Note not all quotations have been tagged, so Search may find additional quotes on this topic.
Love is but one thing with the gentle heart, As in the saying of the sage we find; Thus one from other cannot be apart, More than the reason from the reasoning mind.
[Amore e ’l cor gentil sono una cosa, Si come il saggio in suo dittare pone, E cosi esser I’un sanza altro osa Com’alma razional sanza ragione.]
Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) Italian poet La Vita Nuova [Vita Nova; New Life], ch. 20, Sonnet 8, ll. 1-4 (c. 1294, pub. 1576) [tr. Norton (1867)]
(Source)
The wise man referenced is the poet Guido Guinizzelli (or Guinicelli).
Love and the gentle heart are but one thing, As says the wise man in his apothegm; And one can by itself no more exist Than reason can without the reasoning soul.
[tr. Lyell (1845)]
Love and the gentle heart are one same thing, Even as the wise man in his ditty saith: Each, of itself, would be such life in death
As rational soul bereft of reasoning.
[tr. Rossetti (c. 1847; 1899 ed.)]
They are the same, Love and the gentle heart! So runs the saw, which from the sage I stole; Nor can they more abide, from each apart, Than reason parted from the reasoning soul.
[tr. Martin (1862)]
Love and the noble heart are but one thing, Even as the wise man tells us in his rhyme, The one without the other venturing As well as reason from a reasoning mind.
[tr. Reynolds (1969)]
Love and the gracious heart are but one thing,
As Guinizelli tells us in his rhyme;
As much can one without the other be
As without reason can the reasoning mind.
[tr. Musa (1971)]
Love and the gracious heart are a single thing, as Guinizelli tells us in his poem: one can no more be without the other than can the reasoning mind without its reason.
[tr. Hollander (1997), sec. 3]
Love and the gentle heart are one thing,
as the wise man puts it in his verse,
and each without the other would be dust,
as a rational soul would be without its reason.
[tr. Kline (2002)]
Love and the noble heart are one and the same thing, as the sage states in his poem, and one of them dares as little to exist without the other as does the rational soul without reasoning.
[tr. Appelbaum (2006)]
Love and the open heart are always one, the sage has written; neither love nor heart can be until the other is begun, as thought confirms a thinking counterpart.
[tr. Frisardi (2012), ch. 11]
Man has always dreamed of power. But damn it, man has always dreamed of love, too, and of the rights of his fellow man. The only power worthy of man is the power of all mankind struggling together toward a goal of unobtainable perfection.
Anthony Boucher (1911-1968) American author, critic, and editor [pseud. of William White; also H. H. Holmes and Herman W. Mudgett]
“The Barrier,” Astounding Science-Fiction, Vol. 30, No. 1 (1942-09)
(Source)
Whatever good that Nature can reveal
is hers — she’s beauty’s touchstone on review.
[Ella è quanto de ben pò far natura;
per essemplo di lei bieltà si prova.]
Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) Italian poet La Vita Nuova [Vita Nova; New Life], ch. 19, Canzone 1 (c. 1294, pub. 1576) [tr. Frisardi (2012), ch. 10]
(Source)
Love waxing lyrical about the beauty of Dante's beloved Beatrice.
ALCESTE: The more one loves, the more one should object
To every blemish, every least defect.
Were I this lady, I would soon get rid
Of lovers who approved of all I did,
And by their slack indulgence and applause
Endorsed my follies and excused my flaws.
[Plus on aime quelqu’un, moins il faut qu’on le flatte ;
À ne rien pardonner le pur amour éclate ;
Et je bannirais, moi, tous ces lâches amants
Que je verrais soumis à tous mes sentiments,
Et dont, à tous propos, les molles complaisances
Donneraient de l’encens à mes extravagances.]
Molière (1622-1673) French playwright, actor [stage name for Jean-Baptiste Poquelin] Le Misanthrope, Act 2, sc. 5 (1666) [tr. Wilbur (1954)]
(Source)
The more we love any one, the less we ought to flatter her. True love shows itself in overlooking nothing; and, were I a lady, I would banish all those mean-spirited lovers who submit to all my sentiments, and whose mild complacencies every moment offer up incense to my vagaries.
[tr. Van Laun (1878)]
The more we love any one, the less it behoves us to flatter them; true love shows itself by pardoning nothing, and for my part I would banish all those mean-spirited lovers whom I found submissive to all my opinions, and whose soft complaisance offered incense to all my extravagant ideas.
[tr. Mathew (1890), 2.6]
The more we love our friends, the less we flatter them; it is by excusing nothing that pure love shows itself. For my part, I would banish those unworthy lovers who slavishly submit to all my sentiments, and by their weak compliance swing incense to my follies.
[tr. Wormeley (1894)]
The more we love, the less ought we to flatter. True love shows itself in not pardoning anything; and, for my part, I would banish every one of those mean-spirited lovers who submit to all my views, whose tame compliance on every occasion burns incense to my vagaries.
[tr. Waller (1903), 2.4]
The more we love, the less we ought to flatter;
True love is proven by condoning nothing;
For my part, I would banish those base lovers
I found agreeing with my own opinions,
And pandering with weak obsequiousness
To my vagaries upon all occasions.
[tr. Page (1913)]
The more you love, the less you ought to flatter;
And true love is incapable of pardon.
If I were she, I'd banish all admirers
Submissive to my slightest sentiment,
Fawning upon me with their cheap applause
For even my most extreme extravagances.
[tr. Bishop (1957)]
Loving and flattering are worlds apart;
The least forgiving is the truest heart;
And I would send those soft suitors away,
Seeing they dote on everything I say,
And that their praise, complaisant to excess,
Encourages me in my foolishness.
[tr. Frame (1967), 2.4]
The moment I saw her I say in all truth that the vital spirit, which dwells in the inmost depths of the heart, began to tremble so violently that I felt the vibration alarmingly in all my pulses, even the weakest of them. As it trembled, it uttered these words: Ecce deus fortior me, qui veniens dominabitur mihi [Behold a god more powerful than I who comes to rule over me].
[In quello punto dico veracemente che lo spirito de la vita, lo quale dimora ne la secretissima camera de lo cuore, cominciò a tremare sì fortemente, che apparia ne li menimi polsi orribilmente; e tremando disse queste parole: «Ecce deus fortior me, qui veniens dominabitur michi»]
Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) Italian poet La Vita Nuova [Vita Nova; New Life], ch. 2 (c. 1294, pub. 1576) [tr. Reynolds (1969)]
(Source)
On first seeing his beloved Beatrice (when both were nine years old). Other body parts that react are his senses, particularly his sight, which will now know "bliss"; and his stomach, which fears it will always be knotted and suffering from indigestion.
At that moment, I say most truly that the spirit of life, which hath its dwelling in the secretest chamber of the heart, began to tremble so violently that the least pulses of my body shook therewith; and in trembling it said these words: Ecce deus fortior me, qui veniens dominabitur mihi [Here is a deity stronger than I; who, coming, shall rule over me].
[tr. Rossetti (c. 1847; 1899 ed.), ch. 1]
At that moment (I speak it in all truth) the spirit of life, which abides in the most secret chamber of the heart, began to trumble with a violence that showed horribly in the minutest pulsations of my fram, and tremulously it spoke these words: -- "Ecce deus fortior me, qui veniens dominabitur mihi! Behold a god stronger than I, who cometh to triumph over me!"
[tr. Martin (1862), ch. 1]
At that instant, I say truly that the spirit of life, which dwells in the most secret chamber of the heart, began to tremble with such violence that it appeared fearfully in the least pulses, and, trembling, said these words: Ecce deus fortior me, qui veniens dominabitur mihi [Behold a god stronger than I, who coming shall rule over me].
[tr. Norton (1867), ch. 2]
At that moment, I say truly that the vital spirit, the one that dwells in the most secret chamber of the heart, began to tremble so violently that even the least pulses of my body were strangely affected; and trembling, it spoke these words: “Here is a god stronger than I, who shall come to rule over me.”
[tr. Musa (1971), ch. 2]
At that very moment, and I speak the truth, the vital spirit, the one that dwells in the most secret chamber of the heart, began to tremble so violently that even the most minute veins of my body were strangely affected; and trembling, it spoke these words: Ecce deus fortior me, qui veniens dominabitur michi.
[tr. Hollander (1997), ch. 2]
At that moment I say truly that the vital spirit, that which lives in the most secret chamber of the heart began to tremble so violently that I felt it fiercely in the least pulsation, and, trembling, it uttered these words: "Ecce deus fortior me, qui veniens dominabitur michi: Behold a god more powerful than I, who, coming, will rule over me."
[tr. Kline (2002), ch. 2]
At that moment, I say truly, the vital spirit, which resides in the most secret chamber of the heart, began to tremble so strongly that it was terribly evident in my slightest heartbeats, and tremblingly it spoke these words: "Behold a god stronger than I, who is coming and will dominate me."
[tr. Appelbaum (2006), ch. 2]
At that time, truly, I say, the vital spirit, which dwells in the innermost chamber of the heart, started to tremble so powerfully that its disturbance reached all the way to the slightest of my pulses. And trembling it spoke these words: “Ecce deus fortior me, qui veniens dominabitur michi” [Here is a god stronger than I, who comes to rule me].
[tr. Frisardi (2012), ch. 1]
Love is an act of endless forgiveness, a tender look which becomes a habit.
Peter Ustinov (1921-2004) English actor, author, director Christian Science Monitor (1958-12-09)
I cannot access any archived version of the CSM for that date, to find the context for the quote. The quote was being attributed to Ustinov by at least 1964.
If any solace, any joy may fall, Calvus, to silent sepulchres through tears,
When the lost love regretful we recall And weep the parted friend of early years,
Then, sure, Quintilia is not wholly sad, Untimely lost: your love has made her glad.
[Si quicquam mutis gratum acceptumve sepulcris
accidere a nostro, Calve, dolore potest,
quo desiderio veteres renovamus amores
atque olim junctas flemus amicitias,
certe non tanto mors immatura dolori est
Quintiliae, quantum gaudet amore tuo.]
Catullus (c. 84 BC – c. 54 BC) Latin poet [Gaius Valerius Catullus]
Carmina # 96 [tr. MacNaghten (1925), “On the Death of Quintilia, Wife of Calvus”]
(Source)
If ever to the dumb, sepulcrhal urn The tribute of a tear could grateful prove;
What timne each recollected scene we mourn, Each deed of ancient friendship, and of love:
Less sure, fond youth, must thy Quintilia grieve That she by death's cold hand untimely fell;
Than joys her parted spirit to perceive How much her Calvus lov'd her, and how well!
[tr. Nott (1795), # 91 "To Calvus, on Quintilia]
Calvus, if any joy from mortal tears Can touch the feelings of the silent dead;
When dwells regret on loves of former years, Or weeps o'er friendships that have long been fled,
Oh! then far less will be Quintilia's woe At early death and fate's severe decree,
Than the pure pleasure she will feel to know How well, how truly she was loved by thee!
[tr. Lamb (1821), # 90 "To Calvus, on the Death of Quintilia"]
Calvus, if those now silent in the tomb Can feel the touch of pleasure in our tears,
For those we loved, who perished in their bloom, And the departed friends of former years;
Oh, then, full surely thy Quinctilia's woe, For the untimely fate that bade ye part,
Will fade before the bliss she feels ot know, How every dear she is unto thy heart!
[tr. T. Martin (1861), "To Calvus"]
Calvus! if from our grief aught can accrue The silent dead to solace or to cheer,
When fond regret broods o'er old loves anew, And o'er lost friendships sheds the bitter tear
Oh ! then her grief at death's untimely blow To thy Quintilia; far, far less must prove
Than the pure joy her soul must feel, to know Thy true, unchanging, ever-during love.
[tr. Cranstoun (1867), "To Calvus, on teh Death of Quintilia"]
If to the silent dead aught sweet or tender ariseth, Calvus, of our dim grief's common humanity born;
When to a love long cold some pensive pity recalls us, When for a friend long lost wakes some unhappy regret;
Not so deeply, be sure, Quintilia's early departing Grieves her, as in thy love dureth a plenary joy.
[tr. Ellis (1871)]
If to the dumb deaf tomb can aught or grateful or pleasing
(Calvus!) ever accrue rising from out of our dule,
Wherewith yearning desire renews our loves in the bygone,
And for long friendships lost many a tear must be shed;
Certès, never so much for doom of premature death-day
Must thy Quintilia mourn as she is joyed by thy love.
[tr. Burton (1893) "To Calvus anent Dead Quintilia"]
Calvus, if anything pleasing or welcome from our grief can have an effect on silent graves, then with its longing we renew old loves and weep friendships once lost, surely Quintilia does not mourn her premature death as much as she rejoices in your love.
[tr. Smithers (1894)]
If living sorrows any boon
Unto the silent grave can give, When sad remembrances revive
Old loves and friendships fugitive,
She sorrows less she died so soon Than joys your love is still alive.
[tr. Symons (c. 1900)]
If the silent grave can receive any pleasure, or sweetness at all from our grief, Calvus, the grief and regret with which we renew our old loves, and weep for long lost friendships, surely Quintilia feels less sorrow for her too early death, than pleasure from your love.
[tr. Warre Cornish (1904)]
If our grief, Calvus, can give any pleasure or consolation to the buried dead, and the yearning with which we re-enkindle old loves, and weep lost friends; then surely Quintilia; must feel less sorrow for her untimely end than joy in your love
[tr. Stuttaford (1912)]
If the silent grave can receive any pleasure, or sweetness at all from our grief, Calvus, the grief and regret with which we make our old loves live again, and weep for long-lost friendships, surely Quintilia feels less sorrow for her too early death, than pleasure from your love.
[tr. Warre Cornish (Loeb) (1913)]
If into the silent tomb can steal Some tenderness, some thought devine,
If aught from this life the dead can feel, Then, Calvus, be this solace thine.
When we mourn old friends with longing heart; For dear dead loves in anguish cry,
Oh, there, do they feel the hot tears start, Touched by a love that cannot die?
If this be, Calvus, thy sweet girl wife. There in the tomb shall less grief know
For her spring time lost, her broken life, Than joy in thy love that loved her so.
[tr. Stewart (1915)]
If yearning grief can pierce the tomb, Reach silent souls and cheer their gloom,
When, Calvus, we lost loves regret, And mourn the dear we ne'er forget,
Quintilia'll cease her death to rue, For joy she's proved your love so true.
[tr. Symons-Jeune (1923), "To Calvus on Quintilia"]
If from our anguish to the voiceless tomb Some meed of pleasure and of joy may come
When we recall the love we felt of yore And the dear face whom now we see no more,
Then know thy sorrow gives thy wife beneath A joy surpassing all the pains of death.
[tr. Wright (1926), "To Calvus on the Death of His Wife Quintilia"]
If anything can pierce impenetrable earth and echo in the silence
of the grave, my Calvus, it is our sad memory
of those we love. (Our longing for them makes them bloom again,
quickened with love and friendship,
even though they left us long ago, heavy with tears).
Surely, yur Quintilia now no longer cries against powerful death
(who had taken her away from you too soon and she was gone).
Look, she is radiant, fixed in your mind, happy forever.
[tr. Gregory (1931)]
If those in their silent graves can receive any pleasure or comfort at all, Calvus, from our lamenting, from that desire which we rekindle former affections and weep for friendships we long ago surrendered, then surely her premature death brings less grief than joy to Quintilia, whom you continue to cherish.
[tr. C. Martin (1979)]
If anything from our grief, can reach beyond
the mute grave, Calvus, and be pleasing and welcome,
grief with which, in longing, we revive our lost loves,
and weep for vanished friendships once known,
surely Quintilia’s not so much sad for her early death,
as joyful for your love.
[tr. Kline (2001), "Beyond The Grave: to Gaius Licinius Calvus"]
If anything pleasant or welcome, Calvus, can befall the mute sepulchre in consequence of our grief, from the yearning with which we renew our ancient passions and weep for friendships long since cast away, surely it's not so much grief that's felt by Quintilia at her premature death , as joyfulness in your love.
[tr. Green (2005)]
If anything pleasing or acceptable to silent sepulchers is able to be done by our grief, Calvus,
by this longing we renew old loves and we lament once sent away friendships.
Certainly a premature death is not of such sadness to Quintilia, so much as she rejoices in your love.
[tr. Wikisource (2018)]
If anything dear and welcome can happen in mute graves
Because of our sadness, Calvus,
Because of that longing by which we renew old loves
And by which we weep for friendships formed long ago,
Surely Quintilia isn’t saddened by her untimely death,
But rather, she’s gladdened by your love.
[tr. Benn (2022)]
Look to the Great Eternal Cause
And not to any man, for light.
Look in; and learn the wrong, and right,
From your own soul’s unwritten laws.
And when you question, or demur,
Let Love be your Interpreter.
Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850-1919) American author, poet, temperance advocate, spiritualist
Poem (1906), “Assistance,” l. 9ff, New Thought Pastels (Source)
Life is to be fortified by many friendships. To love, and to be loved, is the greatest happiness of existence. If I lived under the burning sun of the equator, it would be a pleasure to me to think that there were many human beings on the other side of the world who regarded and respected me; I could and would not live if I were alone upon the earth, and cut off from the remembrance of my fellow-creatures. It is not that a man has occasion often to fall back upon the kindness of his friends; perhaps he may never experience the necessity of doing so; but we are governed by our imaginations, and they stand there as a solid and impregnable bulwark against all the evils of life.
Sydney Smith (1771-1845) English clergyman, essayist, wit Memoir of the Reverend Sydney Smith, by His Daughter, Lady Holland, Vol. 1, ch. 6 (1855)
(Source)
I won’t say, the more intellect, the less capacity for loving; for that would do wrong to the understanding and reason; — but, on the other hand, that the brain often runs away with the heart’s best blood, which gives the world a few pages of wisdom or sentiment or poetry, instead of making one other heart happy, I have no question.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809-1894) American poet, essayist, scholar
Article (1858-04), “Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table,” Atlantic Monthly (Source)
Collected in Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table, ch. 6 (1858).
Fear for yourself crushes and compresses you from without, but fear for another is a monster, a ravenous rat gnawing within, eating out your heart.
Ellis Peters (1913-1995) English writer, translator [pseud. of Edith Mary Pargeter, who also wrote under the names John Redfern, Jolyon Carr, Peter Benedict] The Sanctuary Sparrow, ch. 5 (1983)
(Source)
Tho' I hate, yet I love! -- you'll perhaps ask me, how?
I can't tell; but I'm vext, and feel that I do.
[tr. Nott (1795), # 82 "On His Love"]
I hate and love -- ask why -- I can't explain,
I feel 'tis so, and feel it racking pain.
[tr. Lamb (1821), "On His Own Love"]
I hate and love -- wherefore I cannot tell,
But by my tortures know the fact too well.
[tr. T. Martin (1861), "Love's Unreason"]
I have and love. "Why do I so?" Perhaps you ask. I can't explain:
The bitter fact I only know, And torture racks my brain.
[tr. Cranstoun (1867), "On His Love"]
Half I hate, half love. How so? one haply requireth.
Nay, I know not; alas feel it, in agony groan.
[tr. Ellis (1871)]
Hate I, and love I. Haps thou'lt ask me wherefore I do so.
Wot I not, yet so I do feeling a torture of pain.
[tr. Burton (1893), "How the Poet Loves"]
I hate and I love. Why I do this, perhaps you ask. I know not, but I feel it happening and I am tortured.
[tr. Smithers (1894)]
I hate and love. Why I do so, perhaps you ask. I know not, but I feel it, and I am in torment.
[tr. Warre Cornish (1904)]
I hate and yet I love; perhaps you ask how this can be. I do not know, but that it is so I feel too well, and live in torment.
[tr. Stuttaford (1912)]
I hate and love. You question "How?" I lack
An answer, but I feel it on the rack.
[tr. MacNaghten (1925)]
I hate and love, nor can the reason tell;
But that I love and hate I know too well.
[tr. Wright (1926), "Odi et Amo"]
I hate and love. And if you ask me why,
I have no answer, but I discern,
can feel, my senses rooted in eternal torture.
[tr. Gregory (1931)]
I hate & love. And if you should ask how I can do both,
I couldn't say; but I feel it, and it shivers me.
[tr. C. Martin (1979)]
I hate and love. And why, perhaps you’ll ask.
I don’t know: but I feel, and I’m tormented.
[tr. Kline (2001), "Love-Hate"]
I hate and love. You wonder, perhaps, why I'd do that? I have no idea. I just feel it. I am crucified.
[tr. Green (2005)]
I hate and I love. How do I do that, perhaps you ask?
I don't know. But I feel it is happening and I am tormented.
[tr. Wikibooks (2017)]
I hate and I love. Why I do this, perhaps you ask.
I do not know, but I feel it being done and I am tormented.
[tr. Wikisource (2018)]
I hate and I love: you might ask why I do this --
I don’t know, but I see it happen and it’s killing me.
[tr. @sententique (2023)]
I hate, I love; I love, I hate. But why, you ask again.
I don't know if it's fault, or fate, This such exquisite pain.
[tr. Hill (2024)]
‘Tis hard to end a years-long love to-day; ‘Tis hard, achieve it then as best you may;
This victory win, this only safety trust, Say not you cannot or you can — you must .
[Difficile est longum subito deponere amorem;
Difficile est, verum hoc qua libet efficias.
Una salus haec est, hoc est tibi pervincendum;
Hoc facias, sive id non pote sive pote.]
Catullus (c. 84 BC – c. 54 BC) Latin poet [Gaius Valerius Catullus]
Carmina # 76, ll. 17-20 [tr. MacNaghten (1925)]
(Source)
On the need to break up with unfaithful Lesbia, his longtime love.
At once to quench an ancient flame, I own, Is truly hard; but still no efforts spare;
On this thy peace depends, on this alone; Then possible, or not, o conquer there!
[tr. Nott (1795), # 73 "To Himself"]
'Tis hard to lay long-cherish'd love aside; 'Tis hard at once. But 'tis your only plan;
'Tis all your hope. This love must be defied; Nor think you cannot, but assert you can.
[tr. Lamb (1821), "The Lover's Petition (To Himself)"]
'Tis hard at once to fling a love away, That has been cherish'd with the faith of years.
'Tis hard -- but 'tis thy duty. Come what may, Crush every record of its joys, its fears!
[tr. T. Martin (1861), "Remorse"]
'Tis hard to quench at once a long-nursed love; 'Tis hard -- but do it howsoe'er you may;
It is your only chance -- our courage prove -- Easy or difficult -- you must obey.
[tr. Cranstoun (1867), "To Himself. The Lover's Petition", st. 4]
What? it is hard long love so lightly to leave in a moment? Hard; yet abides this one duty, to do it: obey.
Here lies safety alone, one victory must not fail thee. One last stake to be lost haply, perhaps to be won.
[tr. Ellis (1871)]
Difficult 'tis indeed long Love to depose of a sudden,
Difficult 'tis, yet do e'en as thou deem to be best.
This be thy safe-guard sole; this conquest needs to be conquered;
This thou must do, thus act, whether thou cannot or can.
[tr. Burton (1893), "In Self-Gratulation"]
It is difficult suddenly to set aside a love of long standing; it is difficult, this is true, no matter how you do it. This is your one salvation, this you must fight to the finish; you must do it, whether it is possible or impossible.
[tr. Smithers (1894)]
'Tis hard to lay aside at will The love of years, -- and yet, I trow,
What men erewhile have borne may still; Be borne, though hard, and shall be now.
Borne, ay, and done -- done, whatsoe'er The pain of doing. Here for me,
Lies the sole refuge from despair, And the end of all this misery.
[tr. Harman (1897), "The Soliloquy of Catullus"]
It is difficult suddenly to lay aside a long-standing love. It is difficult; but you should accomplish it, one way or another. This is the only safety, this you must carry through, this you are to do, whether it is possible or impossible.
[tr. Warre Cornish (1904)]
It is not easy, at a moment's notice, to lay aside a life-long love. It is not easy; but yo must do so, what way you can: this is our one salvation and must be attained by you: possible or impossible, do it you must.
[tr. Stuttaford (1912)]
It is difficult suddenly to lay aside a long-cherished love. It is difficult; but you should accomplish it, one way or another. This is the only safety, this you must carry through, this you are to do, whether it is possible or impossible.
[tr. Warre Cornish (Loeb) (1913)]
What can't be done, I still must do --
Forget, if I would live life through.
[tr. Stewart (1915)]
And though 'tis hard to cast a long-worn chain, Choose any means, but freedom gain.
'Tis safety's only chance, then hold it fast And do th'impossible at last!
[tr. Symons-Jeune (1923)]
Forbear, while heaven frowns, to fume and fret. Steel your firm courage to escape her sway.
"'Tis hard," you say, "so quickly to forget," 'Tis hard; but with a will there is a way.
Here is your chance: this victory you must win: Whether you can nor no, the attempt begin.
[tr. Wright (1926), "The Poet's Prayer"]
For it is hard, hard to throw aside years lived in poisonous love that has tainted your brain
and must end.
If this seems impossible now, you must rise
to salvation.
[tr. Gregory (1931)]
It's hard to break off with someone you've loved such a long time:
it's hard, but you have to do it, somehow or another.
Your only chance is to get out from under this sickness,
no matter whether or not you think you're able.
[tr. C. Martin (1979)]
It’s difficult to suddenly let go of a former love,
it’s difficult, but it would gratify you to do it:
That’s your one salvation. That’s for you to prove,
for you to try, whether you can or not.
[tr. Kline (2001), "Past Kindness: to the Gods"]
It is difficult to suddenly put down a long love
It is difficult, but you should do this in whatever way is pleasing
This is the one safety this must be overcome by you
Do this whether it is possible or not possible
[tr. Wikibooks (2017)]
It is difficult to suddenly put away a long love
It is difficult, but you must effect this in some way or other:
it is the one salvation, this must be conquered by you
You must do this, whether it is impossible or possible.
[tr. Wikisource (2018)]
Hell is wherever Love is not, and Heaven
Is Love’s location. No dogmatic creed,
No austere faith based on ignoble fear
Can lead thee into realms of joy and peace.
Unless the humblest creatures on the earth
Are bettered by thy loving sympathy
Think not to find a Paradise beyond.
Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850-1919) American author, poet, temperance advocate, spiritualist
Poem (1906), “The Way,” ll. 5-11, New Thought Pastels (Source)
Not in some cloister or cave, Not in some kingdom above,
Here, on this side of the grave, Here, should we labor and love.
Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850-1919) American author, poet, temperance advocate, spiritualist
Poem (1896), “Here and Now.” st. 4, Custer and Other Poems (Source)
Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain;
Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink And rise and sink and rise and sink again;
Love can not fill the thickened lung with breath, Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone;
Yet many a man is making friends with death Even as I speak, for lack of love alone.
Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950) American poet Fatal Interview: Sonnets, No. 30 (1931)
(Source)
Let no one who loves be called altogether unhappy. Even love unreturned has its rainbow.
J. M. Barrie (1860-1937) Scottish novelist and dramatist [James Matthew Barrie] The Little Minister, ch. 24 “The New World, and the Woman Who May Not Dwell Therein” (1891)
(Source)
Thus in the winter stands the lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one, Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone,
I only know that summer sang in me A little while, that in me sings no more.
Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950) American poet
Sonnet 43 “What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,” ll. 9ff. (1920), The Harp-Weaver and Other Poems (1923)
(Source)
Anxiety is love’s greatest killer. It creates the failures. It makes others feel as you might when a drowning man holds on to you. You want to save him, but you know he will strangle you with his panic.
Anaïs Nin (1903-1977) Catalan-Cuban-French author, diarist
Diary (1947-02)
(Source)
REBECCA: A child’s spirit is like a child, you cannot catch it by running after it; you must stand still, and, for love, it will soon itself come back.
Arthur Miller (1915–2005) American playwright and essayist The Crucible, Act 1 (1953)
(Source)
Instinctively we divide mankind into friends and foes — friends, towards whom we have the morality of co-operation; foes, towards whom we have that of competition. But this division is constantly changing; at one moment a man hates his business competitor, at another, when both are threatened by Socialism or by an external enemy, he suddenly begins to view him as a brother. Always when we pass beyond the limits of the family it is the external enemy which supplies the cohesive force. In times of safety we can afford to hate our neighbour, but in times of danger we must love him.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher Authority and the Individual, Lecture 1 (1949)
(Source)
Collection, with some edits, of the inaugural Reith Lectures, BBC, "Authority and the Individual," No. 1 "Social Cohesion and Human Nature" [14:16] (1948-12-26).
The Fates, and Furies, too, glide with linked hands over life, as well as the Graces and Sirens.
[Die Parzen und Furien ziehen auch mit verbundnen Händen um das Leben, wie die Grazien und die Sirenen.]
Jean Paul Richter (1763-1825) German writer, art historian, philosopher, littérateur [Johann Paul Friedrich Richter; pseud. Jean Paul] Titan, Jubilee 35, cycle 140 [Siebenkäs] (1803) [tr. Brooks (1863)]
(Source)
They who by love are caught, and fix their love
On virtuous objects; to complete their bliss,
Can need no new accession of delight.
[tr. Wodhall (1809)]
When it befalls poor mortal men to love,
Should they find worthy objects for their loving,
There is no fuller joy on earth to long for.
[Source]
Lucian, in How to Write History, says the people of Abdera, Thrace, were so affected by a mid-summer performance of this play that they stumbled about, bemusedly repeating the the first line, until restored to their senses by a severe winter (see 1, 2, 3).
ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE: It is thyself, mine own self’s better part,
Mine eye’s clear eye, my dear heart’s dearer heart,
My food, my fortune, and my sweet hope’s aim,
My sole Earth’s heaven, and my heaven’s claim.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet Comedy of Errors, Act 3, sc. 2, l. 66ff (3.2.66-69) (1594)
(Source)
Don’t spurn sweet love,
my child, and don’t you be neglectful
of the choir of love, or the dancing feet,
while life is still green, and your white-haired old age
is far away with all its moroseness. Now,
find the Campus again, and the squares,
soft whispers at night, at the hour agreed,
and the pleasing laugh that betrays her, the girl
who’s hiding away in the darkest corner,
and the pledge that’s retrieved from her arm,
or from a lightly resisting finger.
[Nec dulcis amores
sperne puer neque tu choreas,
donec virenti canities abest
morosa. Nunc et campus et areae
lenesque sub noctem susurri
conposita repetantur hora,
nunc et latentis proditor intumo
gratus puellae risus ab angulo
pignusque dereptum lacertis
aut digito male pertinaci.]
Horace (65-8 BC) Roman poet, satirist, soldier, politician [Quintus Horatius Flaccus] Odes [Carmina], Book 1, # 9, l. 15ff (1.9.15-24) (23 BC) [tr. Kline (2015)]
(Source)
Till testy Age gray Hairs shall snow Upon thy Head, lose Mask, nor Show:
Soft whispers now delight At a set hour by Night:
And Maids that gigle to discover Where they are hidden to a Lover;
And Bracelets or some toy Snatcht from the willing Coy.
[tr. Fanshaw (Brome (1666))]
Secure those golden early joys, That youth unsoured with sorrow bears,
Ere withering time the taste destroys, With sickness and unwieldy years.
For active sports, for pleasing rest,
This is the time to be possest; The best is but in season best.
The appointed hour of promised bliss, The pleasing whisper in the dark,
The half unwilling willing kiss, The laugh that guides thee to the mark;
When the kind nymph would coyness feign,
And hides but to be found again; These, these are joys the gods for youth ordain.
[tr. Dryden (c. 1685)]
Whilst Thou art green, and gay, and Young, E're dull Age comes, and strength decays,
Let mirth, and humor, dance, and song Be all the trouble of thy days.
The Court, the Mall, the Park, and Stage, With eager thoughts of Love pursue;
Gay Evening whispers fit thy Age, And be to Assignation true.
Now Love to hear the hiding Maid, Whom Youth hath fir'd, and Beauty charms
By her own tittering laugh betray'd, And forc'd into her Lover's Arms.
Go dally with thy wanton Miss, And from the Willing seeming Coy,
Or force a Ring, or steal a Kiss; For Age will come, and then farewell to joy.
[tr. Creech (1684)]
Sport in life's young spring, Nor scorn sweet love, nor merry dance,
While years are green, while sullen eld Is distant. Now the walk, the game,
The whisper'd talk at sunset held, Each in its hour, prefer their claim.
Sweet too the laugh, whose feign'd alarm The hiding-place of beauty tells,
The token, ravish'd from the arm Or finger, that but ill rebels.
[tr. Conington (1872)]
Nor disdain, being a young fellow, pleasant loves, nor dances, as long as ill-natured hoariness keeps off from your blooming age. Now let both the Campus Martius and the public walks, and soft whispers at the approach of evening be repeated at the appointed hour: now, too, the delightful laugh, the betrayer of the lurking damsel from some secret corner, and the token ravished from her arms or fingers, pretendingly tenacious of it.
[tr. Smart/Buckley (1853)]
Let beauty's glance
Engage thee, and the merry dance, Nor deem such pleasures vain!
Gloom is for age. Young hearts should glow With fancies bright and free,
Should court the crowded walk, the show,
And at dim eve love's murmurs low Beneath the trysting tree;
The laugh from the sly corner, where Our girl is hiding fast,
The struggle for the lock of hair,
The half well pleased, half angry air, The yielded kiss at last.
[tr. Martin (1864)]
Spurn not, thou, who art young, dulcet loves; Spurn not, thou, choral dances and song
While the hoar-frost morose keeps aloof from thy verdure.
Thine the sports of the Campus, the gay public gardens; Thine at twilight the words whispered low; Each in turn has its own happy hour:
And thine the sweet laugh of the girl -- which betrays her
Hiding slyly within the dim nook of the threshold, And the love-token snatched from the wrist, Or the finger's not obstinate hold.
[tr. Bulwer-Lytton (1870)]
Youth must not spurn
Sweet loves, nor yet the dance forsake,
While grudging Age thy prime shall spare.
The Plain, the Squares, be now thy care,
And lounges, dear at nightfall, where By concert love may whisper 'Hist!'
From inner nook a winsome smile
Betrays the girl that sculks the while,
And keepsakes, deftly filched by guile From yielding finger, or from wrist.
[tr. Gladstone (1894)]
Nor, while thy vigour lasts, despise thou Pleasures of love, nor the joys of dancing.
While the moroseness due to advancing age
Whitens not yet thy head, let the walks and park And gentle whispers heard at nightfall Each be repeated at fitting seasons.
Now, too, the pleasant laughter be heard, that tells
How lurking beauty hides in the corner-nook, And token ravish'd from the arm, or Finger, that daintily seems unwilling.
[tr. Phelps (1897)]
Being but yet a youth, contemn Neither the sweets of love nor of the dance,
While from your bloom crabbed greyness holds aloof.
Now let the Campus and the city squares, And whispers low, be sought at nightfall, On the appointed hour of tryst;
And now the fascinating laugh from some recess
Secluded, the betrayer of a maid In hiding, and the pledge snatched off An arm or finger ill retaining it.
[tr. Garnsey (1907)]
Spurn not the dance, Or in sweet loves to bask,
While surly age mars not thy morning's flower.
Seek now the athlete's training field or court; See gentle lovers' whispered sport, At nightfalls's trysted hour;
Seek the gay laught that from her ambush borne
Betrays the merry maiden huddled warm, And forfeit from her hand or arm Half given, half playful torn.
[tr. Marshall (1908)]
Nor in thy youth neglect sweet love nor dances, whilst life is still in its bloom and crabbed age is far away! Now let the Campus be sought and the squares, with low whispers at the trysting-hour as night draws on, and the merry tell-tale laugh of maiden hiding in farthest comer, and the forfeit snatched from her arm or finger that but feigns resistance.
[tr. Bennett (Loeb) (1912)]
Scorn not, while still A boy, sweet loves; scorn not the dance.
Life in its Spring, and crabbed eld Far off -- that is the time; then hey
For Park, Square, whispered concerts held At a set hour at close of day:
For the sweet laugh whose soft alarm Tells in what nook the maid lies hid:
For the love-token snatched from arm, Of fingers that but half-forbid.
[tr. Mills (1924)]
Now that you're young, and peevish
Grey hairs are still far distant, attend to the
Dance-floor, the heart's sweet business; for now is the Right time for midnight assignations, whispers and murmurs in Rome's piazzas
And fields, and soft, low laughter that gives away
The girl who plays love's games in a hiding-place -- Off comes a ring coaxed down an arm or Pulled from a faintly resisting finger.
[tr. Michie (1963)]
Take love while you're young and you can,
Laugh, dance,
Before time takes your chances
Away. Stroll where baths, where theaters
Bring Romans to walk, to talk, where whispers
Flit through the darkness as lovers meet,
And girls laugh from hidden corners,
Happy as favors
Are snatched in the darkness, laugh
And pretend to say no.
[tr. Raffel (1983)]
While you're still young,
And while morose old age is far away,
There's love, there are parties, there's dancing and there's music,
There are young people out in the city squares together
As evening comes on, there are whispers of lovers, there's laughter.
[tr. Ferry (1997)]
Do not disdain, boy, sweet love; and dance while you are yet in bloom, and crabbed age far away.
Now frequent the Campus Martius
and public ways, and pizzas where soft whispers are repeated at the trysting hour and where the suffocated laughter of a girl
lurking in a corner reveals
secret betrayal and the forfeit snatched away from a wrist or from a finger, scarcely resisting.
[tr. Alexander (1999)]
And while you're young don't scorn
sweet love affairs and dances,
so long as crabbed old age is far from
your vigor. Now let the playing field and the
public squares and soft whisperings at nightfall
(the appointed hour) be your pursuits;
now too the sweet laughter of a girl hiding
in a secret corner, which gives her away,
and a pledge snatched from her wrists
or her feebly resisting finger.
[tr. Wikisource (2021)]
You seem to have great possessions! How else can this be, but that you have preferred your own enjoyment to the consolation of the many? For the more you abound in wealth, the more you lack in love.
Basil of Caesarea (AD 330-378) Christian bishop, theologian, monasticist, Doctor of the Church [Saint Basil the Great, Ἅγιος Βασίλειος ὁ Μέγας]
“To the Rich [Ὁμιλία πρὸς τοὺς πλουτούντας],” sermon (c. 368) [tr. Schroeder (2009)]
(Source)
In C. Paul Schroeder, ed., Saint Basil on Social Justice (2009).
What a mystery this is, desire. The love sickness, the sensitivity, the obsession, the flutter of the heart, the ebb and flow of the blood. There is no drug and no alcohol to equal it.
Anaïs Nin (1903-1977) Catalan-Cuban-French author, diarist
Diary (1943-04)
(Source)
Kisses kept are wasted;
Love is to be tasted.
There are some you love, I know;
Be not loath to tell them so.
Lips go dry and eyes grow wet
Waiting to be warmly met,
Keep them not in waiting yet;
Kisses kept are wasted.
Edmund Vance Cooke (1866-1932) Canadian poet
“Kisses Kept Are Wasted,” ll. 1-9, Little Songs for Two (1909)
(Source)
Full many various qualities distinguish
The Cyprian Goddess; both supreme delight
And sorrow she dispenses to mankind:
O may I meet with her when most propitious.
Come, let us live and love, my dear, A fig for all the pratings drear
Of sour old sages, worldly wise. Aye, suns may set again to rise;
But as for us, when once our sun His little course of light has run,
An endless night we’ll sleep away.
[Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus
rumoresque senum severiorum
omnes unius aestimemus assis
soles occidere et redire possunt:
nobis cum semel occidit brevis lux,
nox est perpetua una dormienda.]
Catullus (c. 84 BC – c. 54 BC) Latin poet [Gaius Valerius Catullus]
Carmina # 5 “To Lesbia,” ll. 1-6 [tr. Stewart (1915)]
(Source)
One of Catulllus' most popular and widely-translated poems.
Come and let us live, my Deare, Let us love and never feare
What the sourest Fathers say: Brightest Sol that dyes to-day
Lives againe as blithe to-morrow; But if we darke sons of sorrow
Set, ô then, how long a Night Shuts the Eyes of our short light!
[tr. Crashaw (1648)]
Lesbia, live to love and pleasure, Careless what the grave may say:
When each moment is a treasure Why should lovers lose a day?
Setting suns shall rise in glory, But when little life is o'er,
There's an end of all the story -- We shall sleep, and wake no more.
[tr. Langhorne (c. 1765)]
Let's live, and love, my darling fair!
And not a single farthing care For age's babbling spite;
Yon suns that set again shall rise,
but, when our transient meteor dies, We sleep in endless night.
[tr. Nott (1795)]
My Lesbia, let us love and live, And to the winds, my Lesbia, give
Each cold restraint, each boding fear Of age and all her saws severe.
Yon sun now posting to the main Will set -- but 'tis to rise again: --
But we, when once our mortal light Is set, must sleep in endless night!
[tr. Coleridge (1798)]
Love, my Lesbia, while we live, Value all the cross advice
That the surly greybeards give At a single farthing's price.
Suns that set again may rise; We, when once our fleeting light,
Once our day in darkness dies, Sleep in one eternal night.
[tr. Lamb (1821)]
Live we, love we, Lesbia dear, And the stupid saws austere,
Which your sour old dotards prate, Let us at a farthing rate!
When the sun sets, ' tis to rise Brighter in the morning skies;
But, when sets our little light, We must sleep in endless night.
[tr. T. Martin (1861)]
The while we live, to love let's give Each hour, my winsome dearie!
Hence, churlish rage of icy age! Of love we 'll ne'er grow weary.
Bright Phoebus dies, again to rise; Returns life's brief light never;
When once 'tis gone, we slumber on For ever and for ever.
[tr. Cranstoun (1867)]
Living, Lesbia, we should e'en be loving.
Sour severity, tongue of eld maligning,
All be to us a penny's estimation.
Suns set only to rise again to-morrow.
We, when sets in a little hour the brief light,
Sleep one infinite age, a night for ever.
[tr. Ellis (1871)]
Love we (my Lesbia!) and live we our day, While all stern sayings crabbed sages say,
At one doit's value let us price and prize! The Suns can westward sink again to rise
But we, extinguished once our tiny light, Perforce shall slumber through one lasting night!
[tr. Burton (1893)]
Let us live, my Lesbia, and let us love, and count all the rumors of stern old men at a penny's fee. Suns can set and rise again: we when once our brief light has set must sleep through a perpetual night.
[tr. Smithers (1894)]
Come, my Lesbia, no repining;
Let us love while yet we may!
Suns go on forever shining;
But when we have had our day, Sleep perpetual shall o'ertake us, And no morrow's dawn awake us.
[tr. Field (1896)]
Let us live, my Lesbia, and love, and value at one farthing all the talk of crabbed old men. Suns may set and rise again. For us, when the short light has once set, remains to be slept the sleep of one unbroken night.
[tr. Warre Cornish (1904)]
Let us live, my Lesbia, let us love, for the reprobation of soured age let us not care a sou. Suns can set and rise again; but to our brief light, when once it sets, there comes a never-ending night that must be passed in never-ending sleep.
[tr. Stuttaford (1912)]
We live, Lesbia,
And we love, Lesbia,
And what do we care what the world may say?
The sun goes down,
And the sun comes up,
But our little lives pass away
In a day,
Our poor little lives pass away.
[tr. Dement (1915)]
Let us revel in life and love, my darling;
All that crabbed antiquities say idly
We will value together at a farthing.
Suns may set , and return again as brightly:
When our light to its dying spark has fluttered,
We must sleep an eternity of slumber.
[tr. Symons-Jeune (1923)]
O! let us love and have our day,
All that the bitter greybeards say Appraising at a single mite.
My Lesbia , suns can set and rise:
For us the brief light dawns and dies Once only, and the rest is night.
[tr. MacNaghten (1925)]
Come let us live and let us love, And the stern voice of censors prove,
Who bid us from our loving cease, Exactly worth a penny piece.
For suns can rise and suns can wane And on the morrow rise again;
But when our one brief day is gone, For ever we must sleep alone.
[tr. Wright (1926)]
Come, Lesbia, let us live and love,
nor give a damn what sour old men say.
The sun that sets may rise again
but when our light has sunk into the earth,
it is gone forever.
[tr. Gregory (1931)]
Lesbia, let us live only for loving,
and let us value at a single penny
all the loose flap of senile busybodies!
Suns when they set are capable of rising,
but at the setting of our on brief light
night is one sleep from which we never awaken.
[tr. C. Martin (1979)]
Let us live, my Lesbia, let us love,
and all the words of the old, and so moral,
may they be worth less than nothing to us!
Suns may set, and suns may rise again:
but when our brief light has set,
night is one long everlasting sleep.
[tr. Kline (2001)]
Let us live, my Lesbia, and let us love,
and let us judge all the rumors of the old men
to be worth just one penny!
The suns are able to fall and rise:
When that brief light has fallen for us,
we must sleep a never ending night.
[tr. Negenborn (1997)]
Let's live, Lesbia mine, and love --
and as for scandal, all the gossip, old men's strictures,
value the lot at no more than a farthing!
Suns can rise and set ad infinitum --
for us, though, once our bref life's quenched,
there's only one unending night that's left to sleep through.
[tr. Green (2005)]
Come live with me, Lesbia, and be my love,
And ignore the wagging tongues
Of wilted crones and toothless geezers.
Suns rise and set, rise and set again,
But we, when our brief light is blacked,
Must sleep forever, and then forever. [tr. Hager (2006)]
My Lesbia, let’s live and let’s love,
Let all the rumors of harsh old men
count for only a penny.
Suns can set and rise again:
but when our brief light sets
we must sleep a lonely endless night.
[tr. @sentantiq (2015)]
Let us live, my Lesbia, and let us love,
and let's value all the rumors
of rather stern old men as one penny!
Suns can set and return;
as for us, once our brief light sets,
there is one perpetual night to be slept.
[tr. Wikibooks (2017)]
Let us live, my Lesbia, and let us love,
and let us value all the rumors of
more severe old men at only a penny!
Suns are able to set and return:
when once the short light has set for us
one perpetual night must be slept by us.
[tr. Wikisource (2018)]
Compare also these two pieces, which start modeled after Catullus (as shown):
My sweetest Lesbia, let us live and love; And though the sager sort our deeds reprove,
Let us not weigh them: Heaven's great lamps do dive Into their west, and straight again revive,
But, soon as once set is our little light, Then must we sleep one ever-during night.
[Thomas Campion, A Book of Airs (1601)]
Come my Celia, let us prove, While we can, the sports of love;
Time will not be ours forever, He at length our good will sever.
Spend not then his gifts in vain; Suns that set may rise again,
But if once we lose this light, 'Tis with us perpetual night.
[Ben Jonson, Volpone, Act 3, sc. 6 (1616)]
Love should be the vestal fire of some mighty temple — some vast dim fane whose organ music is the rolling of the spheres. Affection will burn cheerily when the white flame of love is flickered out. Affection is a fire that can be fed from day to day, and be piled up ever higher as the winter years draw nigh. Old men and women can sit by it with their thin hands clasped, the little children can nestle down in front, the friend and neighbour has his welcome corner by its side, and even shaggy Fido and sleek Titty can toast their noses at the bars. Let us heap the coals of kindness upon that fire. Throw on your pleasant words, your gentle pressures of the hand, your thoughtful and unselfish deeds. Fan it with good humour, patience, and forbearance. You can let the wind blow and the rain fall unheeded then, for your hearth will be warm and bright, and the faces round it will make sunshine in spite of the clouds without.
Jerome K. Jerome (1859-1927) English writer, humorist [Jerome Klapka Jerome] Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow, “On Being in Love” (1886)
(Source)
Dore – Purgatorio, Canto 30 – The Arrival of Beatrice
Not one drop of blood
is left inside my veins that does not throb:
I recognize signs of the ancient flame.
[Men che dramma
di sangue m’è rimaso, che non tremi;
conosco i segni de l’antica fiamma.]
Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) Italian poet The Divine Comedy [Divina Commedia], Book 2 “Purgatorio,” Canto 30, l. 46ff (3.46-68) (1314) [tr. Musa (1981)]
(Source)
Dante, on seeing his long-lost love, Beatrice, repeating to Virgil the lines he had given Dido (Aeneid, 4.23) about how she felt the stirring of long-dead passion upon seeing Aeneas: "Agnosco veteris vestigia flammae" ("I know the traces of the ancient flame" [tr. Kline (2002)]).
(Source (Italian)). Alternate translations:
There is no dram of blood,
That doth not quiver in me. The old flame
Throws out clear tokens of reviving fire.
[tr. Cary (1814)]
There is not one drop
Of blood within me trembling but became:
I know the tokens of the ancient fame.
[tr. Bannerman (1850)]
Not a drachm
Of blood remains in me, that does not tremble;
I know the traces of the ancient flame.
[tr. Longfellow (1867)]
Less than a dram of blood remains to me which trembles not; I recognise the signs of the ancient flame.
[tr. Butler (1885)]
Rests within my frame
No dram of blood that does not tremble now;
I know the symptoms of the olden flame.
[tr. Minchin (1885)]
Less than a drachm of blood remains in me that doth not tremble; I recognize the signals of the ancient flame.
[tr. Norton (1892)]
Less than a drachm of blood
is left in me that trembleth not; I recognise
the tokens of the ancient flame.
[tr. Okey (1901)]
Not a drop of blood is left in me that does not tremble; I know the marks of the ancient flame.
[tr. Sinclair (1939)]
Scarce one drop remains
Of blood in me that trembles not: by this
I recognize the old flame within my veins.
[tr. Binyon (1943)]
There is scarce a dram
That does not hammer and throb in all my blood;
I know the embers of the ancient flame.
[tr. Sayers (1955)]
There is not within me
one drop of blood unstirred. I recognize
the tokens of the ancient flame.
[tr. Ciardi (1961)]
Less than a drop of blood
Is left in me, that is not trembling:
I know the signs of the ancient flame.
[tr. Sisson (1981)]
I am left with less
than one drop of blood that does not tremble:
I recognize the signs of the old flame.
[tr. Mandelbaum (1982)]
There is a barely a drop of blood in me that does not tremble: I know the tokens of the ancient flame.
[tr. Kline (2002)]
Less than a dram of blood is left me that is not trembling: I recognize the signs of the ancient flame!
[tr. Durling (2003)]
There is not one gram
of blood in me that does not tremble now.
I recognize the signs of ancient flame.
[tr. Kirkpatrick (2007)]
Not a single drop of blood
remains in me that does not tremble --
I know the signs of the ancient flame.[tr. Hollander/Hollander (2007)]
There isn't a single drop of whatever blood Still flows in my veins that isn't shaking from fear: I recognize the signs of that ancient fire.
[tr. Raffel (2010)]
Now Scripture enjoins nothing except charity, and condemns nothing except lust, and in that way fashions the lives of men.
[Non autem praecipit Scriptura nisi caritatem, nec culpat nisi cupiditatem, et eo modo informat mores hominum.]
Augustine of Hippo (354-430) Christian church father, philosopher, saint [b. Aurelius Augustinus] On Christian Doctrine [De Doctrina Christiana], Book 3, ch. 10 / § 15 (3.10.15) (AD 397) [tr. Shaw (1858)]
(Source)
On how people treat Scripture as literal when it agrees with their and their culture's judgment, and figurative when not.
But we are so blind to our own shortcomings, so wide awake to those of others. Everything that happens to us is always the other person’s fault. Angelina would have gone on loving Edwin forever and ever and ever if only Edwin had not grown so strange and different. Edwin would have adored Angelina through eternity if Angelina had only remained the same as when he first adored her. It is a cheerless hour for you both when the lamp of love has gone out and the fire of affection is not yet lit, and you have to grope about in the cold, raw dawn of life to kindle it. God grant it catches light before the day is too far spent. Many sit shivering by the dead coals till night come.
Jerome K. Jerome (1859-1927) English writer, humorist [Jerome Klapka Jerome] Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow, “On Being In Love” (1886)
(Source)
But we are so blind to our own shortcomings, so wide awake to those of others. Everything that happens to us is always the other person’s fault. Angelina would have gone on loving Edwin forever and ever and ever if only Edwin had not grown so strange and different. Edwin would have adored Angelina through eternity if Angelina had only remained the same as when he first adored her. It is a cheerless hour for you both when the lamp of love has gone out and the fire of affection is not yet lit, and you have to grope about in the cold, raw dawn of life to kindle it. God grant it catches light before the day is too far spent. Many sit shivering by the dead coals till night come.
Jerome K. Jerome (1859-1927) English writer, humorist [Jerome Klapka Jerome] Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow, “On Being in Love” (1886)
(Source)
Oh, God, I know no joy as great as a moment of rushing into a new love, no ecstasy like that of a new love. I swim in the sky; I float; my body is full of flowers, flowers with fingers giving me acute, acute caresses, sparks, jewels, quivers of joy, dizziness, such dizziness. Music inside of one, drunkenness. Only closing the eyes and remembering, and the hunger, the hunger for more, more, the great hunger, the voracious hunger, and thirst.
Anaïs Nin (1903-1977) Catalan-Cuban-French author, diarist
Diary (1934-05)
(Source)
There are more who want to be loved than who want to love.
[Y a plus de gens qui veulent être aimés que de gens qui veulent aimer eux-mêmes.]
Nicolas Chamfort (1741-1794) French writer, epigrammist (b. Nicolas-Sébastien Roch) Products of Perfected Civilization [Produits de la Civilisation Perfectionée], Part 1 “Maxims and Thoughts [Maximes et Pensées],” ch. 6, ¶ 360 (1795) [tr. Merwin (1969)]
(Source)
The moral thing I wish to say to [future generations] is very simple. I should say love is wise, hatred is foolish. In this world which is getting more and more closely interconnected, we have to learn to tolerate each other. We have to learn to put up with the fact that some people say things that we don’t like. We can only live together in that way, and if we are to live together and not die together we must learn the kind of charity and kind of tolerance which is absolutely vital to the continuation of human life on this planet.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Interview by John Freeman, Face to Face, BBC TV (1959-03-04)
(Source)
Make love your aim, not biblical inerrancy, nor purity nor obedience to holiness codes. Make love your aim, for
“Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels” — musicians, poets, preachers, you are being addressed. “and though I … understand all mysteries, and all knowledge” — professors, your turn, “and though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor” — radicals take note; “and though I give my body to be burned” — the very stuff of heroism; “and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.” (1 Cor. 13:1-3 KJV).
I doubt if any other scriptures of the world there is a more radical statement of ethics. If we fail in love, we fail in all things else.
William Sloane Coffin, Jr. (1924-2006) American minister, social activist Credo, “Faith, Hope, Love” (2004)
(Source)
Nothing — so it seems to me — is more beautiful than the love that has weathered the storms of life. The sweet, tender blossom that flowers in the heart of the young — in hearts such as yours — that, too, is beautiful. The love of the young for the young, that is the beginning of life. But the love of the old for the old, that is the beginning of — of things longer.
Jerome K. Jerome (1859-1927) English writer, humorist [Jerome Klapka Jerome]
“Passing of the Third Floor Back” [The Stranger] (1908)
(Source)
Whoso pretends that Love is no great god,
The lord and master of all deities,
Is either dull of soul, or, dead to beauty,
Knows not the greatest god that governs men.
He who esteems not Love a mighty God,
And to all other Deities superior,
Devoid of reason, or to beauty blind,
Knows not the ruler of this nether world.
[tr. Wodhall (1809)]
Anyone who does not count Love a great god,
and the highest of all the divine powers,
is either obtuse or, lacking experience in his benefits,
is unacquainted with human beings’ greatest god.
[tr. Collard / Cropp (2008); Funke (2013)]
Whoever does not judge Love to be a great god, and highest of all the divine powers, is either a fool or, lacking experience of his good things, is not acquainted with mankind's greatest god.
[tr. Wright (2017)]
Whoever does not think Eros a great god
is either silly or ignorant of blessings.
[Source]
Elizabeth, feeling all the more than common awkwardness and anxiety of his situation, now forced herself to speak; and immediately, though not very fluently, gave him to understand that her sentiments had undergone so material a change, since the period to which he alluded, as to make her receive with gratitude and pleasure his present assurances. The happiness which this reply produced, was such as he had probably never felt before; and he expressed himself on the occasion as sensibly and as warmly as a man violently in love can be supposed to do.
Jane Austen (1775-1817) English author Pride and Prejudice, ch. 58 (1813)
(Source)
I hope you will have a wonderful year, that you’ll dream dangerously and outrageously, that you’ll make something that didn’t exist before you made it, that you will be loved and that you will be liked, and that you will have people to love and to like in return. And, most importantly (because I think there should be more kindness and more wisdom in the world right now), that you will, when you need to be, be wise, and that you will always be kind.
Neil Gaiman (b. 1960) British author, screenwriter, fabulist
Blog entry (2008-12-31), “Another Year”
(Source)
Well, it is part of our emotional apparatus that we are liable to both love and hate, and we like to exercise them. We love our compatriots and we hate foreigners. Of course, we love our compatriots only when we’re thinking of foreigners. When we’ve forgotten foreigners, we don’t love them so much.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Interview by Woodrow Wyatt, BBC TV (1959)
I turn away reluctant from your light,
And stand irresolute, a mind undone,
A silly, dazzled thing deprived of sight
From having looked too long upon the sun.
Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950) American poet
“When I too long have looked upon your face,” ll. 5-8, Second April, Sonnet 7 (1921)
(Source)
François de Sales (1567-1622) French bishop, saint, writer [a.k.a. Francis de Sales, b. François de Boisy] Treatise on the Love of God, Book 9, ch. 1 [tr. Mackey (1884)]
(Source)
Being unable to abolish Love, the Church has desired at least to disinfect it, and has invented marriage.
[Ne pouvant supprimer l’amour, l’Église a voulu au moins le désinfecter, et elle a fait le mariage.]
Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867) French poet, essayist, art critic Journaux Intimes [Intimate Journals], “Mon cœur mis à nu [My Heart Laid Bare],” § 52 (1864–1867; pub. 1887) [tr. Isherwood (1930)]
(Source)
On the necessary points, unity. On the questionable points, liberty. In everything, love.
Augustine of Hippo (354-430) Christian church father, philosopher, saint [b. Aurelius Augustinus]
(Misattributed)
A commentary on theological / doctrinal dispute, frequently attributed to Augustine, but not found in his works.
The first known occurrence of such an expression is in Marco Antonio de Dominis, De Republica Ecclesiastica, Book 4, ch. 8, penultimate sentence (1617):
Omnesque mutuam amplecteremur unitatem in necessariis, in non necessariis libertatem, in omnibus caritatem.
[And let us all embrace one another, unity in what is necessary, liberty in what is not necessary, charity in all things.]
Love, such as it exists in high society, is merely an exchange of whims and the contact of skins.
[L’amour, tel qu’il existe dans la société, n’est que l’échange de deux fantaisies et le contact de deux épidermes.]
Nicolas Chamfort (1741-1794) French writer, epigrammist (b. Nicolas-Sébastien Roch) Products of Perfected Civilization [Produits de la Civilisation Perfectionée], Part 1 “Maxims and Thoughts [Maximes et Pensées],” ch. 6, ¶ 359 (1795) [tr. Dusinberre (1992)]
(Source)
It is a misfortune not to be loved at all, but an affront to be loved no longer.
[C’est un malheur de n’être point aimée ; mais c’est un affront de ne l’être plus.]
Charles-Lewis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu (1689-1755) French political philosopher Persian Letters [Lettres Persanes], Letter 3, Zachi to Usbek (1721) [tr. Healy (1964)]
(Source)
Chiding Usbek for leaving her and his other wives behind as he travels to France.
“God is love,” as Scripture says, and that means the revelation is in the relationship. “God is love” means God is known devotionally, not dogmatically. “God is love” does not clear up old mysteries; it discloses new mystery. “God is love” is not a truth we can master; it is only one to which we can surrender. Faith is being grasped by the power of love.
William Sloane Coffin, Jr. (1924-2006) American minister, social activist
“Emmanuel,” sermon (1979-12-09)
(Source)
God is known devotionally, not dogmatically. If as Scripture says, "God is love," then the revelation is the relationship. Christianity is not cleaning up old mysteries; it's the disclovsure of a new mystery. It is not a truth that you can master; it's only one to which you can surrender. Faith is being grasped by the power of love.
“In society,” M… would say, “you have three sorts of friends: those who love you, those who couldn’t care less about you, and those who hate you.”
«Dans le monde, disait M…, vous avez trois sortes d’amis: vos amis qui vous aiment, vos amis qui ne se soucient pas de vous, et vos amis qui vous haïssent.»
Nicolas Chamfort (1741-1794) French writer, epigrammist (b. Nicolas-Sébastien Roch) Products of Perfected Civilization [Produits de la Civilisation Perfectionnée], Part 2 “Characters and Anecdotes [Caractères et Anecdotes],” ch. 8 (1795) [tr. Parmée (2003), ¶343]
(Source)
“In the world,” remarked some one to me, “you have three kinds of friends: the friends who love you, the friends who do not trouble their heads about you, and the friends who hate you.”
[tr. Hutchinson (1902)]
M— said, "In society you have three kinds of friends: your friends who are fond of you, your friends who don’t care either way, and your friends who detest you."
[tr. Merwin (1969)]
"In the world," said M..., you have three sorts of friends: the friends who love you; the friends who don't care about you, and the friends who hate you."
[tr. Pearson (1973)]
You have three sorts of friend in polite society, M— used to say. Friends who are fond of you; friends who are unconcerned about you; friends who detest you.
[tr. Dusinberre (1992)]
"There are three sorts of friends in high society," M— used to say. "Friends who are fond of you, friends who don't care about you, and friends who detest you."
[tr. Dusinberre (1992), "Sampler"]
Love is swift, pure, dutiful, pleasant and agreeable; it is strong, patient, faithful, prudent, long-suffering, manly, never seeking its own advantage. For when anyone seeks that, he falls away from love.
[Est amor velox, sincerus, pius, prudens, longanimis, virilis, et seipsum nunquam quærens. Ubi enim seipsum aliquis quærit, ibi ab amore cadit.]
Thomas à Kempis (c. 1380-1471) German-Dutch priest, author The Imitation of Christ [De Imitatione Christi], Book 3, ch. 5, v. 7 (3.5.7) [Christ] (c. 1418-27) [tr. Knox-Oakley (1959)]
(Source)
Comparing love from God, what love toward God should be like, and an ideal of human love.
Love is swift, pure, meek, joyous and glad, strong, patient, faithful, wise, forbearing, manly, and never seeking him self or his own will ; forwhensoever a man seeketh himself, he falleth from love.
[tr. Whitford/Raynal (1530/1871)]
The Love of God is nimble in its Motions, sincere in its Intentions, ardent and zealous in Devotion, sweet to the Soul, brave in Attempting, patient in Enduring, faithful in Executing, prudent in Action, slow in Resentment, generous and manly, and seeks not to please the Person's self, but the Person beloved. For, where a Man seeks his own Advantage only, there Interest, not Love, is the Principle upon which he moves.
[tr. Stanhope (1696; 1706 ed.), 3.6]
Love is swift, sincere, pious, sweet and delightfull: strong, patient, faithfull, prudent, suffering, full of courage, and never seeking it selfe. For where one seeketh him∣selfe, there he falleth from love.
[tr. Page (1639), 3.5.25-26]
Love is active, sincere, affectionate, pleasant and amiable ; courageous, patient, faithful, prudent, long-suffering, manly, and never seeking itself. For in whatever instance a person seeketh himself, there he falleth from Love.
[tr. Payne (1803), 3.4.11]
Love is active, sincere, affectionate, pleasant and amiable; courageous, patient, faithful, prudent, long-suffering, manly, and never seeking itself. For in whatever instance a person seeketh himself, there he falleth from Love.
[ed. Parker (1841), 3.4.7]
Love is swift, sincere, pious, pleasant, and agreeable; brave, patient, faithful, prudent, long-suffering, and generous; and never seeketh itself; for that which seeketh itself, falls immediately from Love.
[tr. Dibdin (1851), 3.4.11]
Love is swift, sincere, pious, pleasant, and delightful; strong, patient, faithful, prudent, long-suffering, courageous, and never seeking itself; for where a man seeks himself, there he falls from love.
[ed. Bagster (1860)]
Love is swift, sincere, pious, pleasant, gentle, strong, patient, faithful, prudent, long-suffering, manly, and never seeking her own; for wheresoever a man seeketh his own, there he falleth from love.
[tr. Benham (1874)]
Love is active, sincere, affectionate, pleasant, and amiable; courageous, patient, faithful, prudent, long-suffering, manly, and never seeking itself. For in whatever instance a person seeketh himself, there he falleth from love.
[tr. Anon. (1901)]
Love is swift, sincere, kind, pleasant, and delightful. Love is strong, patient and faithful, prudent, long-suffering, and manly. Love is never self-seeking, for in whatever a person seeks himself there he falls from love.
[tr. Croft/Bolton (1940)]
Love is alert, frank, duteous, cheerful and pleasing: brave, patient, faithful, prudent, long-suffering, manly, and never seeking self. For wherever anyone seeks self, there he falls away from love.
[tr. Daplyn (1952)]
Love is swift, pure, tender, joyful, and pleasant. Love is strong, patient, faithful, prudent, long-suffering, vigorous, and never self-seeking. For when a man is self-seeking he abandons love.
[tr. Sherley-Price (1952)]
Love is eager, sincere and kind; it is glad and lovely; it is strong, patient and faithful; wise, long-suffering and resolute; and it never seeks its own ends, for where a man seeks his own ends, he at once falls out of love.
[tr. Knott (1962)]
Love is swift, sincere, pious, pleasant and delightful. It is strong, silent, patient, trustful and wise. It is tolerant. It has a manly disregard for personal profit. The self-seeker fails in love.
[tr. Rooney (1979)]
The truth is I’ve never fooled anyone. I’ve let men sometimes fool themselves. Men sometimes didn’t bother to find out who and what I was. Instead they would invent a character for me. I wouldn’t argue with them. They were obviously loving somebody I wasn’t. When they found this out, they would blame me for disillusioning them — and fooling them.
Marilyn Monroe (1926-1962) American actress, sex symbol My Story, ch. 24 “Another Love Affair Ends” (1974) [with Ben Hecht]
(Source)
After a hard night of it two old friends fell into a sleepy conversation in the steam-room of a Turkish bath. “My wife loves me so much,” said one, “that she’ll believe me when I tell her I was kept downtown all night by business.” “My wife loves me so much,” said the other, “that I won’t be afraid to tell her the truth.”
H. L. Mencken (1880-1956) American writer and journalist [Henry Lewis Mencken] A Little Book in C Major, ch. 1, § 10 (1916)
(Source)
The second time I ever saw you I learned what I had read in books but I had never actually believed: that love and suffering are the same thing and that the sum of love is what you have to pay for it and any time you get it cheap you have cheated yourself.
William Faulkner (1897-1962) American novelist The Wild Palms [If I Forget Thee, Jerusalem], ch. 3 [Charlotte] (1939)
(Source)
Love is more pleasant than marriage for the same reason that novels are more amusing than history.
[L’amour plaît plus que le mariage, par la raison que les romans sont plus amusants que l’histoire.]
Nicolas Chamfort (1741-1794) French writer, epigrammist (b. Nicolas-Sébastien Roch) Products of Perfected Civilization [Produits de la Civilisation Perfectionée], Part 1 “Maxims and Thoughts [Maximes et Pensées],” ch. 6, ¶ 391 (1795) [tr. Merwin (1969)]
(Source)
Love gives greater pleasure than marriage for the same reason that romances are more amusing than history.
[tr. Hutchinson (1902), "The Cynic's Breviary"]
Love is a pleasanter thing than marriage, for the same reason that the Romans are more amusing than History.
[tr. Mathers (1926)]
Love is more pleasant than marriage for the same reason that novels are more pleasant than history.
[Source]
Come to think of it, I don’t know that love has a point, which is what makes it so glorious. Sex has a point, in terms of relief and, sometimes, procreation, but love, like all art, as Oscar said, is quite useless. It is the useless things that make life worth living and that make life dangerous too: wine, love, art, beauty. Without them life is safe, but not worth bothering with.
Stephen Fry (b. 1957) British actor, writer, comedian Moab Is My Washpot, “Falling In,” ch. 6 (1997)
(Source)
Referencing Oscar Wilde from the preface of The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890): "All art is quite useless".
The cure for all the ills and wrongs, the cares, the sorrows, and crimes of humanity, all lie in that one word LOVE. It is the divine vitality that produces and restores life. To each and every one of us it gives the power of working miracles, if we will.
Lydia Maria Child (1802-1880) American abolitionist, activist, journalist, suffragist Letters from New-York, # 28, 1842-09-29 (1843)
(Source)
Speaking of Dionysus. (Source (Greek)). Alternate translations:
He, the grape, that med'cine for our cares,
Bestow'd on favour'd mortals. Take away
The sparkling Wine, fair Venus smiles no more
And every pleasure quits the human race.
[tr. Wodhull (1809)]
He gives to mortals the vine that puts an end to grief. Without wine there is no longer Aphrodite or any other pleasant thing for men.
[tr. Buckley (1850)]
He hath given the sorrow-soothing vine to man
For where wine is not love will never be,
Nor any other joy of human life.
[tr. Milman (1865)]
He gives the soothing vine
Which stills the sorrow of the human heart;
Where wine is absent, love can never be;
Where wine is absent, other joys are gone.
[tr. Rogers (1872), l. 732ff]
’Twas he that gave the vine to man, sorrow’s antidote. Take wine away and Cypris flies, and every other human joy is dead.
[tr. Coleridge (1891)]
He gave men the grief-assuaging vine.
When wine is no more found, then Love is not,
Nor any joy beside is left to men.
[tr. Way (1898)]
This is he who first to man did give
The grief-assuaging vine. Oh, let him live;
For if he die, then Love herself is slain,
And nothing joyous in the world again!
[tr. Murray (1902)]
It was he,
or so they say, who gave to mortal men
the gift of lovely wine by which our suffering
is stopped. And if there is no god of wine,
there is no love, no Aphrodite either,
nor other pleasures left to men.
[tr. Arrowsmith (1960)]
They say that he
has given to men the vine that ends pain.
If wine were no more, then Cypris is no more
nor anything else delighted for mankind.
[tr. Kirk (1970)]
It was he who gave men the gift of the vine as a cure for sorrow. And if there were no more wine, why, there's an end of love, and of every other pleasure in life.
[tr. Vellacott (1973)]
Didn't he make us
Mortal men the gift of wine? If that is true You have much to thank him for -- wine makes
Our labors bearable. Take wine away
And the world is without joy, tolerance, or love.
[tr. Soyinka (1973)]
The sorrow-ceasing vine he gives to mortals.
Without wine there is no Aphrodite,
nor longer any other delight for men.
[tr. Neuburg (1988)]
It was he,
so they say, who gave to us, poor mortals, the gift of wine,
that numbs all sorrows.
If wine should ever cease to be,
then so will love.
No pleasures left for men.
[tr. Cacoyannis (1982)]
He himself, I hear them say,
Gave the pain-killing vine to men.
When wine is no more, neither is love.
Nor any other pleasure for mankind.
[tr. Blessington (1993)]
He gave to mortals the vine that stops pain.
If there were no more wine, then there is no more Aphrodite
nor any other pleasure for mankind.
[tr. Esposito (1998)]
It's he who gave
To mortals the vine that stops all suffering.
Adn if wine were to exist no longer, then
Neither would the goddess Aphrodite,
Nor anything of pleasure for us mortals.
[tr. Gibbons/Segal (2000), l. 885ff]
He gave to mortals the vine that puts an end to pain. If there is no wine, there is no Aphrodite or any other pleasure for mortals.
[tr. Kovacs (2002)]
Besides, he's given us the gift of wine,
Without which man desires nor endures not.
[tr. Teevan (2002)]
He’s the god who brought the wine to the mortals. Great stuff that. It stops all sadness. Truth is, my Lord, when the wine is missing so does love and then… well, then there’s nothing sweet left for us mortals.
[tr. Theodoridis (2005)]
He is the one who gave us the vine that gives
pause from pain; and if there is no wine, there'll be no more
Aphrodite, & there is no other gift to give such pleasure to us mortals.
[tr. Valerie (2005)]
He gives to mortal human beings that vine which puts an end to human grief. Without wine, there's no more Aphrodite -- or any other pleasure left for men.
[tr. Johnston (2008)]
He is great in so many ways -- not least, I hear say,
for his gift of wine to mortal men.
Wine, which puts an end to sorrow and to pain.
And if there is no wine, there is no Aphrodite,
And without her no pleasure left at all.
[tr. Robertson (2014)]
When wine is gone, there is no more Cypris,
nor anything else to delight a mortal heart.
[tr. @sentantiq/Robinson (2015)]
He gave mortals the pain-pausing vine.
When there is no wine, Cypris is absent,
And human beings have no other pleasure.
[tr. @sentantiq (2015)]
I’ve heard he gave the grapevine to us mortals, as an end to pain.
And without wine, we’ve got no chance with Aphrodite. Or anything else good, for that matter.
[tr. Pauly (2019)]
He even gives to mortals the grape that brings relief from cares. Without wine there is no longer Kypris or any other delightful thing for humans.
[tr. Buckley/Sens/Nagy (2020)]
He gave mortals the pain-relieving vine.
But when there is no more wine, there is no Aphrodite
Nor any other pleasure left for human beings.
[tr. @sentantiq (2021)]
I wanted to love you: you prefer To have me as your courtier.
Well, I must follow your direction. But goodbye, Sextus, to affection.
[Vis te, Sexte, coli: volebam amare.
Parendum est tibi: quod iubes, coleris:
Sed si te colo, Sexte, non amabo.]
Martial (AD c.39-c.103) Spanish Roman poet, satirist, epigrammatist [Marcus Valerius Martialis] Epigrams [Epigrammata], Book 2, epigram 55 (2.55) (AD 86) [tr. Michie (1972)]
(Source)
I Offer Love, but thou Respect wilt have;
Take, Sextus, all thy Pride and Folly crave:
But know I can be no Man's Friend and Slave.
[tr. Sedley (1702)]
The more I honour thee, the less I love.
[tr. Johnson (c. 1755)]
Yes, I submit, my lord; you've gained your end: I'm now your slave -- that would have been your friend;
I'll bow, I'll cringe, be supple as your glove; -- Respect, adore you -- ev'rything but -- love.
[tr. Graves (1766)]
Sextus, would'st though courted be? I had hopes of loving thee.
If thou wilt, I must obey; I shall court thee, nor delay.
Dost thou ceremony seek? And renounce my friendship? Speak.
[tr. Elphinston (1782), Book 5, ep. 35]
To love you well you bid me know you better, And for that wish I rest your humble debtor;
But, if the simple truth I may express, To love you better, I must know you less.
[tr. Byron (c. 1820)]
You wish to be treated with deference, Sextus: I wished to love you. I must obey you: you shall be treated with deference, as you desire. But if I treat you with deference, I shall not love you.
[tr. Bohn's Classical (1859)]
You wish to be courted, Sextus; I wished to love you. I must obey you; as you demand, you shall be courted. But if I court you, Sextus, I shall not love you.
[tr. Ker (1919)]
I offered love -- you ask for awe; Then I'll obey you and revere;
But don't forget the ancient saw That love will never dwell with fear.
[tr. Pott & Wright (1921)]
You want my respect, I wanted to love you,
Sextus. I give in. Have my respect.
But I cannot prefer someone I defer to.
[tr. Bovie (1970)]
You would be courted, dear, and I would love you.
But be it as you will, and I will court you.
But if I court you, dear, I will not love you.
[tr. Cunningham (1971)]
You want to be cultivated, Sextus. I wanted to love you. I must do as you say. Cultivated you shall be, as you demand. But if I cultivate you, Sextus, I shall not love you.
[tr. Shackleton Bailey (1993)]
I would love you, dear, by preference, But you instead demand my deference.
And so my love I will defer, With courtesy, as you prefer.
[tr. Ericsson (1995)]
You ask for deference when I offer love; So be it; you shall have my bended knee.
But Sextus, by great Jupiter above, Getting respect, you'll get no love from me.
[tr. Hill]
You want to be my patron and my friend.
If you insist on patron, goodbye friend!
[tr. Wills (2007)]
I wished to love you; you would have me court you. What you want must be.
But if I court you, as you ask, Sextus, you'll get no love from me.
[tr. McLean (2014)]
My parents danced together, her head on his chest. Both had their eyes closed. They seemed so perfectly content. If you can find someone like that, someone who you can hold and close your eyes to the world with, then you’re lucky. Even if it only lasts for a minute or a day. The image of them gently swaying to the music is how I picture love in my mind even after all these years.
Patrick Rothfuss (b. 1973) American author The Name of the Wind, ch. 15 “Distractions and Farewells” (2007)
(Source)
FIRST OFFICER: That’s a brave fellow, but he’s vengeance proud and loves not the common people.
SECOND OFFICER: ’Faith, there hath been many great men that have flattered the people who ne’er loved them; and there be many that they have loved they know not wherefore; so that, if they love they know not why, they hate upon no better a ground. Therefore, for Coriolanus neither to care whether they love or hate him manifests the true knowledge he has in their disposition and, out of his noble carelessness, lets them plainly see ’t.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet Coriolanus, Act 2, sc. 2, l. 5ff (2.2.5-15) (c. 1608)
(Source)
All of us are infected today with an extraordinary egoism. And that is not freedom; freedom means learning to demand only of oneself, not of life and others, and knowing how to give: sacrifice in the name of love.
Andrei Tarkovsky (1932-1986) Russian film director, screenwriter, film theorist [Андрей Арсеньевич Тарковский] Sculpting in Time (1986) [tr. Hunter-Blair]
(Source)
Love, you tyrant!
To what extremes won’t you compel our hearts?
[Improbe Amor, quid non mortalia pectora cogis!]
Virgil (70-19 BC) Roman poet [b. Publius Vergilius Maro; also Vergil] The Aeneid [Ænē̆is], Book 4, l. 412 (4.412) (29-19 BC) [tr. Fagles (2006), ll. 518-19]
(Source)
Indeed, Miss Manners has come to believe that the basic political division in the society is not between liberals and conservatives but between those who believe that they should have a say in the love lives of strangers and those who do not.
Judith Martin (b. 1938) American author, journalist, etiquette expert [a.k.a. Miss Manners] Miss Manners Rescues Civilization, ch. 5 “The Law Takes Over from Etiquette” (1996)
(Source)
COUNTESS: It is the show and seal of nature’s truth,
Where love’s strong passion is impress’d in youth:
By our remembrances of days foregone,
Such were our faults; — or then we thought them none.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet All’s Well That Ends Well, Act 2, sc. 3, l. 134ff (2.3.134-137) (1602?)
(Source)
HELENA: There is no living, none,
If Bertram be away. ’Twere all one
That I should love a bright particular star
And think to wed it, he is so above me.
In his bright radiance and collateral light
Must I be comforted, not in his sphere.
Th’ ambition in my love thus plagues itself:
The hind that would be mated by the lion
Must die for love.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet All’s Well That Ends Well, Act 1, sc. 1, l. 89ff (1.1.89-97) (1602?)
(Source)
But, oh, how little they know, the omniscient seers.
What good are prayers and shrines to a person mad with love?
The flame keeps gnawing into her tender marrow hour by hour
and deep in her heart the silent wound lives on.
Dido burns with love — the tragic queen.
[Heu vatum ignarae mentes! quid vota furentem,
quid delubra iuvant? Est mollis flamma medullas
interea, et tacitum vivit sub pectore volnus.
Uritur infelix Dido ….]
Virgil (70-19 BC) Roman poet [b. Publius Vergilius Maro; also Vergil] The Aeneid [Ænē̆is], Book 4, l. 65ff (4.65-68) (29-19 BC) [tr. Fagles (2006), l. 82ff]
(Source)
Ah ignorant Priests, what availes temples, pray'r,
To ease th'inrag'd! whilst soft fire wastes her veins,
And in her breast, a silent wound remaines.
Unhappy Dido burnes ....
[tr. Ogilby (1649)]
What priestly rites, alas! what pious art,
What vows avail to cure a bleeding heart!
A gentle fire she feeds within her veins,
Where the soft god secure in silence reigns.
[tr. Dryden (1697)]
Alas, how ignorant the minds of seers! what can prayers, what can temples, avail a raging lover? The gentle flame preys all the while upon her vitals and the secret wound rankles in her breast. Unhappy dido burns ....
[tr. Davidson/Buckley (1854)]
Alas! but seers are blind to day:
Can vows, can sacrifice allay
A frantic lover's smart?
The very marrow of her frame
Is turning all the while to flame,
The wound is at her heart.
Unhappy Dido! all ablaze ....
[tr. Conington (1866)]
Alas, the ignorance
Of all prophetic lore! What vows, what shrines
Can help her raging love? The soft flame burns,
Meanwhile, the marrow of her life; the wound
Lives silently, and rankles 'neath her breast.
The unhappy Dido [...] with burning bosom ....
[tr. Cranch (1872), l. 85ff]
Ah, witless souls of soothsayers! how may vows or shrines help her madness? all the while the subtle flame consumes her inly, and deep in her breast the wound is silent and alive.
[tr. Mackail (1885)]
Woe's me! the idle mind of priests! what prayer, what shrine avails
The wild with love!—and all the while the smooth flame never fails
To eat her heart: the silent wound lives on within her breast:
Unhappy Dido burneth up ....
[tr. Morris (1900), l. 65ff]
Blind seers, alas! what art
To calm her frenzy, now hath vow or shrine?
Deep in her marrow feeds the tender smart,
Unseen, the silent wound is festering in her heart.
Poor Dido burns ....
[tr. Taylor (1907), st. 9-10; l. 71ff]
How blind the hearts of prophets be! Alas!
Of what avail be temples and fond prayers
to change a frenzied mind? Devouring ever,
love's fire burns inward to her bones; she feels
quick in her breast the viewless, voiceless wound.
[tr. Williams (1910)]
Ah, blind souls of seers! Of what avail are vows or shrines to one wild with love? All the while the flame devours her tender heart-strings, and deep in her breast lives the silent wound. Unhappy Dido burns ....
[tr. Fairclough (1916)]
Alas, poor blind interpreters! What woman
In love is helped by offerings or altars?
Soft fire consumes the marrow-bones, the silent
Wound grows, deep in the heart.
Unhappy Dido burns ....
[tr. Humphries (1951)]
Ah, little the soothsayers know! What value have vows or shrines
For a woman wild with passion, the while love's flame eats into
Her gentle flesh and love's wound works silently in her breast?
So burns the ill-starred Dido ....
[tr. Day Lewis (1952)]
But oh the ignorance of the augurs! How
can vows and altars help one wild with love?
Meanwhile the supple flame devours her marrow;
within her breast the silent wound lives on.
Unhappy Dido burns ....
[tr. Mandelbaum (1971), l. 86ff]
Alas, what darkened minds have soothsayers!
What good are shrines and vows to maddened lovers?
The inward fire eats the soft marrow away,
And the internal wound bleeds on in silence.
Unlucky Dido, burning ...
[tr. Fitzgerald (1981), l. 91ff]
But priests, as we know, are ignorant. What use are prayers and shrines to a passionate woman? The flame was eating the soft marrow of her bones and the wound lived quietly under her breast. Dido was on fire with love ....
[tr. West (1990)]
Ah, the unknowing minds of seers! What use are prayers
or shrines to the impassioned? Meanwhile her tender marrow
is aflame, and a silent wound is alive in her breast.
Wretched Dido burns ....
[tr. Kline (2002)]
But what do prophets know? How much can vows,
Or shrines, help a raging heart? Meanwhile the flame
Eats her soft marrow, and the wound lives,
Silent beneath her breast. Dido is burning.
[tr. Lombardo (2005)]
But what can prophets know? What use are vows
and shrines to the obsessed? The flame devoured her soft marrow;
the silent wound throbbed in her heart.
Unhappy Dido burned.
[tr. Bartsch (2021)]
PROTEUS: Oh, how this spring of love resembleth
The uncertain glory of an April day;
Which now shows all the beauty of the sun,
And by and by a cloud takes all away!
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act 1, sc. 3, l. 85ff (1.3.85-88) (c. 1590)
(Source)
A religious man is a person who holds God and man in one thought at one time, at all times, who suffers in himself harm done to others, whose greatest passion is compassion, whose greatest strength is love and defiance of despair.
Collected in Susanna Heschel, ed., Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity (1996). In other essays in the book, he uses the first clause ("a person who holds God and man in one thought, at one time, at all times") as a definition of a "prophet."
There are only two roads that lead to something like human happiness. They are marked by the words: love and achievement.
Theodor Reik (1888-1969) Austrian-American psychoanalyst, writer A Psychologist Looks at Love (1944)
(Source)
Collected (with some modifications) in M. Sherman (ed.), Of Love and Lust Part 1, ch. 14 (1957).
This is frequently paraphrased or misquoted as "Work and love -- these are the basics. Without them there is neurosis." The apparent source of these misquotations is George Seldes, The Great Quotations (1960), where he attributed the passage to Reik and his book. Where Seldes got it from is unknown.
But the Queen, long sick with love,
Nurses her heart’s deep wound
With her pounding blood, and dark flames
Lick at her soul. Thoughts of Aeneas —
The man’s heroic lineage, his noble character —
Flood her mind, his face and words transfix
Her heart, and her desire gives her no rest.
[At regina gravi iamdudum saucia cura
volnus alit venis, et caeco carpitur igni.
Multa viri virtus animo, multusque recursat
gentis honos: haerent infixi pectore voltus
verbaque, nec placidam membris dat cura quietem.]
Virgil (70-19 BC) Roman poet [b. Publius Vergilius Maro; also Vergil] The Aeneid [Ænē̆is], Book 4, l. 1ff (4.1-5) (29-19 BC) [tr. Lombardo (2005)]
(Source)
But long since Dido, struck with great desire,
Feeds a sad wound, and wastes in hidden fire.
His valour, his high birth run in her mind:
His face, and language, deep impression find,
Nor doth her care grant rest.
[tr. Ogilby (1649)]
But anxious cares already seiz'd the queen:
She fed within her veins a flame unseen.
The hero's valor, acts, and birth inspire
Her soul with love, and fan the secret fire.
His words, his looks, imprinted in her heart,
Improve the passion, and increase the smart.
[tr. Dryden (1697)]
But the the queen, long since pierced with painful care, feeds the wound in her veins, and is consumed by unseen flames. The many virtues of the hero, the many honors of his race, recur to her thoughts: hjis looks and words dwell fixed in her soul: nor does care allow calm rest to her limbs.
[tr. Davidson/Buckley (1854)]
Not so the queen: a deep wound drains
The healthful current of her veins:
Long since the unsuspected flame
Has fastened on her fevered frame:
Much dwells she on the chief divine,
Much on the glories of his line:
Each look is pictured in her breast,
Each word: nor passion lets her rest.
[tr. Conington (1866)]
But pierced with grievous pangs long since, the queen
Feeds in her veins the wound, by secret fire
Consumed. The hero's many virtues oft
Recur to her mind, and glories of his race.
Within her heart his looks, his words are fixed;
Her troubled soul allows her limbs no rest.
[tr. Cranch (1872)]
But the Queen, long ere now pierced with sore distress, feeds the wound with her life-blood, and catches the fire unseen. Again and again his own valiance and his line's renown flood back upon her spirit; look and accent cling fast in her bosom, and the pain allows not rest or calm to her limbs.
[tr. Mackail (1885)]
Meanwhile the Queen, long smitten sore with sting of all desire,
With very heart's blood feeds the wound and wastes with hidden fire.
And still there runneth in her mind the hero's valiancy,
And glorious stock; his words, his face, fast in her heart they lie:
Nor may she give her body peace amid that restless pain.
[tr. Morris (1900)]
Long since a prey to passion's torturing pains,
The Queen was wasting with the secret flame,
The cruel wound was feeding on her veins.
Back to the fancy of the lovelorn dame
Came the chief's valour and his country's fame.
His looks, his words still lingered in her breast,
Deep-fixt.
[tr. Taylor (1907), st. 1]
Now felt the Queen the sharp, slow-gathering pangs
of love; and out of every pulsing vein
nourished the wound and fed its viewless fire.
Her hero's virtues and his lordly line
keep calling to her soul; his words, his glance,
cling to her heart like lingering, barbed steel,
and rest and peace from her vexed body fly.
[tr. Williams (1910)]
But the queen, long since smitten with a grievous love-pang, feeds the wound with her life-blood, and is wasted with fire unseen. Oft to her heart rushes back the chief's valour, oft his glorious stock; his looks and words cling fast within her bosom, and the pang withholds calm rest from her limbs.
[tr. Fairclough (1916)]
But the queen finds no rest. Deep in her veins
The wound is fed; she burns with hidden fire.
His manhood, and the glory of his race
Are an obsession with her, like his voice,
Gesture and countenance.
[tr. Humphries (1951)]
But now for some while the queen had been growing more grievously love-sick,
Feeding the wound with her life-blood, the fire biting within her.
Much did she mue on the hero's nobility and much
On his family's fame. His look, his words had gone to her heart
And lodged there: she could get no peace from love's disquiet.
[tr. Day Lewis (1952)]
Too late. The queen is caught between love's pain
and press. She feeds the wound within her veins;
she is eaten by a secret flame. Aeneas'
high name, all he has done, again, again
come like a flood. His face, his words hold fast
her breath. Care strips her limbs of calm and rest.
[tr. Mandelbaum (1971)]
The queen, for her part, all that evening ached
With longing that her heart's blood fed, a wound
Or inward fire eating her away.
The manhood of the man, his pride of birth,
Came home to her time and again; his looks,
His words remained with her to haunt her mind,
And desire for him gave her no rest.
[tr. Fitzgerald (1981)]
But the queen had long since been suffering from love's deadly wound, feeding it with her blood and being consumed by its hidden fire. Again and again there rushed into her mind thoughts of the great valour of the man and the high glories of his line. His features and the words he had spoken had pierced her heart and love gave her body no peace or rest.
[tr. West (1990)]
But the queen, wounded long since by intense love,
feeds the hurt with her life-blood, weakened by hidden fire.
The hero’s courage often returns to mind, and the nobility
of his race: his features and his words cling fixedly to her heart,
and love will not grant restful calm to her body.
[tr. Kline (2002)]
But the queen -- too long she has suffered the pain of love,
hour by hour nursing the wound with her lifeblood,
consumed by the fire buried in her heart.
The man’s courage, the sheer pride of his line,
they all come pressing home to her, over and over.
His looks, his words, they pierce her heart and cling --
no peace, no rest for her body, love will give her none.
[tr. Fagles (2006)]
But love's pain had already pierced the queen.
She fed it with her life-blood; the hidden flame consumed her.
Aeneas' courage and his noble birth haunted her thoughts.
His face and words lodged in her heart.
Love let her find no rest in sleep.
[tr. Bartsch (2021)]
“Faith, hope, and charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.”
There is a deeper meaning in this text than we at first see. Of “these three,” two concern ourselves; the third concerns others. When faith and hope fail, as they do sometimes, we must try charity, which is love in action. We must speculate no more on our duty, but simply do it. When we have done it, however blindly, perhaps Heaven will show us the reason why.
Dinah Craik (1826-1887) English novelist and poet [b. Dinah Maria Mulock] Christian’s Mistake, ch. 2 (1865)
(Source)
I’m not sure there can be loving without commitment, although commitment takes all kinds of forms, and there can be commitment for the moment as well as commitment for all time. The kind that is essential for loving marriages — and love affairs, as well — is a commitment to preserving the essential quality of your partner’s soul, adding to them as a person rather than taking away.
Merle Shain (1935-1989) Canadian journalist and author Some Men are More Perfect Than Others, ch. 9 “Being True” (1973)
(Source)
Galla, deny; and render passion strong:
But, prudent Galla, don’t deny too long.
[Galla, nega: satiatur amor nisi gaudia torquent:
sed noli nimium, Galla, negare diu.]
Martial (AD c.39-c.103) Spanish Roman poet, satirist, epigrammatist [Marcus Valerius Martialis] Epigrams [Epigrammata], Book 4, epigram 38 (4.38) (AD 89) [tr. Elphinston (1782), Book 12, ep. 195]
(Source)
Galla deny, be not too eas'ly gain'd,
For Love will glut with Joys too soon obtain'd.
[tr. Cotton (1686)]
Galla, say "No:" love is soon sated, unless our pleasures are mixed with some pain;
but do not continue, Galla, to say "No" too long.
[tr. Bohn's Classical (1859)]
Refuse me, Galla; love cloys if its pleasures torture not:
but refuse not, Galla, too long.
[tr. Ker (1919)]
Galla, say "no" -- Tease love and you renew it.
But prithee, Galla, do not overdo it.
[tr. Pott & Wright (1921)]
Say you won't Galla: For passion cloys
if its joys are not tormenting
But don't take too long in relenting!
[tr. Bovie (1970)]
Galla, say no, for love, unless
It teases, cloys with happiness.
Don't take too long, though, to say yes.
[tr. Michie (1972)]
Galla, say no. Love palIs, unless its joys are torture. But Galla, don't say no for too long.
[tr. Shackleton Bailey (1993)]
A "No" can build love's piquancy,
But don't, too long, say "No" to me.
[tr. Ericsson (1995)]
Galla, say no. Love is satiated unless pleasures torment.
But, Galla, do not say no for too long!
[tr. Williams (2004)]
"No" is enticing; so is wooing slow.
But nothing works till you stop saying "No."
[tr. Wills (2007)]
Galla, say no. Some torment makes love stronger.
But, Galla, don’t keep saying no much longer.
[tr. McLean (2014)]
Galla, tell me "No": love stales unless its joys bring pain.
But, Galla, don't say "No" for very long.
[tr. Nisbet (2015)]
Without a wait or some hard trial,
love won’t amuse me.
So hesitate (just for a while ...)
[tr. Juster (2016)]
Galla, say No, for Love will cloy Without some torments mixed with joy.
But, Galla, do not get me wrong -- Please don’t say No to me too long.
[tr. Barger]
It is easy when you’ve been hurt by love to give it up as a bad job and make independence your new god, taking the love you had to give and turning it in upon yourself. And most of us have had to protect ourselves so much at times that we’ve given up the high road and taken the low. But independence carried to the furthest extreme is just loneliness and death, nothing more than another defense, and there is no growth in it, only a safe harbor for a while. The answer doesn’t lie in learning how to protect ourselves from life — it lies in learning how to become strong enough to let a bit more of it in.
Merle Shain (1935-1989) Canadian journalist and author When Lovers Are Friends, ch. 1 (1978)
(Source)
As the love increases in thee, so the loveliness increases: for love is itself the beauty of the soul.
Augustine of Hippo (354-430) Christian church father, philosopher, saint [b. Aurelius Augustinus] Homilies on the 1st Epistle of John [Tractatus in epistulam Ioannis ad Parthos], Homily 9 [tr. Browne (1888)]
Tolerance is a better guarantee of freedom than brotherly love; for a man may love his brother so much he feels himself thereby appointed his brother’s keeper.
Everett Dean Martin (1880-1941) American educator, minister, writer, lecturer Liberty (1930)
(Source)
The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.
J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973) English writer, fabulist, philologist, academic [John Ronald Reuel Tolkien] The Lord of the Rings, Vol. 1: The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 2, ch. 6 “Lothlórien” [Haldir] (1954)
(Source)
It’s impossible for men and women who love each other not to hurt each other now and then, but most women would settle happily for a man who tried not to cause the same hurt twice.
Merle Shain (1935-1989) Canadian journalist and author Some Men Are More Perfect than Others (1973)
Welcome, Christmas, bring your cheer.
Cheer to all Whos far and near.
Christmas Day is in our grasp,
so long as we have hands to clasp.
Christmas Day will always be
just as long as we have we.
Welcome Christmas while we stand,
heart to heart, and hand in hand.
Dr. Seuss (1904-1991) American author, illustrator [pseud. of Theodor Geisel] How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, TV special, final lines [Narrator] (1966) [with Irv Spector, Bob Ogle, Eugene Poddany]
(Source)
This phrase was from the 1966 animated special; it does not appear in the original 1957 book. It is unclear who actually wrote the words to the song, but "Dr. Seuss" is sually credited. The words are also embedded in the Whos' "Welcome Christmas" song. The narration was performed by Boris Karloff.
The last four lines are often paraphrased down to "Christmas will always be as long as we stand heart to heart and hand in hand."
And as those are base who are transported with gladness in the enjoyment of sensual pleasure, so are those scandalously vile whose minds are inflamed with desire for such indulgence. Indeed, all of what is commonly called “love” (nor, by Hercules, can I find any other name for it) is so trivial that I can see nothing to be compared with it.
[Et ut turpes sunt qui efferunt se laetitia tum, cum fruuntur Veneriis voluptatibus, sic flagitiosi, qui eas inflammato animo concupiscunt. Totus vero iste, qui vulgo appellatur amor — nec hercule invenio quo nomine alio possit appellari — tantae levitatis est, ut nihil videam quod putem conferendum.]
Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC) Roman orator, statesman, philosopher Tusculan Disputations [Tusculanae Disputationes], Book 4, ch. 32 (4.32) / sec. 68 (45 BC) [tr. Peabody (1886)]
(Source)
And as those are base who are elevated in Mirth, upon the satisfaction of their Lust, so are they scandalous, who are carried forth after it with an enflamed Concupiscence, and that whole affection commonly called Love (nor in truth do I find by what other name it may be call'd) hath so much of Levity in it, that I know nothing which I can think comparable to it.
[tr. Wase (1643)]
And as they are very shameful, who are immoderately delighted with enjoyment of venereal pleasures; so are they very scandalous, who lust vbehemently after them. And all that which is commonly called love (and believe me I can find no other name to call it by) is of such levity that nothing, I think, is to be compared to it.
[tr. Main (1824)]
And, as the brand of baseness attaches to those who glory in the shame of forbidden pleasures; so they are flagitious, who covet them with unbridled appetite. And, indeed, the whole of what vulgarly passes under the name of love -- and, by Hercules, I find no other name by which it can be called -- is of a levity which sets all comparison at defiance.
[tr. Otis (1839)]
And as they are very shameful who are immoderately delighted with the enjoyment of venereal pleasures, so are they very scandalous who lust vehemently after them. And all that which is commonly called love (and, believe me, I can find out no other name to call it by) is of such a trivial nature that nothing, I think, is to be compared to it.
[tr. Yonge (1853)]
Not only is it shameful to be carried away with gladness when enjoying the pleasures of Venus, but it is also disgraceful to have the mind aflame with desire for those pleasures. Indeed, speaking of what is popularly called love (not that I have any other name to call it!), all of it is so frivolous that I scarcely know what to compare with it.
[tr. Graver (2002)]
And as those who are carried away with joy when they enjoy Venus’ pleasures are filthy, those who share their desire with a burning spirit are criminal. Indeed, the whole thing which is commonly called "love" -- and by god it is impossible to name it anything else -- is of such meaninglessness that I know of nothing I think is comparable.
[tr. @sentantiq (2019)]
I do not love thee, Sabidius, nor can I say why;
I can only say this, I do not love thee.
[Non amo te, Sabidi, nec possum dicere quare:
Hoc tantum possum dicere, non amo te.]
Martial (AD c.39-c.103) Spanish Roman poet, satirist, epigrammatist [Marcus Valerius Martialis] Epigrams [Epigrammata], Book 1, epigram 32 (1.32) (AD 85-86) [tr. Bohn’s (1859)]
(Source)
I love thee not, Sabidius; ask you why?
I do not love thee, let that satisfy!
[tr. Wright (1663)]
I love thee not, but why, I can't display.
I love thee not, is all that I can say.
[tr. Killigrew (1695)]
SABBY, I love thee not, nor can say why.
One thing I can say, SAB: thee love not I.
[tr. Elphinston (1782)]
I love you not, Sabidis, I cannot tell why.
This only can I tell, I love you not.
[tr. Amos (1858), 3.86, cited as 1.33]
I do not love you, Sabidius, nor can I say why;
I can only say this, I do not love you.
[tr. Bohn's Classical (1897)]
I do not love you, Sabidius; and I can't say why.
This only I can say: I do not love you.
[tr. Ker (1919)]
I like you not, Sabidius, and I can't tell why. All I can tell is this: I like you not.
[tr. Shackleton Bailey (1993)]
I don’t love you, Sabidius, no, I can’t say why:
All I can say is this, that I don’t love you.
[tr. Kline (2006)]
Mister Sabidius, you pain me.
I wonder (some) why that should be
And cannot tell -- a mystery.
You inexplicably pain me.
[tr. Wills (2007)]
Sabidius, I dislike you, but why this is so true
I can't say, I can only say I don't like you.
[tr. Bovie (1970)]
Sabinus, I don’t like you. You know why?
Sabinus, I don’t like you. That is why.
[tr. Cunningham (1971)]
Sabidius, I don't like you. Why? No clue.
I just don't like you. That will have to do.
[tr. McLean (2014)]
There are some variations of this epigram of note. The first is from Thomas Forde (b. 1624):
I love thee not, Nell,
But why I can't tell;
Yet this I know well,
I love thee not, Nell.
[Letter to Thomas Fuller in Virtus Rediviva (1661)]
This seemingly served as a prototype for a more famous variant, attributed to Thomas Brown (1663-1704) (sometimes ascribed to "an Oxford wit") on Dr. John Fell, the Dean of Christ Church, Oxford, c. 1670:
I do not like thee, Dr. Fell,
The reason why I cannot tell;
But this, I'm sure, I know full well,
I do not like thee, Dr. Fell. [Works, Vol. 4 (1774)]
This is sometimes rendered:
I do not love you, Dr. Fell,
But why I cannot tell;
But this I know full well,
I do not love you, Dr. Fell.
Along these same lines:
I do not like you, Jesse Helms. I can’t say why I’m underwhelmed,
but I know one thing sure and true: Jesse Helms, I don’t like you.
[tr. Matthews (1995)]
You would think we would envy only what we love, for being loveable. But no, we envy those the world loves, because we care less for being loveable than being loved.
James Richardson (b. 1950) American poet
“Vectors: 56 Aphorisms and Ten-second Essays,” Michigan Quarterly Review, # 37 (Spring 1999)
(Source)
Some of you young folks been saying to me, “Hey Pops, what you mean ‘What a wonderful world’? How about all them wars all over the place? You call them wonderful? And how about hunger and pollution? That ain’t so wonderful either.” Well how about listening to old Pops for a minute. Seems to me, it aint the world that’s so bad but what we’re doin’ to it. And all I’m saying is, see, what a wonderful world it would be if only we’d give it a chance. Love, baby, love. That’s the secret, yeah. If lots more of us loved each other, we’d solve lots more problems. And then this world would be a gasser. That’s wha’ ol’ Pops keeps saying.
Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong (1900-1971) American musician
Spoken introduction to “What a Wonderful World” (1970)
(Source)
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of every day’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861) English poet Sonnets from the Portuguese, #43 (1850)
(Source)
Men use up their lives in heart-breaking political struggles, or get themselves killed in civil wars, or tortured in the secret prisons of the Gestapo, not in order to establish some central-heated, air-conditioned, strip-lighted Paradise, but because they want a world in which human beings love one another instead of swindling and murdering one another. And they want that world as a first step. Where they go from there is not so certain, and the attempt to foresee it in detail merely confuses the issue.
George Orwell (1903-1950) English writer [pseud. of Eric Arthur Blair]
“Can Socialists Be Happy?” Tribune (1943-12-20) [as John Freeman]
(Source)
Virtuous love consists in decorous desire for the beautiful.
[Δίκαιος ἔρως ἀνυβρίστως ἐφίεσθαι τῶν καλῶν]
Democritus (c. 460 BC - c. 370 BC) Greek philosopher
Frag. 73 (Diels) [tr. Freeman (1948)]
(Source)
Diels citation "73. (87 N.) DEMOKRATES. 38."; collected in Joannes Stobaeus (Stobaios) Anthologium III, 5, 23. Freeman notes this as one of the Gnômae, from a collection called "Maxims of Democratês," but because Stobaeus quotes many of these as "Maxims of Democritus," they are generally attributed to the latter. Alternate translations:
"Rightful love is longing without violence for the noble." [tr. Barnes (1987)]
"Just lust is longing for noble things without arrogance." [tr. @sententiq (2018)]
This is love, and the trouble with it: it can make you embarrassed. Love is really liking someone a whole lot and not wanting to screw that up. Everybody’s chewed over this. This unites us, this part of love.
Lemony Snicket (b. 1970) American author, screenwriter, musician (pseud. for Daniel Handler) Adverbs, “Collectively” (2006)
The first symptom of true love in a young man is timidity; in a young girl it is boldness. This is surprising, and yet nothing is more simple. It is the two sexes tending to approach each other and assuming each the other’s qualities.
Victor Hugo (1802-1885) French writer Les Misérables, Vol. 4, Book 3, ch. 6 (1862) [tr. Hapgood]
(Source)
I almost wish we were butterflies and liv’d but three summer days — three such days with you I could fill with more delight than fifty common years could ever contain.
John Keats (1795-1821) English poet
Letter to Fanny Brawne (3 Jul 1819)
(Source)
And the winner will be desire,
Shining in the eyes of a bride,
An invitation to bed,
A power to sweep across the bounds of what is Right.
For we are only toys in your hands,
Divine, unbeatable Aphrodite.
Triumphantly prevails
The heart-compelling eye of winsome bride,
Compeer of mighty Law
Thronèd, commanding.
Madly thou mockest men, dread Aphrodite.
[tr. Storr (1859)]
But victory belongs to radiant Desire swelling from the eyes of the sweet-bedded bride. Desire sits enthroned in power beside the mighty laws. For in all this divine Aphrodite plays her irresistible game.
[tr. Jebb (1891)]
Victorious is the love-kindling light from the eyes of the fair bride; it is a power enthroned in sway beside the eternal laws; for there the goddess Aphrodite is working her unconquerable will.
[tr. Jebb (1917)]
And none has conquered but Love!
A girl’s glance working the will of heaven:
Pleasure to her alone who mock us,
Merciless Aphrodite.
[tr. Fitts/Fitzgerald (1939), l. 653ff]
For the light that burns in the eyes of a bride of desire
Is a fire that consumes.
At the side of the great gods
Aphrodite immortal
Works her will upon all.
[tr. Watling (1947), l. 687ff]
Desire looks clear from the eyes of a lovely bride:
power as strong as the founded world.
For there is the goddess at play whom no man can fight.
[tr. Wyckoff (1954)]
The kindling light of Love in the soft
Eye of a bride conquers, for Love sits on his
throne, one of the great Powers;
Nought else can prevail against
Invincible Aphrodite.
[tr. Kitto (1962)]
Love alone the victor --
warm glance of the bride triumphant, burning with desire!
Throned in power, side-by-side with the mighty laws!
Irresistible Aphrodite, never conquered --
Love, you mock us for your sport.
[tr. Fagles (1982), l. 890ff]
Desire radiant from the eyelids
of a well-bedded bride prevails,
companion in rule with the gods’ great
ordinances. She against whom none may battle,
the goddess Aphrodite, plays her games.
[tr. Tyrell/Bennett (2002)]
You, Love!
Through the lashes of a lusty bride, Passion, you win the day, scorning the great laws which hold sway over the whole world.
Because Aphrodite is invincible!
[tr. Theodoridis (2004)]
The bride’s desire seen glittering in her eyes --
that conquers everything, its power
enthroned beside eternal laws, for there
the goddess Aphrodite works her will,
whose ways are irresistible.
[tr. Johnston (2005), l. 905ff]
In battle the victory goes to Love;
Prizes and properties fall to Love.
Love dallies the night
On a girl’s soft cheeks,
Ranges across the sea,
Lodges in wild meadows.
O Love, no one can hide from you:
You take gods who live forever,
You take humans who die in a day,
And they take you and go mad.
Love! in the fight invincible:
Love! whose attacks at once enslave:
Who on the young maid's delicate cheeks thy nightly vigils keepest:
Who roamest o'er the main and mid the rustic cots!
None can escape thee, -- neither Gods immortal,
Nor men whose lives are fleeting as the day:
He raves whom thou possessest.
[tr. Donaldson (1848)]
Love resistless in fight, all yield at a glance of thine eye,
Love who pillowed all night on a maiden's cheek dost lie,
Over the upland holds. Shall mortals not yield to thee?
Mad are thy subjects all.
[tr. Campbell (1873)]
Love, never foiled in fight! 1
Warrior Love, that on Wealth workest havoc!
Love, who in ambush of young maid's soft cheek
All night keep'st watch!--Thou roamest over seas.
In lonely forest homes thou harbourest.
Who may avoid thee? None!
Mortal, Immortal,
All are o'erthrown by thee, all feel thy frenzy.
[tr. Storr (1859)]
Love, the unconquered in battle, Love, you who descend upon riches, and watch the night through on a girl's soft cheek, you roam over the sea and among the homes of men in the wilds. Neither can any immortal escape you, nor any man whose life lasts for a day. He who has known you is driven to madness.
[tr. Jebb (1891)]
Love, unconquered in the fight, Love, who makest havoc of wealth, who keepest thy vigil on the soft cheek of a maiden; thou roamest over the sea, and among the homes of dwellers in the wilds; no immortal can escape thee, nor any among men whose life is for a day; and he to whom thou hast come is mad.
[tr. Jebb (1917)]
Love, unconquerable
Waster of rich men, keeper
Of warm lights and all-night vigil
In the soft face of a girl:
Sea-wanderer, forest-visitor!
Even the pure Immortals cannot escape you,
And mortal man, in his one day’s dusk,
Trembles before your glory.
[tr. Fitts/Fitzgerald (1939)]
Where is the equal of Love?
Where is the battle he cannot win,
The power he cannot outmatch?
In the farthest corners of earth, in the midst of the sea,
He is there; he is here
In the bloom of a fair face
Lying in wait;
And the grip of his madness
Spares not god or man.
[tr. Watling (1947), l. 675ff]
Love unconquered in fight, love who falls on our havings.
You rest in the bloom of a girl's unwithered face.
You cross the sea, you are known in the wildest lairs.
Not the immortal gods can fly,
nor men of a day. Who has you within him is mad.
[tr. Wyckoff (1954)]
Invincible, implacable Love,
O Love, that makes havoc of all wealth;
That peacefully keeps his night-watch
On tender cheek of a maiden:
The Sea is no barrier, nor
Mountainous waste to Love's flight; for
No one can escape Love's domination,
Man, no, nor immortal god.
Love's Prey is possessed by madness.
[tr. Kitto (1962)]
Love, never conquered in battle
Love the plunderer laying waste the rich!
Love standing the night-watch
guarding a girl's soft cheek,
you range the seas, the shepherds' steadings off in the wilds --
not even the deathless gods can flee your onset,
nothing human born for a day --
whoever feels your grip is driven mad.
[tr. Fagles (1982), l. 879ff]
Eros, undefeated in battle,
Eros, who falls upon possessions,
who, in the soft cheeks of a young girl,
stays the night vigil,
who traverses over seas
and among pastoral dwellings,
you none of the immortals can escape,
none of the day-long mortals, and
he who has you is maddened.
[tr. Tyrell/Bennett (2002)]
Love! You are beyond wars, beyond any place you fall!
You make nests out of the soft cheeks of young girls for your slumber
and you hover over the oceans and distant lands
and no immortal god, nor mortal man with his measured days escapes you!
And then, you catch and your catch becomes insane!
[tr. Theodoridis (2004)]
O Eros, the conqueror in every fight,
Eros, who squanders all men’s wealth,
who sleeps at night on girls’ soft cheeks,
and roams across the ocean seas
and through the shepherd’s hut --
no immortal god escapes from you,
nor any man, who lives but for a day.
And the one whom you possess goes mad.
[tr. Johnston (2005), l. 894]
Love, unconquered in battle, Love, who attacks wealth, who sleeps on a young girl's soft cheek and wanders beyond the sea and in the wilderness: There is no escape from you for immortals or men who live but for a day; he who has you is mad.
[tr. Thomas (2005)]
The greatest bloodshed? The most murders? I would say two things: sincere love and a sincere devotion to liberty. … If you kill out of love or for the perfect utopia, you never stop killing because human nature is always imperfect.
Peter Viereck (1916-2006) American poet, historian, academic
“Clio is No Cleo: The Messiness of History,” lecture, Mt. Holyoke College (1997)
(Source)
Reprinted in Society (Mar 2004) and collected in Strict Wildness (2008).
But, of all motives, none is better adapted to secure influence and hold it fast than love; nothing is more foreign to that end than fear. […] For fear is but a poor safeguard of lasting power; while affection, on the other hand, may be trusted to keep it safe for ever.
[Omnium autem rerum nec aptius est quicquam ad opes tuendas ac tenendas quam diligi nec alienius quam timeri. … Malus enim est custos diuturnitatis metus contraque benivolentia fidelis vel ad perpetuitatem.]
Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC) Roman orator, statesman, philosopher De Officiis [On Duties; On Moral Duty; The Offices], Book 2, ch. 7 (2.7) / sec. 23 (44 BC) [tr. Miller (1913)]
(Source)
Discussing the fate of tyrants such as Julius Caesar. Original Latin. Alternate translations:
Now of all those methods, which tend to the advancement and maintenance of our interest, there is none more proper and convenient than love, and none more improper and inconvenient than fear. [...] For obedience, proceeding from fear, cannot possibly be lasting; whereas that which is the effect of love will be faithful for ever.
[tr. Cockman (1699)]
Of all means there is none better fitted for supporting and retaining our influence than to be loved; or more foreign to it, than to be feared. [...] Fear is a false and short-lived security, but the love of men is faithful and lasting.
[tr. McCartney (1798)]
Now, of all things there is none more adapted for supporting and retaining our influence than to be loved, nor more prejudicial than to be feared. [...] For fear is but a bad guardian to permanency, whereas affection is faithful even to perpetuity.
[tr. Edmonds (1865)]
But of all things nothing tends so much to the guarding and keeping of resources as to be the object of affection; nor is anything more foreign to that end than to be the object of fear. [...] For fear is but a poor guardian for permanent possession, and, on the other hand, good will is faithful so long as there can be need of its loyalty.
[tr. Peabody (1883)]
Of all the means of maintaining power, love is the best, the worst fear. [...] Fear is a poor guardian of lasting power; love will keep it safe for ever.
[tr. Gardiner (1899)]
However, among all qualities there is no more appropriate way to preserve and defend one's resources than to be well-liked, nothing less appropriate than to be feared. [...] To arouse fear in others is a bad guarantee of longevity, while on the other hand good will is faithful unto eternity.
[tr. Edinger (1974)]
Loving can cost a lot but not loving always costs more, and those who fear to love often find that want of love is an emptiness that robs the joy from life.
Merle Shain (1935-1989) Canadian journalist and author Some Men are More Perfect Than Others (1973)
In When Lovers Are Friends (1978), Shain wrote it as "Caring can cost a lot, but not caring always costs more."
Homer (fl. 7th-8th C. BC) Greek author The Iliad [Ἰλιάς], Book 14, l. 216ff (14.216) (c. 750 BC) [tr. Fagles (1990), l. 259ff]
(Source)
Referring to Venus' girdle (cestus). Original Greek. Alternate translations:
In whose sphere
Were all enticements to delight, all loves, all longings were,
Kind conference, fair speech, whose pow’r the wisest doth inflame.
[tr. Chapman (1611), l. 181ff]
In this was every art, and every charm,
To win the wisest, and the coldest warm:
Fond love, the gentle vow, the gay desire,
The kind deceit, the still reviving fire,
Persuasive speech, and more persuasive sighs,
Silence that spoke, and eloquence of eyes.
[tr. Pope (1715-20)]
It was an ambush of sweet snares, replete
With love, desire, soft intercourse of hearts,
And music of resistless whisper’d sounds
That from the wisest steal their best resolves
[tr. Cowper (1791), l. 256ff]
In it were love, and desire, converse, seductive speech, which steals away the mind even of the very prudent.
[tr. Buckley (1860)]
There Love, there young Desire,
There fond Discourse, and there Persuasion dwelt,
Which oft enthralls the mind of wisest men.
[tr. Derby (1864)]
Therein are love, and desire, and loving converse, that steals the wits even of the wise.
[tr. Leaf/Lang/Myers (1891)]
Love, desire, and that sweet flattery which steals the judgement even of the most prudent.
[tr. Butler (1898)]
Therein is love, therein desire, therein dalliance -- beguilement that steals the wits even of the wise.
[tr. Murray (1924)]
Allurement of the eyes, hunger of longing, and the touch of lips that steals all wisdom from the coolest men.
[tr. Fitzgerald (1974)]
There upon it is affection, upon it desire and seductive dalliance with robs even a sensible person of wisdom.
[tr. Merrill (2007)]
Santa Claus is anyone who loves another and seeks to make them happy; who gives himself by thought or word or deed in every gift that he bestows; who shares his joys with those who are sad; whose hand is never closed against the needy; whose arm is ever outstretched to aid the week; whose sympathy is quick and genuine in time of trouble; who recognizes a comrade and brother in every man he meets upon life’s common road; who lives his life throughout the entire year in the Christmas spirit.
Edwin Osgood Grover (1870-1965) American publisher and educator
(Attributed (1912))
(Source)
To care passionately for another human creature brings always more sorrow than joy; but all the same … one would not be without that experience. Anyone who has never really loved has never really lived.
Agatha Christie (1890-1976) English writer Sad Cypress, ch. 2 (1940)
(Source)
Then they laughed and made good cheer, and either drank to other freely, and they thought never drink that ever they drank to other was so sweet nor so good. But by that their drink was in their bodies, they loved either other so well that never their love departed, for weal neither for woe. And thus it happed the love first betwixt Sir Tristram and La Beale Isoud, the which love never departed the days of their life.
Thomas Malory (c. 1415-1471) English writer Le Morte d’Arthur, Book 8, ch. 24 (1485)
(Source)
Variant: "They both laughed and drank to each other; they had never tasted sweeter liquor in all their lives. And in that moment they fell so deeply in love that their hearts would never be divided. So the destiny of Tristram and Isolde was ordained." [ed. Ackroyd (2010)]
One hardly dares to say that love is the core of the relationship, though love is sought for and created in relationship; love is rather the marvel when it is there, but it is not always there, and to know another and to be known by another — that is everything.
Florida Scott-Maxwell (1883-1979) American-British playwright, author, psychologist Women and Sometimes Men (1957)
(Source)
And I say to you, I have also decided to stick to love. For I know that love is ultimately the only answer to mankind’s problems. […] And I have seen too much hate. I’ve seen too much hate on the faces of sheriffs in the South. I’ve seen hate on the faces of too many Klansmen and too many White Citizens Councilors in the South to want to hate myself, because every time I see it, I know that it does something to their faces and their personalities and I say to myself that hate is too great a burden to bear.
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman, civil rights leader, social activist, preacher
“Where Do We Go From Here?” Southern Christian Leadership Conference Presidential Address (16 Aug 1967)
(Source)
It is necessary that we too should see the beam in our own eyes, and learn to distinguish between the Christianity of the nineteenth century and the religion of Christ. If we find that the Christianity of the nineteenth century does not win as many hearts in India and China as it ought, let us remember that it was the Christianity of the first century in all its dogmatic simplicity, but with its overpowering love of God and man, that conquered the world and superseded religions and philosophies, more difficult to conquer than the religious and philosophical systems of Hindus and Buddhists.
Max Müller (1823-1900) German-British philologist, Orientalist, religious studies founder Chips from a German Workshop, Preface (1866)
(Source)
But nowadays men can not love seven night but they must have all their desires: that love may not endure by reason; for where they be soon accorded and hasty, heat soon it cooleth. Right so fareth love nowadays, soon hot soon cold: this is no stability. But the old love was not so; men and women could love together seven years, and no lycours lusts were between them, and then was love, truth, and faithfulness: and lo, in likewise was used love in King Arthur’s days.
Thomas Malory (c. 1415-1471) English writer Le Morte d’Arthur, Book 18, ch. 25 (1485)
(Source)
We are the most unfair, not towards him whom we do not like, but toward him for whom we feel nothing at all.
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) German philosopher and poet Thus Spoke Zarathustra [Also Sprach Zarathustra], Part 2, “Of the Compassionate [Von den Mitleidigen]” (1892) [tr. Hollingdale (1961)]
(Source)
CHARLIE ANDERSON: There’s some difference between lovin’ and likin’. When I married Jennie’s mother, I — I didn’t love her — I liked her — I liked her a lot. I liked Martha for at least three years after we were married and then one day it just dawned on me I loved her. I still do … still do. You see, Sam, when you love a woman without likin’ her, the night can be long and cold, and contempt comes up with the sun.
James Lee Barrett (1929-1989) American author, producer, screenwriter Shenandoah (1965)
(Source)
A woman should never take a lover without the consent of her heart; nor a husband without the concurrence of her reason.
Anne "Ninon" de l'Enclos (1620-1705) French author, courtesan, patron of the arts [Ninon de Lenclos, Ninon de Lanclos] The Memoirs of Ninon de L’Enclos, Vol. 1, “Life and Character” (1761)
(Source)
I must respekt thoze, I suppose, who never make enny blunders, but I don’t luv them.
[I must respect those, I suppose, who never make any blunders, but I don’t love them.]
Josh Billings (1818-1885) American humorist, aphorist [pseud. of Henry Wheeler Shaw] Everybody’s Friend, Or; Josh Billing’s Encyclopedia and Proverbial Philosophy of Wit and Humor, “Affurisms” (1874)
(Source)
What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness; but love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or they be black.
Robert Francis Kennedy (1925-1968) American politician
Statement on the Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., Indianapolis (1968-04-04)
(Source)
The first time ever I saw your face
I thought the sun rose in your eyes,
And the moon and the stars were the gifts you gave
To the dark and empty skies.
Ewan MacColl (1915-1989) Scottish folk singer, songwriter, labour activist, playwright [stage name of James Henry (Jimmy) Miller]
“The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” (1957)
(Source)
There is no joy on this earth like falling in love with a woman and managing at the same time the trick of keeping just enough perspective to see her fall in love too, to see her begin to see you in a different way, to see her color change, eyes soften, her hand of itself reach for you. … And there is no pain on this earth like seeing the same woman look at another man the way she once looked at you.
Love makes you go all in. Love makes you voluntarily stupid. Love robs you of the humor you use to protect yourself and leaves you speechless. Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place. And then it strips you down, and leaves you fully nude for all to see.
Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960) American writer, folklorist, anthropologist
(Attributed)
This was originally cited here (without link to a source) as from Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, ch. 13 (1937). Per the comment below, I dug deeper to find an online copy of the book, and discovered the quotation was not there. The closest bits were in the final words of ch. 13:
He drifted off into sleep and Janie looked down on him and felt a self-crushing love. So her soul crawled out from its hiding place.
I cannot find any other citation for it, no work of Hurston that includes it (or any other fractions of it), and only one online book (beyond books of uncited quotations) that includes this full passage (and finishes it off with "... fully nude for all to see, / That's why it's so downright terrifying, / Falsely Yours,
Zora Neale Hurston").
Because of that, I am changing the citation to a more ambiguous "(Attributed)". If anyone has more information, I'd be happy to update this entry.
Ye knowe ek that, in forme of speche is chaunge
Withinne a thowsand yere, and words tho
That hadden prys, now wonder nyce and straunge
Us thynketh hem, and yet thai spake hm so,
And spedde as wele in love, as men now do ….
[You know that the form of speech will change within a thousand years, and words that were once apt, we now regard as quaint and strange; and yet they spoke them thus, and succeeded as well in love as men do now.]
Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1343-1400) English poet, philosopher, astronomer, diplomat Troilus and Criseyde, Book 2, st. 4, ll. 22-26 (1385)
(Source)
Note that the spelling varied between different editions of this same text.
Alt. trans.:
"Remember in the forms of speech comes change
Within a thousand years, and words that then
Were well esteemed, seem foolish now and strange;
And yet they spake them so, time and again,
And thrived in love as well as any men." [tr. Krapp (2006)]
The world is not respectable; it is mortal, tormented, confused, deluded forever; but it is shot through with beauty, with love, with glints of courage and laughter; and in these, the spirit blooms timidly, and struggles to be a light amid the thorns.
George Santayana (1863-1952) Spanish-American poet and philosopher [Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruíz de Santayana y Borrás] Platonism and the Spiritual Life (1927)
(Source)
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.
Mary Oliver (1935-2019) American poet
“Wild Geese,” Dream Work (1986)
(Source)
We need leaders not in love with money but in love with justice. Not in love with publicity but in love with humanity.
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman, civil rights leader, social activist, preacher
“The Birth of a New Age,” speech, Alpha Phi Alpha banquet, Buffalo (11 Aug 1956)
(Source)
King used the same phrases, or variations of them, for different speeches and sermons, e.g., in "Desegregation and the Future" (15 Dec 1956), he used "Leaders not in love with publicity, but in love with justice. Leaders not in love with money, but in love with humanity."
If a man who was rich enough in this world’s goods saw that one of his brothers was in need, but closed his heart to him, how could the love of God be living in him? My children, our love is not to be just words or mere talk, but something real and active.
But whoso hath this world's good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him? My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.
[KJV (1611)]
If we are rich and see others in need, yet close our hearts against them, how can we claim that we love God? My children, our love should not be just words and talk; it must be true love, which shows itself in action.
[GNT (1976)]
If anyone is well-off in worldly possessions and sees his brother in need but closes his heart to him, how can the love of God be remaining in him? Children, our love must be not just words or mere talk, but something active and genuine.
[NJB (1985)]
But if someone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but refuses to help—how can the love of God dwell in a person like that? Little children, let’s not love with words or speech but with action and truth.
[CEB (2011)]
If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.
[NIV (2011)]
How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help? Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.
[NRSV (2021 ed.)]
[Tolerance] carries on when love gives out, and love generally gives out as soon as we move away from our home and our friends.
E. M. Forster (1879-1970) English novelist, essayist, critic, librettist [Edward Morgan Forster]
“The Unsung Virtue of Tolerance,” radio broadcast (Jul 1941)
(Source)
Published as "Tolerance," Two Cheers for Democracy (1951)
A little smile, a word of cheer,
A bit of love from someone near,
A little gift from one held dear,
Best wishes for the coming year–
These make a Merry Christmas!
John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892) American poet and abolitionist
(Attributed)
Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.
But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, ‘Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.’
Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”
The Bible (The New Testament) (AD 1st - 2nd C) Christian sacred scripture
Luke 10:30-37 [NRSV]
(Source)
Alt. trans. [KJV]: "And Jesus answering said, A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead. And by chance there came down a certain priest that way: and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. And likewise a Levite, when he was at the place, came and looked on him, and passed by on the other side. But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was: and when he saw him, he had compassion on him, and went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. And on the morrow when he departed, he took out two pence, and gave them to the host, and said unto him, Take care of him; and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay thee. Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbour unto him that fell among the thieves? And he said, He that shewed mercy on him. Then said Jesus unto him, Go, and do thou likewise."
Alt. trans. [GNT]: "Jesus answered, “There was once a man who was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho when robbers attacked him, stripped him, and beat him up, leaving him half dead. It so happened that a priest was going down that road; but when he saw the man, he walked on by on the other side. In the same way a Levite also came there, went over and looked at the man, and then walked on by on the other side. But a Samaritan who was traveling that way came upon the man, and when he saw him, his heart was filled with pity. He went over to him, poured oil and wine on his wounds and bandaged them; then he put the man on his own animal and took him to an inn, where he took care of him. The next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Take care of him,’ he told the innkeeper, ‘and when I come back this way, I will pay you whatever else you spend on him.’” And Jesus concluded, “In your opinion, which one of these three acted like a neighbor toward the man attacked by the robbers?” The teacher of the Law answered, “The one who was kind to him.” Jesus replied, “You go, then, and do the same.”
For Yahweh your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, triumphant and terrible, never partial, never to be bribed. It is he who sees justice done for the orphan and the widow, who loves the stranger and gives him food and clothing. Love the stranger then, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.
The Bible (The Old Testament) (14th - 2nd C BC) Judeo-Christian sacred scripture [Tanakh, Hebrew Bible], incl. the Apocrypha (Deuterocanonicals)
Deuteronomy 10:17-19 [JB (1966)]
(Source)
Alternate translations:
For the Lord your God is God of gods, and Lord of lords, a great God, a mighty, and a terrible, which regardeth not persons, nor taketh reward: He doth execute the judgment of the fatherless and widow, and loveth the stranger, in giving him food and raiment. Love ye therefore the stranger: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.
[KJV (1611)]
The Lord your God is supreme over all gods and over all powers. He is great and mighty, and he is to be obeyed. He does not show partiality, and he does not accept bribes. He makes sure that orphans and widows are treated fairly; he loves the foreigners who live with our people, and gives them food and clothes. So then, show love for those foreigners, because you were once foreigners in Egypt.
[GNT (1976)]
For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who is not partial and takes no bribe, who executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and who loves the strangers, providing them food and clothing. You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.
[NRSV (1989 ed.)]
For your God יהוה is God supreme and Lord supreme, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who shows no favor and takes no bribe, but upholds the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and befriends the stranger, providing food and clothing. -- You too must befriend the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.
[RJPS (2006)]
For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes. He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the foreigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing. And you are to love those who are foreigners, for you yourselves were foreigners in Egypt.
[NIV (2011 ed.)]
Our culture has accepted two huge lies. The first is that, if you disagree with someone’s lifestyle, you must fear or hate them. The second is that to love someone means you agree with everything they believe, say, or do. Both are nonsense. You don’t have to compromise convictions to be compassionate.
Rick Warren (b. 1954) American Christian pastor and author
“Rick Warren on Muslims, Evangelism & Missions,” interview with Brandon A. Cox, Christian Post (2 Mar 2012)
(Source)
Love is a great force in private life; it is indeed the greatest of all things: but love in public affairs simply does not work. It has been tried again and again: by the Christian civilisations of the Middle Ages, and also by the French Revolution, a secular movement which reasserted the Brotherhood of Man. And it has always failed. The idea that nations should love one another, or that business concerns or marketing boards should love one another, or that a man in Portugal, say, should love a man in Peru of whom he has never heard—it is absurd, it is unreal, worse, it is dangerous. It leads us into perilous and vague sentimentalism. “Love is what is needed,” we chant, and then sit back and the world goes on as before. The fact is we can only love what we know personally. And we cannot know much. In public affairs, in the rebuilding of civilisation, something much less dramatic and emotional is needed, namely, tolerance.
E. M. Forster (1879-1970) English novelist, essayist, critic, librettist [Edward Morgan Forster]
“The Unsung Virtue of Tolerance,” radio broadcast (Jul 1941)
(Source)
Published as "Tolerance," Two Cheers for Democracy (1951)
I decided that perhaps I would like to think of myself as an extremist — in the light of the spirit which made Jesus an extremist for love. If it sounds as though I am comparing myself to the Savior, let me remind you that all who honor themselves with the claim of being “Christians” should compare themselves to Jesus. Thus I consider myself an extremist for that brotherhood of man which Paul so nobly expressed: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.” Love is the only force on earth that can be dispensed or received in an extreme manner, without any qualifications, without any harm to the giver or to the receiver.
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman, civil rights leader, social activist, preacher Playboy interview (Jan 1965)
(Source)
For the whole thing about matrimony is this: We fall in love with a personality, but we must live with a character. Behind the pretty wallpaper and the brightly painted plaster lurk the yards of tangled wire and twisted pipes, ready to run a short or spring a leak on us without a word of warning.
Peter De Vries (1910-1993) American editor, novelist, satirist Mrs. Wallop (1970)
(Source)
Often misquoted as "The difficulty with marriage is that ..."
Anxiety is love’s greatest killer. It creates the failures. It makes others feel as you might when a drowning man holds on to you. You want to save him, but you know he will strangle you with his panic.
Anaïs Nin (1903-1977) Catalan-Cuban-French author, diarist
Diary (1947-02)
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