If gratitude is the parent of all virtues, as Greek philosopher Cicero said, then love is the most celebrated of virtues. Inspirational love quotes, poems, songs and writings surely communicate love’s enduring power. Love lifts us from darkness, makes us happy and rewards us beyond measure. Even with its mystery, confusion, conflict, and suffering, love gives our lives purpose.
George Alexander Aberle (eden ahbez), an American songwriter and recording artist, wrote beautifully about the importance of love in his famous song Nature Boy: “The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.”
When we love, we hold people in our hearts and so do they hold us in their hearts. It’s a sacred and cherished way of giving to be handled with kindness, generosity, attention, and protection.
Love’s Expression
We express our love in various ways—romantic love, parental love, the love of a neighbor, friend, or pet. There is love of religion, hobbies, and our jobs. We can’t forget the love of self, which is as important as loving others. No matter what love we are referring to at the moment, one thing for sure, love is a choice. It’s a choice to be vulnerable, especially when it comes to romance. We open ourselves up to the potential misery of love lost. But even with our fears of loss and rejection, we can’t help but love others because it’s the most gratifying and meaningful experience of our lives.
Here are some inspirational love quotes, from friendship to romance, to keep love’s eternal value present in our minds:
Love for All
1. “Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.” ~Lao Tzu
2. “I am nothing special, of this I am sure. I am a common man with common thoughts and I’ve led a common life. There are no monuments dedicated to me and my name will soon be forgotten, but I’ve loved another with all my heart and soul, and to me, this has always been enough.” ~Nicholas Sparks, The Notebook
3. “Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.” ~Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land
4. “It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.” ~Andre Gide, Autumn Leaves
5. “Flatter me, and I may not believe you. Criticize me, and I may not like you. Ignore me, and I may not forgive you. Encourage me, and I will not forget you. Love me and I may be forced to love you.” ~William Arthur Ward
6. “Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.” ~Alfred Lord Tennyson, In Memoriam
7. “You don’t love someone because they’re perfect, you love them in spite of the fact that they’re not.” ~Jodi Picoult, My Sister’s Keeper
8. “If you live to be a hundred, I want to be a hundred minus one day, so I never have to live without you.” ~Winnie the Pooh
9. “Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” ~A Course In Miracles: Foundation For Inner Peace
10. “One word frees us of all the weight and pain in life. That word is Love.” ~Sophocles (496 BCE-406 BCE); ancient Greek tragedian
11. “Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don’t know how to replenish its source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of witherings, of tarnishings.” ~Anais Nin
12. “Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead.” ~Oscar Wilde
Friendship Love
13. “A friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you.” ~Elbert Hubbard
14. “Don’t make friends who are comfortable to be with. Make friends who will force you to lever yourself up.” ~Thomas J. Watson
15. “It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.” ~Friedrich Nietzsche
16. “A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out.” ~Walter Winchell
17. “A single rose can be my garden… a single friend, my world.” ~Leo Buscaglia
18. “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, Northanger Abbey
Parental and Child Love
19. “The depth of the love of parents for their children cannot be measured. It is like no other relationship. It exceeds concern for life itself. The love of a parent for a child is continuous and transcends heartbreak and disappointment.” ~James E. Faust
20. “Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.” ~Elizabeth Stone
21. “There is no friendship, no love, like that of the parent for the child.” ~Henry Ward Beecher
22. “Parents rarely let go of their children, so children let go of them. They move on. They move away. The moments that used to define them are covered by moments of their own accomplishments. It is not until much later, that children understand; their stories and all their accomplishments, sit atop the stories of their mothers and fathers, stones upon stones, beneath the water of their lives.” ~Mitch Albom, The Five People You Meet in Heaven
23. “There really are places in the heart you don’t even know exist until you love a child.” ~Anne Lamott
24. “I’ve learned that regardless of your relationship with your parents, you’ll miss them when they’re gone from your life.” ~Maya Angelou
25. “There’s nothing like your mother’s sympathetic voice to make you want to burst into tears.” ~Sophie Kinsella, Confessions of a Shopaholic
Romantic Love
26. “As he read, I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once.” ~John Green, The Fault in Our Stars
27. “If I had a flower for every time I thought of you…I could walk through my garden forever.” ~Alfred Tennyson
28. “You may not be her first, her last, or her only. She loved before she may love again. But if she loves you now, what else matters? She’s not perfect—you aren’t either, and the two of you may never be perfect together but if she can make you laugh, cause you to think twice, and admit to being human and making mistakes, hold onto her and give her the most you can. She may not be thinking about you every second of the day, but she will give you a part of her that she knows you can break—her heart. So don’t hurt her, don’t change her, don’t analyze and don’t expect more than she can give. Smile when she makes you happy, let her know when she makes you mad, and miss her when she’s not there.” ~Bob Marley
29. “You love me. Real or not real?” I tell him, “Real.” ~Suzanne Collins, Mockingjay
30. “Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn’t it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up.” ~Neil Gaiman, The Kindly Ones
31. “I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, in secret, between the shadow and the soul.” ~Pablo Neruda, 100 Love Sonnets
32. “We’re all a little weird. And life is a little weird. And when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall into mutually satisfying weirdness—and call it love—true love.” ~Robert Fulghum, True Love
Sibling Love
33. “Brother and sister, together as friends, ready to face whatever life sends. Joy and laughter or tears and strife, holding hands tightly as we dance through life.” ~Suzie Huitt
34. “Power, that’s one thing, but love of family and of siblings is more important, is more powerful than any other power – at least earthly power, at least earthly power.” ~Sander Levin
35. “A sister is someone, who loves you from the heart. No matter how much you argue, you cannot be drawn apart.” ~Shiv Sharma
36. “Being his real brother I could feel I live in his shadows, but I never have and I do not now. I live in his glow.” ~Michael Morpurgo
37. “Our brothers and sisters are there with us from the dawn of our personal stories to the inevitable dusk.” ~Susan Scarf Merrell
38. “Sisters and brothers are the truest, purest forms of love, family and friendship, knowing when to hold you and when to challenge you, but always being a part of you.” ~Carol Ann Albright Eastman
Which of these inspirational love quotes resonated with you? Let us know below. We’d love to hear from you.
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