“Love, love, love -- all the wretched cant of it, masking egotism, lust, masochism, fantasy under a mythology of sentimental postures, a welter of self-induced miseries and joys, blinding and masking the essential personalities in the frozen gestures of courtship, in the kissing and the dating and the desire, the compliments and the quarrels which vivify its barrenness.”
“One would always want to think of oneself as being on the side of love, ready to recognize it and wish it well --but, when confronted with it in others, one so often resented it, questioned its true nature, secretly dismissed the particular instance as folly or promiscuity. Was it merely jealousy, or a reluctance to admit so noble and enviable a sentiment in anyone but oneself?”
“For where there is true love, a man is neither out of measure lifted up by prosperity, nor cast down by mishap; whether you give or take away from him, so long as he keeps his beloved, he has a spring of inward peace. Thus, even though thy outward man grieve, or weep downright, that may well be borne, if only thy inner man remain at peace, perfectly content with the will of God.”
“A woman who could always love would never grow old; and the love of mother and wife would often give or preserve many charms if it were not too often combined with parental and conjugal anger. There remains in the face of women who are naturally serene and peaceful, and of those rendered so by religion, an after-spring, and later an after-summer, the reflex of their most beautiful bloom.”
“Love is the only bow of life's dark cloud. It is the Morning and Evening Star. It shines upon the cradle of the babe, and sheds its radiance upon the quiet tomb. It is the Mother of Art, inspirer of poet, patriot, and philosopher. It is the air and light of every heart, builder of every home, kinder of every fire on every hearth, It was the first dream of immortality. It fills the world with melody. Love is the magician, the enchanter, that changes worthless things to joy, and makes right royal kings of common clay.”
“Love is a canvas furnished by Nature and embroidered by imagination.”
“Love is never lost. If not reciprocated, it will flow back and soften and purify the heart.”
“Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing; a confusion of the real with the ideal never goes unpunished.”
“What does love look like? It has the hands to help others. It has the feet to hasten to the poor and needy. It has eyes to see misery and want. It has the ears to hear the sighs and sorrows of men. That is what love looks like.”
“Love is a promise, love is a souvenir, once given never forgotten, never let it disappear.”
“Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius.”