Ah, love. It is the elusive and ephemeral chemical experience that all humans desire and yearn for. It’s so powerful that it can be hard to describe. Thus, it’s understandable that the topic-and in particular, its expression-may seem daunting for that reason. It’s important not to trip over your words when you’re trying to convey how much you care for someone.
Valentine’s Day is the perfect occasion to express your affection to the apple of your eye (whether that’s him, her, or maybe just yourself). Challenging as it may be, the task becomes much easier if you look to the love letters and sayings of some of the most famous writers, actors, and even philosophers from history. Since they can express emotions and put into words what most of us can’t, they have made names for themselves.
Here are 30 of the very best quotes about love to inspire you to get into the spirit for Valentine’s Day or to inspire your card for the holiday. The only thing left is to find a gift for that special someone.
“Love has nothing to do with what you are expecting to get–only with what you are expecting to give–which is everything.”
–Katharine Hepburn
“Where there is love there is life.”
–Mahatma Gandhi
“Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.”
–Emily Brontë
“It is a curious thought, but it is only when you see people looking ridiculous that you realize just how much you love them.”
–Agatha Christie
“The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves.”
–Victor Hugo
“In love there are two things– bodies and words.”
–Joyce Carol Oates
“Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place.”
–Zora Neale Hurston
“There is always madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.”
–Friedrich Nietzsche
“Nobody has ever measured, even poets, how much a heart can hold.”
–Zelda Fitzgerald
“Have enough courage to trust love one more time and always one more time.”
–Maya Angelou
“Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction.”
–Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
“Love is a fire. But whether it is going to warm your hearth or burn down your house, you can never tell.”
–Joan Crawford
“I love her and it is the beginning of everything.”
–F. Scott Fitzgerald
“When you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.”
–Nora Ephron
“Never love anyone who treats you like you’re ordinary.”
–Oscar Wilde
“Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down.”
— Oprah Winfrey
“Love is something sent from heaven to worry the hell out of you.”
— Dolly Parton
“There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends. I have no notion of loving people by halves; it is not my nature.”
— Jane Austen
“Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired.”
— Robert Frost
“The giving of love is an education in itself.”
— Eleanor Roosevelt
“Life is the flower for which love is the honey.”
— Victor Hugo
“Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.”
—Lao Tzu
“We are most alive when we are in love.”
—John Updike
“The only thing we never get enough of is love; and the only thing we never give enough of is love.”
—Henry Miller
“There is only one happiness in this life, to love and be loved.”
—George Sand
“To love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides.”
—David Viscott
“Love does not dominate; it cultivates.”
—Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
“Love is the whole thing. We are only pieces.”
—Rumi
“Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.”
—Aristotle
“There is no charm equal to tenderness of the heart.”
—Jane Austen