No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another.
- Charles DickensLove
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.
That is why lines in this theme seem to contradict each other. One says love is blind, another that it is the only true form of sight; they are not necessarily in conflict, they are describing different things. While reading, it helps to ask which kind the author has in mind. The collection spans Shakespeare's sonnet turns and Rumi's mysticism, and only together do they amount to anything whole.
A friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you.
- Elbert HubbardThe best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched — they must be felt with the heart.
- Helen KellerOne word frees us of all the weight and pain of life: that word is love.
- SophoclesNot all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.
- Mother TeresaThere is no charm equal to tenderness of heart.
- Jane AustenLet the beauty of what you love be what you do.
- RumiLife appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs.
- Charlotte BrontëBeing deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.
- Lao TzuThe heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of.
- Blaise PascalThere is only one happiness in this life: to love and be loved.
- George SandRadiate boundless love towards the entire world.
- BuddhaHave a heart that never hardens, and a temper that never tires, and a touch that never hurts.
- Charles DickensThe best portion of a good man's life: his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and love.
- William WordsworthIn a conflict between the heart and the brain, follow your heart.
- Swami VivekanandaGoodness is the only investment that never fails.
- Henry David ThoreauLove all, trust a few, do wrong to none.
- William ShakespeareKind words do not cost much. Yet they accomplish much.
- Blaise PascalHatred does not cease by hatred, but only by love; this is the eternal rule.
- BuddhaBeauty is not in the face; beauty is a light in the heart.
- Kahlil GibranDarkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.
- Martin Luther King Jr.However rare true love may be, it is less so than true friendship.
- François de La RochefoucauldThere is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.
- Friedrich NietzscheRules for happiness: something to do, someone to love, something to hope for.
- Immanuel KantIt is not flesh and blood, but the heart which makes us fathers and sons.
- Friedrich SchillerWherever there is a human being, there is an opportunity for a kindness.
- SenecaAt the touch of love everyone becomes a poet.
- PlatoNo act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.
- AesopWhat is done in love is done well.
- Vincent van GoghWhat you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.
- ConfuciusAccept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings you together.
- Marcus AureliusWhat do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult for each other?
- George EliotIf you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself.
- Hermann HesseTo love or have loved, that is enough. Ask nothing further.
- Victor HugoIt is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.
- Antoine de Saint-ExupéryLove does not consist of gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction.
- Antoine de Saint-ExupéryKeep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead.
- Oscar Wilde