To love or have loved, that is enough. Ask nothing further.
Victor Hugo (1802–1885) was a French novelist and poet, author of Les Misérables and The Hunchback of Notre-Dame. His opposition to Napoleon III kept him in exile in the Channel Islands for nearly twenty years. He campaigned against the death penalty, and more than a million people attended his funeral in Paris.
About this theme: Love
The Greeks had several words for what we cover with one: eros for desire, philia for the affection between friends, storge for family attachment, agape for the kind that asks nothing back. Translate all of that into a single word and the distinctions vanish — yet the distinctions are what most quotes about love are actually about.
More by Victor Hugo
More on Love
- No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another.— Charles Dickens
- A friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you.— Elbert Hubbard
- The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched — they must be felt with the heart.— Helen Keller
- One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life: that word is love.— Sophocles
- Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.— Mother Teresa