Love Quotes

Unconditional love. That’s what he wants to give her and what he wants from her. People should give without wanting anything in return. All other giving is selfish. But he is being selfish a little, isn’t he, by wanting her to love him in return? He hopes that she loves him in return. Is it possible for a person to love without wanting love back? Is anything so pure? Or is love, by its nature, a reciprocity, like oceans and clouds, an evaporating of seawater and a replenishing of rain?

~ Alan Lightman

Love was selfish, wasn't it? It made honest men want things they had no right to. It cocooned one from the rest of the world, erased time itself, knocked away reason. It made you live in defiance of the inevitable. It made you want another's mind, body; it made you feel as if you deserved to own their heart, and carve out a place in it.

~ Alexandra Bracken

It’s really good to love yourself, just don’t love yourself so much in a way that you will not be able to see anyone else!

~ Raouf Ayoub

Of course I love you. It is my fault that you have not known it all the while (the flower to little prince)

~ Antoine De Saint-Exupéry

What you love is your own love. It's not love, it's selfishness. It's not me you think of, but what you feel about me.

~ John Fowles

She felt the lurch of a head rush. The boy who had not paid attention to her, the man who’d embarked on an affair knowing she could never be his, at the last moment he was asking for more. A piece of her was elated. But she was also struck by his selfishness.

~ Jhumpa Lahiri

It is a great mistake to suppose that a woman with no heart will be an easy creditor in the exchange of affection. There is not on earth a more merciless extractor of love from others than a thoroughly selfish woman; and the more unlovely she grows, the more jealously and scrupulously she extracts love, to the uttermost farthing.

~ Harriet Beecher Stowe

It was only that she wanted him to be happy, resenting, however, his inability to be so with things as they were, and never acknowledging that though she did want him to be happy, it was only in her own way and by some plan of hers for him that she truly desired him to be so.

~ Nella Larsen

And if redemption was self-serving, coming as it did ribbon-tied to what he wanted most in life? For once, Akiva's shame wouldn't rise to the bait. He wanted what he'd always wanted, and he'd better just say it, his own worries and fears be damned.

~ Laini Taylor

I have two ways of loving You: A selfish one And another way that is worthy of You. In my selfish love, I remember You and You alone. In that other love, You lift the veil And let me feast my eyes on Your living face.

~ Rabia Al-Adawiyya

If we are to build that Zion of which the prophets have spoken and of which the Lord has given mighty promise, we must set aside our consuming selfishness. We must rise above our love for comfort and ease, and in the very process of effort and struggle, even in our extremity, we shall become better acquainted with our God. — Gordon B. Hinckley

~ Gordon B. Hinckley

What a strange sort of love, to be entirely free from that quality of selfishness which is frequently the chief constituent of the passion, and sometimes it's only one!

~ Thomas Hardy

The word 'love,' used in connection with the reproduction of our species, is the most odious blasphemy taught in our times.

~ Honoré De Balzac

What did I get in return? Coldness and emotional detachment. You are selfish and bitter and you wouldn’t know a good thing if it fell out of the sky at your feet.

~ Tarryn Fisher

Nor was her love for Udayan recognizable or intact. Anger was always mounted to it, zigzagging through her like some helplessly mating pair of insects. Anger at him for dying when he might have lived. For bringing her happiness, and then taking it away. For trusting her, only to betray her. For believing in sacrifice, only to be so selfish in the end.

~ Jhumpa Lahiri

The love of our neighbor is the only door out of the dungeon of self, where we mope and mow, striking sparks, and rubbing phosphorescences out of the walls, and blowing our own breath in our own nostrils, instead of issuing to the fair sunlight of God, the sweet winds of the universe.

~ George Macdonald

I am a beast until I love as God doth love.

~ George Macdonald

I believe I may assert that they were really in possession of deep and growing happiness. It ended. Well, we must be for ourselves in the long run; the mild and generous are only more justly selfish than the domineering- and it ended when circumstances caused each to feel that the one's interest was not in the chief consideration in the other's thoughts.

~ Emily Brontë

You know, Emily was a selfish old woman in her way. She was very generous, but she always wanted a return. She never let people forget what she had done for them - and, that way she missed love.

~ Agatha Christie

A man has only one escape from his old self — to see a different self in the mirror of some woman's eyes.

~ Clare Boothe Luce

True happiness lies in being compassionate and appreciating the world and our circumstances, rather than being coldhearted and greedy. We often realize too late that our favorite moments are those spent simply with the people we love. In seeing the miracles that unfold around us every day. Eventually we all come to understand that our happiness is derived from being present in the moment. Why wait until the end of your life to discover this Truth?

~ Russell Simmons

Do not try to compensate people for the love they show you. Rather, replicate the love.

~ Faithful Akpaloo

She hadn't expected this. Are you not angry?Yes, very much so.Do you not require some time to think about what I've told you?Yes, I do. But you do not have to leave. There is much for me to come to terms with, mana mila, but I do not wish to be away from you anymore. Even when I am angry.

~ C.j. Markusfeld

Take time to sense the abundance we have, as we don't have an abundance of time.

~ Dixie Waters

The scar on my chest, the beating of my heart, and the mountains that fostered my appreciation for the cold, hard, natural world—these were the few things that mattered.

~ Daniel Wallock

I'm glad I didn't meet you when I was younger. I wouldn’t have had the wisdom to appreciate and cherish you for the gift you are in my life.

~ Steve Maraboli

He appreciated you. But he couldn't feed your soul for the rest of your life. Can't you just appreciate that he was great for you for that period of time?

~ Susan E. Isaacs

From chaos to lullabiesI watched herlive my thoughts,and soon enoughshe did becomemy favorite stony.She was everythingand with every wordshe drew me closer.She drew me into her story,a storyI knew I would neverbe able to understand.

~ Robert M. Drake

Deep down, he knew. He knew the reason behind the chaos and, in the process of acknowledging it, he fell in love with the concept of chaos.

~ Sonali Dabade

Codependency is a learned set of behaviors, thought processes, and habits. When combined together, they fit a very loose definition. All people exhibit these traits to some degree, but some of us allow them to dictate our relationships with others and ourselves.

~ David W. Earle

Being judgmental is a form of attack keeping others off balance.

~ David W. Earle

Boundary violations are deeply experienced.

~ David W. Earle

With improved coping skills forged through my midlife crisis, I now listen first and do not control, and I allow these now adult children to come to their own conclusions about what they want for their lives.

~ David W. Earle

The reason I love rules and plans and religions is that people feel safe in them for a while. And, personally, I don't have any rules. I don't need them. There's a sense of order that goes on all the time as things move and change, and I am that harmony, and so are you. Not knowing is the only way to understand... Meanings, rules, the whole world of right and wrong, are secondary at best. I understand how some people think they need to live by rules...It's very frightening for them to watch the world unfolding in apparent chaos and not realize that the chaos itself is God in his infinite intelligence.

~ Byron Katie

I drag my world where I belong...Lost in the oubliette of conscious I hide from the murkiest of shadowsGenerate hope amidst fear And dewdrops amidst rain My tears don’t carry the burden of pain By taking the draperies of fate along In desire of meeting my beloved in chaos I drag my world where I belong...

~ Annie Ali

May feel like you're falling', Tabby, but remember, I'm at the bottom ready to catch you.

~ Kristen Ashley

A Country is not a mere territory; the particular territory is only its foundation. The Country is the idea which rises upon that foundation; it is the sentiment of love, the sense of fellowship which binds together all the sons of that territory.

~ Giuseppe Mazzini

What is the sense of giving a boundary to all that, of giving it a name and ceasing to love where the name ceases to apply? What is love of one's country; is it hate of one's uncountry?

~ Ursula K. Le Guin

I need you.” He could not go any further down. Rock bottom. And at the very bottom was just this one thing. The core of it all. “Fucking... love you... too much.

~ Aleksandr Voinov

I am beginning to remember what it means to need things. Laughter. Companionship. Love. He leant forward and pressed his forehead to mine. And I need you, Merit.

~ Chloe Neill