by our loved ones when they are in trouble, we care for them when they are ill, we trust them with anything, and we always forgive them when they've wronged us. It's no surprise that many prominent figures discuss loyalty at length, and some of their quotations can be seen below:

Loyalty is still the same, whether it win or lose the game: True as a dial to the sun, although it be not shined upon. - Samuel Butler

Confidentiality is a virtue of the loyal, as loyalty is the virtue of faithfulness. - Edwin Louis Cole

Most important in a friendship? Tolerance and loyalty. - J.K. Rowling

I've seen people who don't treat their animals well and yet their animals are still just as loving to them even though they're not treated that well. It's very hard to find that kind of loyalty and love and affection in human beings. - Dick Van Patten

Loyalty means nothing unless it has at its heart the absolute principle of self-sacrifice. - woodrow T. Wilson

When put to the test, an ounce of loyalty is worth a pound of cleverness. - Elbert Hubbard

Lack of loyalty is one of the major causes of failure in every walk of life. - Napoleon Hill

Unless you can find loyalty, you cannot find unity and peace in your active living. - Josiah Royce

For above all things Love means sweetness, and truth, and measure; yea, loyalty to the loved one and to your word. And because of this I dare not meddle with so high a matter. - Marie de France

Loyalty is something you give regardless of what you get back, and in giving loyalty, you're getting more loyalty, and out of loyalty flow other great qualities. - Charles "Tremendous" Jones

And I'm afraid, in this day and age, trust, which I count so, you know, I love loyalty. I love trust. - Elton John

In thy face I see the map of honor, truth, and loyalty. - William Shakespeare

Love can mean many different things, and there are numerous types of loving relationships. The following quotes do not focus on the adoration shared between girlfriends and boyfriends, or husbands and wives, but that special kind between good friends:

"What is uttered from the heart alone, will win the hearts of others to your own." - Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

"To be your friend was all I ever wanted: To be your lover was all I ever dreamed." - Valarie Lombardo

"Who ceases to be a friend never was one." - Greek Proverb

"The language of friendship is not words but meanings." - Henry David Thoreau

"Friendship... It is not something you learn in school. But if you haven't learned the meaning of friendship, you really haven't learned anything." - Muhammad Ali

"'Stay' is a charming word in a friend's vocabulary." - Louisa May Alcott

"Friendship is precious, not only in the shade, but in the sunshine of life; and thanks to a benevolent arrangement of things, the greater part of life is sunshine." - Thomas Jefferson

"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

"Promise me you'll always remember: you're braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think." - Christopher Robin (to Pooh)

"Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art. It has no survival value, rather it is one of those things that gives value to survival." - C.S. Lewis

"I have friends in overalls whose friendship I would not swap for the favour of the kings of the world." - Thomas A. Edison

"A single rose can be my garden... A single friend, my world." - Leo Buscaglia

Is there anything cuter than two people in love? The following adorable quotations are particularly suitable for use in cards given to a loved one on St. Valentine's Day, on their birthday, etc.

"Love is the best medicine, and there is more than enough to go around once you open your heart." - Julie Marie

"You know you are in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams." - Dr. Seuss

"Don't say you love me unless you mean it, because I might do something crazy like believe it." - Unknown

"If I had a flower for every time I thought of you, I could walk in my garden forever." - Alfred Lord Tennyson

"If a hug represented how much I loved you, I would hold you in my arms forever." - Mandy Hampton

"Some say that true love is a mirage; Seek it anyway, for all else is surely desert." - Robert Brault

"Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own." - Robert Heinlein

"Love doesn't make the world go round. Love is what makes the ride worthwhile." - Franklin Jones

"Love is a fabric which never fades, no matter how many times it is washed in the waters of adversity and grief." - Unknown

"Love is like an hourglass, with the heart filling up as the brain empties." - Jules Renard

"A bell is no bell 'til you ring it; A song is no song 'til you sing it; And love in your heart, wasn't put there to stay. Love isn't love, 'til you give it away." - Oscar Hammerstein

"We waste time looking for the perfect lover, instead of creating the perfect love." - Tom Robbins

"Paradise is always where love dwells." - Jean Paul Richter

"Love makes the wildest spirit tame, and the tamest spirit wild." - Alexis Delp