Love quotes from classic books

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?Thou art more lovely and more temperate:Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,And often is his gold complexion dimm’d,And every fair from fair sometime declines,By chance, or nature’s changing course untrimm’d:But thy eternal summer shall not fade,Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st,So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.I love thee to the depth and breadth and heightMy soul can reach, when feeling out of sightFor the ends of Being and ideal Grace.I love thee to the level of everyday’sMost quiet need, by sun and candlelight.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 useIn my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.I love thee with a love I seemed to loseWith 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.

You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight years and a half ago.

In vain have I struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.

Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same; and Linton’s is as different as a moonbeam from lightning, or frost from fire.

I have for the first time found what I can truly love—I have found you. You are my sympathy—my better self—my good angel.

Love one another, but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.

My bounty is as boundless as the sea,My love as deep; the more I give to thee,The more I have, for both are infinite.

If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more. But you know what I am.

Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind;And therefore is wing’d Cupid painted blind.

For aught that I could ever read,Could ever hear by tale or history,The course of true love never did run smooth.

If music be the food of love, play on,Give me excess of it; that, surfeiting,The appetite may sicken and so die.

Doubt thou the stars are fire,Doubt that the sun doth move,Doubt truth to be a liar,But never doubt I love.

O mistress mine, where are you roaming?O stay and hear, your true love’s coming,That can sing both high and low.Trip no further, pretty sweeting.Journeys end in lovers meeting,Every wise man’s son doth know.

What’s in a name? That which we call a roseBy any other name would smell as sweet;So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d,Retain that dear perfection which he owesWithout that title.

Good night, good night. Parting is such sweet sorrowThat I shall say good night till it be morrow.

Let me not to the marriage of true mindsAdmit impediments. Love is not loveWhich alters when it alteration finds,Or bends with the remover to remove:O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark,That looks on tempests and is never shaken;It is the star to every wandering bark,Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeksWithin his bending sickle’s compass come;Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,But bears it out even to the edge of doom.If this be error and upon me prov’d,I never writ, nor no man ever lov’d.

When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyesI all alone beweep my outcast state,And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,And look upon myself, and curse my fate,Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,Featur’d like him, like him with friends possess’d,Desiring this man’s art, and that man’s scope,With what I most enjoy contented least;Yet in these thoughts my self almost despising,Haply I think on thee, and then my state,Like to the lark at break of day arisingFrom sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven’s gate;For thy sweet love remember’d such wealth bringsThat then I scorn to change my state with kings.

Drink to me only with thine eyes,And I will pledge with mine;Or leave a kiss but in the cupAnd I’ll not look for wine.The thirst that from the soul doth riseDoth ask a drink divine;But might I of Jove’s nectar sup,I would not change for thine.

Come live with me and be my Love,And we will all the pleasures proveThat hills and valleys, dales and fieldsOr woods or steepy mountain yields.

She walks in beauty, like the nightOf cloudless climes and starry skies;And all that’s best of dark and brightMeet in her aspect and her eyes:Thus mellow’d to that tender lightWhich heaven to gaudy day denies.

O my Luve’s like a red, red roseThat’s newly sprung in June:O my Luve’s like the melodieThat’s sweetly play’d in tune!As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,So deep in luve am I:And I will luve thee still, my dear,Till a’ the seas gang dry:Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,And the rocks melt wi’ the sun;I will luve thee still, my dear,While the sands o’ life shall run.And fare thee weel, my only Luve,And fare thee weel a while!And I will come again, my Luve,Tho’ it were ten thousand mile.

I am the happiest creature in the world. Perhaps other people have said so before, but no one with such justice.

“There is no charm equal to tenderness of heart,” said she afterwards to herself. “There is nothing to be compared to it.”

All the privilege I claim for my own sex (it is not a very enviable one; you need not covet it), is that of loving longest, when existence or when hope is gone.

All mankind love a lover.

Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself. Love possesses not nor would it be possessed; For love is sufficient unto love.

Perhaps, after all, romance did not come into one’s life with pomp and blare, like a gay knight riding down; perhaps it crept to one’s side like an old friend through quiet ways; perhaps it revealed itself in seeming prose, until some sudden shaft of illumination flung athwart its pages betrayed the rhythm and the music, perhaps . . . perhaps . . . love unfolded naturally out of a beautiful friendship, as a golden-hearted rose slipping from its green sheath.

And at home by the fire, whenever you look up, there I shall be—and whenever I look up there will be you.

Theirs was that substantial affection which arises (if any arises at all) when the two who are thrown together begin first by knowing the rougher sides of each other’s character, and not the best till further on, the romance growing up in the interstices of a mass of hard prosaic reality. This good-fellowship—camaraderie—usually occurring through similarity of pursuits, is unfortunately seldom superadded to love between the sexes, because men and women associate, not in their labours, but in their pleasures merely. Where, however, happy circumstance permits its development, the compounded feeling proves itself to be the only love which is strong as death—that love which many waters cannot quench, nor the floods drown, beside which the passion usually called by the name is evanescent as steam.

The supreme happiness of life consists in the conviction that one is loved; loved for one’s own sake—let us say rather, loved in spite of one’s self

Love is the only ecstasy. All the rest weeps. To love, or to have loved,—this suffices. Demand nothing more. There is no other pearl to be found in the shadowy folds of life.

Each time you happen to me all over again.

Reader, I married him.

Time isToo Slow for those who Wait,Too Swift for those who Fear,Too Long for those who Grieve,Too Short for those who Rejoice;But for those who Love,Time is not.

John Anderson, my jo, John,When we were first acquent;Your locks were like the raven,Your bonie brow was brent;But now your brow is beld, John,Your locks are like the snaw;But blessings on your frosty pow,John Anderson, my jo.

Love is life in its fulness like the cup with its wine.

You smiled and talked to me of nothing and I felt that for this I had been waiting long.

A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread—and ThouBeside me singing in the Wilderness—Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!

The fountains mingle with the riverAnd the rivers with the ocean,The winds of heaven mix for everWith a sweet emotion;Nothing in the world is single,All things by a law divineIn one another's being mingle—Why not I with thine?See the mountains kiss high heavenAnd the waves clasp one another;No sister-flower would be forgivenIf it disdain'd its brother:And the sunlight clasps the earth,And the moonbeams kiss the sea—What are all these kissings worth,If thou kiss not me?

If thou must love me, let it be for noughtExcept for love’s sake only. Do not say“I love her for her smile—her look—her wayOf speaking gently,—for a trick of thoughtThat falls in well with mine, and certes broughtA sense of pleasant ease on such a day”—For these things in themselves, Belovëd, mayBe changed, or change for thee,—and love, so wrought,May be unwrought so. Neither love me forThine own dear pity’s wiping my cheeks dry,—A creature might forget to weep, who boreThy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!But love me for love’s sake, that evermoreThou may’st love on, through love’s eternity.

What greater thing is there for two human souls than to feel that they are joined for life—to strengthen each other in all labour, to rest on each other in all sorrow, to minister to each other in all pain, to be one with each other in silent unspeakable memories at the moment of the last parting?

Wheresoever she was, THERE was Eden.

Grow old along with me!The best is yet to be,The last of life, for which the first was made:Our times are in His handWho saith, "A whole I planned,Youth shows but half; trust God: see all nor be afraid!"

I loved you first: but afterwards your loveOutsoaring mine, sang such a loftier songAs drowned the friendly cooings of my dove.Which owes the other most? my love was long,And yours one moment seemed to wax more strong;I loved and guessed at you, you construed meAnd loved me for what might or might not be—Nay, weights and measures do us both a wrong.For verily love knows not "mine" or "thine;"With separate "I" and "thou" free love has done,For one is both and both are one in love:Rich love knows nought of "thine that is not mine;"Both have the strength and both the length thereof,Both of us of the love which makes us one.

All thoughts, all passions, all delights,Whatever stirs this mortal frame,All are but ministers of Love,And feed his sacred flame.

My bride,My wife, my life. O we will walk this world,Yoked in all exercise of noble end,And so through those dark gates across the wildThat no man knows. Indeed I love thee: come,Yield thyself up: my hopes and thine are one:Accomplish thou my manhood and thyself;Lay thy sweet hands in mine and trust to me.

The face of all the world is changed, I think,Since first I heard the footsteps of thy soulMove still, oh, still, beside me, as they stoleBetwixt me and the dreadful outer brinkOf obvious death, where I, who thought to sink,Was caught up into love, and taught the wholeOf life in a new rhythm. The cup of doleGod gave for baptism, I am fain to drink,And praise its sweetness, Sweet, with thee anear.The names of country, heaven, are changed awayFor where thou art or shalt be, there or here;And this . . . this lute and song . . . loved yesterday,(The singing angels know) are only dearBecause thy name moves right in what they say.

If I were hanged on the highest hill,Mother o’ mine, O mother o’ mine!I know whose love would follow me still,Mother o’ mine, O mother o’ mine!If I were drowned in the deepest sea,Mother o’ mine, O mother o’ mine!I know whose tears would come down to me,Mother o’ mine, O mother o’ mine!If I were damned of body and soul,I know whose prayers would make me whole,Mother o’ mine, O mother o’ mine!

Oh, there is an enduring tenderness in the love of a mother to a son, that transcends all other affections of the heart. It is neither to be chilled by selfishness, nor daunted by danger, nor weakened by worthlessness, nor stifled by ingratitude. She will sacrifice every comfort to his convenience; she will surrender every pleasure to his enjoyment; she will glory in his fame and exult in his prosperity; and, if misfortune overtake him, he will be the dearer to her from misfortune; and if disgrace settle upon his name, she will still love and cherish him in spite of his disgrace; and if all the world beside cast him off, she will be all the world to him.

You too, my mother, read my rhymesFor love of unforgotten times,And you may chance to hear once moreThe little feet along the floor.

Thou art thy mother’s glass and she in theeCalls back the lovely April of her prime;So thou through windows of thine age shalt see,Despite of wrinkles this thy golden time.

Happy heWith such a mother! faith in womankindBeats with his blood, and trust in all things highComes easy to him, and though he trip and fallHe shall not blind his soul with clay.

Sonnets are full of love, and this my tomeHas many sonnets: so here now shall beOne sonnet more, a love sonnet, from meTo her whose heart is my heart's quiet home,To my first Love, my Mother, on whose kneeI learnt love-lore that is not troublesome;Whose service is my special dignity,And she my loadstar while I go and come.And so because you love me, and becauseI love you, Mother, I have woven a wreathOf rhymes wherewith to crown your honored name:In you not fourscore years can dim the flameOf love, whose blessed glow transcends the lawsOf time and change and mortal life and death.

For when you looked into my mother’s eyes you knew, as if He had told you, why God sent her into the world—it was to open the minds of all who looked to beautiful thoughts. And that is the beginning and end of literature.

I want my daughters to be beautiful, accomplished, and good. To be admired, loved, and respected. To have a happy youth, to be well and wisely married, and to lead useful, pleasant lives, with as little care and sorrow to try them as God sees fit to send.

“Well now, I’d rather have you than a dozen boys, Anne,” said Matthew patting her hand. “Just mind you that—rather than a dozen boys. Well now, I guess it wasn’t a boy that took the Avery scholarship, was it? It was a girl—my girl—my girl that I’m proud of.”

A year seems very long to wait before I see them, but remind them that while we wait we may all work, so that these hard days need not be wasted. I know they will remember all I said to them, that they will be loving children to you, will do their duty faithfully, fight their bosom enemies bravely, and conquer themselves so beautifully that when I come back to them I may be fonder and prouder than ever of my little women.

That time of year thou mayst in me beholdWhen yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hangUpon those boughs which shake against the cold,Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.In me thou see’st the twilight of such dayAs after sunset fadeth in the west;Which by and by black night doth take away,Death’s second self, that seals up all in rest.In me thou see’st the glowing of such fire,That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,As the death-bed, whereon it must expire,Consum’d with that which it was nourish’d by.This thou perceiv’st, which makes thy love more strong,To love that well, which thou must leave ere long.

How like a winter hath my absence beenFrom thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen!What old December’s bareness everywhere!And yet this time removed was summer’s time;The teeming autumn, big with rich increase,Bearing the wanton burden of the prime,Like widow’d wombs after their lords’ decease:Yet this abundant issue seem’d to meBut hope of orphans, and unfather’d fruit;For summer and his pleasures wait on thee,And, thou away, the very birds are mute:Or, if they sing, ’tis with so dull a cheer,That leaves look pale, dreading the winter’s near.

Age cannot wither her, nor custom staleHer infinite variety.

Marriage is one long conversation, chequered by disputes. The disputes are valueless; they but ingrain the difference; the heroic heart of woman prompting her at once to nail her colours to the mast. But in the intervals, almost unconsciously and with no desire to shine, the whole material of life is turned over and over, ideas are struck out and shared, the two persons more and more adapt their notions one to suit the other, and in process of time, without sound of trumpet, they conduct each other into new worlds of thought.