A times, we struggle to find the words to truly express how we feel, or to give us the courage and inspiration to achieve an important goal. And when it comes to love in particular, words often desert us.
That’s why we’ve put together this selection of famous quotations on love. Read them, frame them or dedicate them to the person you love.
Famous quotes on the meaning of love
What is love? Philosophers, scientists, psychologists, writers and poets have all asked the same question. And the answers they have found are poetic and profound. We’ve chosen an assortment worth hanging on your wall.
Love is like the wind; you can’t see it but you can feel it.
Nicholas Sparks, writer.
Love gives naught but itself
And takes naught but from itself.
Love possesses not
Nor would it be possessed;
For love is sufficient unto love.
Khalil Gibran, poet.
Love is the wisdom of the fool and the folly of the wise.
Samuel Johnson, poet and essayist.
Love is invisible, and comes in and goes out as he likes, without anyone calling him to account for what he does.
Miguel de Cervantes, writer.
To love is not to look at one another: it is to look, together, in the same direction.
Antoine de Saint-Exupery, writer.
We are never so defenceless against suffering as when we love.
Sigmund Freud, psychoanalyst.
Love is the creator of all things.
Plato, philosopher.
Since love grows within you, so beauty grows. For love is the beauty of the soul.
Saint Augustine of Hippo, philosopher.
You know you’re in love when you can’t fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.
Dr. Seuss, writer.
L’amore è sapere tutto su qualcuno, e avere la voglia di essere ancora con lui più che con ogni altra persona.
Albert Einstein, fisico.
Those who have never loved bear a scar.
Alfred De Musset, poet.
Love does not want to possess; he just wants to love.
Herman Hesse, writer.
I could also say that love is like alcohol. You try it once, it makes your head spin, you want more and more. It makes you feel bad, so bad that you will say you never want to try again. But then, in the next glass you will fall back. And you won’t say no.
Charles Bukowski, writer.
One of the best things about love is recognising the sound of a man’s footsteps on the stairs.
Colette, writer.
Love is free, it is never subject to fate.
Guillaume Apollinaire, writer.
Immature love says: ‘I love you because I need you.’Mature love says: ‘I need you because I love you.’
Erich Fromm, psychologist.
That Love is all there is,
Is all we know of Love;
It is enough, the freight should be
Proportioned to the groove.
Emily Dickinson, poet.
Love, love madly, love more than you can and if they say that it’s sin, love your sin and you’ll be innocent.
William Shakespeare, playwright and poet
Se non senti parlare il tuo cuore ascolta il suo silenzio, a volte il vero amore arriva sottovoce.
Nicholas Sparks, writer.
Two hearts in love need no words.
Marceline Desbordes-Valmore, writer.
“Love is an elastic concept that stretches from heaven to hell and combines in itself good and evil, high and low.
Carl Gustav Jung, psychiatrist and philosopher
Quotes to dedicate to the person you love.
Sometimes our own words seem inadequate. That’s why, when talking about love, it can be better to borrow the words of others. Below, we’ve picked out some of our favourite quotes dedicated to lovers.
Being with you and not being with you is the only way I have to measure time.
Jorge Luis Borges, writer and philosopher.
With thee conversing I forget all time;
All seasons, and their change, all please alike
John Milton, writer and philosopher
I know no other reason for loving you than loving you.
Fernando Pessoa, poet.
Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.
Emily Brontë, writer.
I love you terribly. If a flower blossomed every time I thought of you, every desert would be full of them.
Khalil Gibran, poet.
I love you for all that you are, all that you have been, all that you’re yet to be.
Ernest Hemingway, writer.
Wherever you are is my home—my only home.
Charlotte Brontë, writer.
I love her, and that’s the beginning and end of everything.
Francis Scott Fitzgerald, writer.
Let thy love in kisses rain
On my lips and eyelids pale.
Percy Bysshe Shelley, poet.
I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where, I love you directly without problems or pride: I love you like this because I don’t know any other way to love.
Pablo Neruda, poet.
When I saw you I fell in love. And you smiled because you knew.
Arrigo Boito, librettist and composer.
You gaze at the stars, my Star; would that I were Heaven, that I might look at you with many eyes.
Plato, philosopher.
Sappi che sceglierei te. Sceglierei te mille volte. Che fosse per me, sarei già lì ad abbracciarti per tutta la notte. O tutta la vita.
Charles Bukowski, writer.
It was thy kiss, Love, that made me immortal.
Margaret Fuller, writer.
I love you not for who you are, but who I am when I’m by your side.
Gabriel García Márquez, writer.
You are at once both the quiet and the confusion of my heart.
Franz Kafka, writer.
I am with you in every damn moment that wants to divide us and cannot.
Alda Merini, poet.
No one will ever understand how much love it took just to look into your eyes.
Erri De Luca, writer.
I’d like to give you everything you never had, but not even then would you know how beautiful is to love you.
Frida Kahlo, painter.
Hopefully, you found the words you were looking for. If you did, we’re here to help you print them and put them in your home, or the home of the person you love.