"There are no gains without pains."

Franklin, Benjamin | Pain | 7 bookmarks

"Love means the body, the soul, the life, the entire being. We feel love as we feel the warmth of our blood, we breathe love as we breathe air, we hold it in ourselves as we hold our thoughts. Nothing more exists for us."

Maupassant, Guy de | Love | 6 bookmarks

"The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves, or rather in spite of ourselves."

Hugo, Victor | Love | 6 bookmarks

"We don't love qualities, we love persons; sometimes by reason of their defects as well as of their qualities."

Maritain, Jacques | Character | 3 bookmarks

"The way of peace is the way of love. Love is the greatest power on earth. It conquers all things."

Pilgrim, Peace | Love | 3 bookmarks

"When a man has once loved a woman, he will do anything for her, except continue to love her."

Wilde, Oscar | Love Ended | 8 bookmarks

"Those who haven't loved somebody else, more than they love themselves haven't even begun to live"

Unknown, Source | Love | 4 bookmarks

"In real love you want the other person's good. In romantic love, you want the other person."

Anderson, Margaret | Love | 28 bookmarks

"I do not love you

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way

that this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep."

Neruda, Pablo | Lovers | 26 bookmarks

"Romantic love, in pornography as in life, is the mythic celebration of female negation. For a woman, love is defined as her willingness to submit to her own annihilation. The proof of love is that she is willing to be destroyed by the one whom she loves, for his sake. For the woman, love is always self-sacrifice, the sacrifice of identity, will, and bodily integrity, in order to fulfill and redeem the masculinity of her lover."

Dworkin, Andrea | Love | 4 bookmarks