love quotes from influential philosophers, authors and people
"Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings you together, but do so with all your heart."
15
"One looks back with appreciation to the brilliant teachers, but with gratitude to those who touched our human feelings. The curriculum is so much necessary raw material, but warmth is the vital element for the growing plant and for the soul of the child."
52
"The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the objects it loves."
54
"Where love rules, there is no will to power; and where power predominates, there love is lacking. The one is the shadow of the other."
69
"Compassion is the basis of morality."
74
"To enjoy - to love a thing for its own sake and for no other reason."
111
"The love of anything is the fruit of our knowledge of it, and grows as our knowledge deepens."
112
"For in truth great love is born of great knowledge of the thing loved."
118
"The happiest people in the world ask, 'What if I could find some way to get paid for doing what I love?'"
121
"You must understand the following: In order to master a field, you must love the subject and feel a profound connection to it. Your interest must transcend the field itself and border on the religious."
133
"True love is born from understanding."
175
"Will power is to the mind like a strong blind man who carries on his shoulders a lame man who can see."
181
"Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of."
192
"A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life."
201
"When you turn your back on the voices of those who are in pain and who are angry, you breed hate. Love is the way out, not hate."
284
"It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages."
358
"Ultimately, it is the desire, not the desired, that we love."
360
"The demand to be loved is the greatest of all arrogant presumptions."
384
"Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies."
401
"Love is an untamed force. When we try to control it, it destroys us. When we try to imprison it, it enslaves us. When we try to understand it, it leaves us feeling lost and confused."
402
"Love is not just a feeling of happiness. Love is a willingness to sacrifice."
403
"The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves."
404
"Love is not an emotion, it is your very existence."
405
"Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love."
519
"When the best leader’s work is done the people say, ‘We did it ourselves.’"
527
"Love is a decision. Not an emotion."
530
"Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage."
550
"Wicked men obey from fear; good men, from love."
576
"To love rightly is to love what is orderly and beautiful in an educated and disciplined way."
624
"The madness of love is the greatest of heaven's blessings."
625
"There are three classes of men; lovers of wisdom, lovers of honor, and lovers of gain."
633
"Love is a canvas furnished by nature and embroidered by imagination."
689
"Without love, all worship is a burden, all dancing is a chore, all music is mere noise."
903
"Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never merely as a means to an end, but always at the same time as an end."
967
"Treat people as an end, and never as a means to an end."
986
"What wisdom can you find greater than kindness."
1003
"Why should we build our happiness on the opinons of others, when we can find it in our own hearts?"
1004
"To write a good love letter, you ought to begin without knowing what you mean to say, and to finish without knowing what you have written."
1006
"Love, known to the person by whom it is inspired, becomes more bearable."
1022
"But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads?"
1036
"Without work, all life goes rotten. But when work is soulless, life stifles and dies."
1043
"I know of only one duty, and that is to love."
1044
"In addition to my other numerous acquaintances, I have one more intimate confidant… My depression is the most faithful mistress I have known — no wonder, then, that I return the love."
1067
"Love is the expression of the one who loves, not of the one who is loved. Those who think they can love only the people they prefer do not love at all. Love discovers truths about individuals that others cannot see."
1069
"To cheat oneself out of love is the most terrible deception; it is an eternal loss for which there is no reparation, either in time or in eternity."
1075
"…There is the heat of Love, the pulsing rush of Longing, the lover’s whisper, irresistible—magic to make the sanest man go mad."
1083
"There is nothing more admirable than when two people who see eye to eye keep house as man and wife, confounding their enemies and delighting their friends."
1086
"For a friend with an understanding heart is worth no less than a brother."
1090
"The difficulty is not so great to die for a friend as to find a friend worth dying for."
1092
"Unhealthy love is based on two people trying to escape their problems through their emotions for each other—in other words, they’re using each other as an escape. Healthy love is based on two people acknowledging and addressing their own problems with each other’s support."
1158
"Love isn't something natural. Rather it requires discipline, concentration, patience, faith, and the overcoming of narcissism. It isn't a feeling, it is a practice."
1202
"When you arise in the morning, think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love.."
7
"Dreams are the guiding words of the soul. Why should I henceforth not love my dreams and not make their riddling images into objects of my daily consideration?"
57
"A man can be himself only so long as he is alone, and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom, for it is only when he is alone that he is really free."
92
"A false path in life is generally something we are attracted to for the wrong reasons- money, fame, attention, and so on. If it is attention we need, we often experience a kind of emptiness inside that we are hoping to fill with the false love of public approval."
134
"If you want to love what you do, abandon the passion mindset ('what can the world offer me?') and instead adopt the craftsman mindset ('what can I offer the world?')."
205
"A victim act is a form of passive aggression. It seeks to achieve gratification not by honest work or a contribution made out of one's experience or insight or love, but by the manipulation of others through silent (and not-so-silent) threat."
317
"What does Resistance feel like? First, unhappiness. We're bored, we're restless. We can't get no satisfaction. There's guilt but we can't put our finger on the source. We want to go back to bed; we want to get up and party. We feel unloved and unlovable. We're disgusted. We hate our lives. We hate ourselves."
319
"Surrender your self-interest. Love others as much as you love yourself. Then you can be entrusted with all things under heaven."
512
"Love truth, but pardon error."
726
"To love truth for truth's sake is the principal part of human perfection in this world, and the seed-plot of all other virtues."
948
"One unerring mark of the love of truth is not entertaining any proposition with greater assurance than the proofs it is built upon will warrant."
960
"Rules for happiness: something to do, someone to love, something to hope for."
973
"What is a poet? An unhappy man who hides deep anguish in his heart, but whose lips are so formed that when the sigh and cry pass through them, it sounds like lovely music.... And people flock around the poet and say: 'Sing again soon' - that is, 'May new sufferings torment your soul but your lips be fashioned as before, for the cry would only frighten us, but the music, that is blissful."
1068
"Any moment might be our last. Everything is more beautiful because we're doomed. You will never be lovelier than you are now. We will never be here again."
1081
"Fall in love with some activity, and do it! Nobody ever figures out what life is all about, and it doesn’t matter."
1174