I loved the once. I’ll love no more,
Thine be the grief, as is the blame,
Thou art now what thou wast before,
What reason I should be the same? Robert Aytoun, 1570-1638
O, my Luve’s like a red, red rose
That’s newly sprung in June;
O my Luve’s like the melodie
That’s sweetly play’d in tune. Robert Burns
Farewell, Love, and all thy laws forever.
Thy baited hooks shall tangle me no more. Thomas Wyatt, ‘Farewell, Love’, 1557
O love me less, or love me more
And play not with my liberty;
Either take all, or all restore,
Bind me at least, or set me free, Sidney Godolphin, 1610-43, ‘Song’
Untrue she was; yet I believed her eyes,
Instructed spies,
Till I was taught, that love was but a school
To breed a fool. Henry Wotton, Poem Written in his Youth, 1602
You were my little baby girl
And I knew all your fears
Such joy to hold you in my arms
And kiss away your tears
But now you’re gone
There’s only pain
And nothing I can do
And I don’t want to live this life
If I can’t live for you. Sid Vicious, Nancy, poem written shortly before death
Most people experience love, without noticing that there is anything remarkable about it. Boris Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago
’Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have lost at all. Samuel Butler, 1835-1902, attributions & variations
To live is like to love – all reason is against it, and all healthy instincts for it. Samuel Butler
Love was a terrible thing. You poisoned it and stabbed at it and knocked it down into the mud – well down – and it got up and staggered on, bleeding and muddy and awful. Like – like – Rasputin. Jean Rhys, Quartet
The love of liberty is the love of others; the love of power is the love of ourselves. William Hazlitt, Political Essays, 1819
We are a portion of everything we’ve ever loved. Kenneth Williams
Love’s pleasure lasts but a moment;
Love’s sorrow lasts all through life. Jean-Pierre Claris de Florian, 1755-94
I’m so in love with you ...
Purge the Soul
Make love your goal –
The power of love
A force from Above
Cleaning my Soul.
Flame on, burn desire,
Love with tongues of fire
Purge the Soul
Make love your goal … Frankie Goes to Hollywood, The Power of Love
Love, in the form in which it exists in society, is nothing but the exchange of two fantasies and the superficial contact of two bodies. Nicolas Chamfort
Now I know what Love is. Virgil, Eclogues
Love conquers all things: let us too give in to Love. ibid.
They loved each other beyond belief –
She was a strumpet, he was a thief. Heinrich Heine, 1797-1856, Neue Gedichte
Hell, madam, is to love no more. George Bernanos, 1888-1948, French novelist & essayist
Those have most power to hurt us that we love. Francis Beaumont & John Fletcher, The Maid’s Tragedy
How delicious is the winning
Of a kiss at love’s beginning,
When two mutual hearts are sighing
For the knot there’s no untying! Thomas Campbell, Freedom & Love
Love is the delusion that one woman differs from another. H L Mencken, Chrestomathy, 1949
A pair of powerful spectacles has sometimes sufficed to cure a person in love. Friedrich Nietzsche
Dilige et quod vis fac [Love and do what you will]. St Augustine of Hippo
With love for mankind and hatred of sins [Often quoted as ‘Love the sinner but hate the sin’]. St Augustine of Hippo
Experience shows us that love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking together in the same direction. Antoine de Saint-Exupery, Terre des Hommes
Love …
The cordial drop heaven in our cup has thrown
To make the nauseous draught of life to down. John Wilmot, Lord Rochester, 1647-80, A Letter from Artemisia in the Town to Chloe in the Country, 1679
It is not that I love you less
Than when before your feet I lay:
But, to prevent the sad increase
Of hopeless love, I keep away.
In vain, alas! for every thing
Which I have known belong to you,
Your form does to my fancy bring
And makes my old wounds bleed anew. Edmund Waller, The Self-Banished, 1645
When love congeals
It soon reveals
The faint aroma of performing seals,
The double crossing of a pair of heels.
I wish I were in love again! Lorenz Hart, I Wish I Were in Love Again, song 1937
It is difficult to lay aside a long-cherished love. Catullus
Be wise, be wise, and do not try
How he can court, or you be won;
For love is but discovery:
When that is made, the pleasure’s done. Thomas Southerne, Sir Anthony Love, 1690
I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea;
But we loved with a love which was more than love –
I and my Annabel Lee. Edgar Allan Poe, Annabel Lee, 1949
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride
In her sepulchre there by the sea,
In her tomb by the side of the sea. ibid.
I owe a duty, where I cannot love. Aphra Behn, The Moor’s Revenge, 1677
Love ceases to be a pleasure when it ceases to be a secret. Aphra Behn, The Lover’s Watch, 1686
Nobody dies from lack of sex; it’s lack of love we die from. Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale, 1986
Come live with me, and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove,
That valleys, groves, hills and fields,
Woods or sleepy mountain yields. Christopher Marlowe
It lies not in our power to love, or hate,
For will in us is over-ruled by fate. Christopher Marlowe, Hero and Leander, 1598
Where both deliberate, the love is slight;
Who ever loved that loved not at first sight? ibid.
Women are programmed to love completely, and men are programmed to spread it around. Beryl Bainbridge, English novelist
Love is just a system for getting someone to call you darling after sex. Julian Barnes, Talking It Over, 1991