34 verified quotes from 19 writers, c. AD 1120 to 1923.
Quotes 1 to 17 of 34, page 1 of 2.
Most of the love quotes here come from plays, poems and novels, so they are spoken by someone: Juliet on names and roses, Lysander on the course of true love, Mr. Darcy unable to say when his feelings began, Captain Wentworth writing that he is half agony, half hope. Shakespeare’s sonnets add the lines people read at weddings.
Not all of it is romance. Dostoevsky’s Father Zossima asks for love of every leaf and grain of sand, Dorothy prefers a gray Kansas home to any beautiful country, and Gibran calls work love made visible. Every quote below was found word for word in the full text of the public-domain edition we link.
What “verified” means, and what we leave out: How we verify.
A Book of Verses underneath the Bough, A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread—and Thou Beside me singing in the Wilderness
Our note: The quatrain as FitzGerald revised it for his later editions; the first edition words it differently.
Verified in the full text of Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #246
What's in a name? That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet
Our note: Juliet, on her balcony, wishes Romeo were not a Montague.
Verified in the full text of Romeo and Juliet on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #100 · Collected in The Complete Works of William Shakespeare
Painted the same decade: The Musicians, Caravaggio (Michelangelo Merisi), 1597
For aught that I could ever read, Could ever hear by tale or history, The course of true love never did run smooth.
Our note: Lysander comforts Hermia after her father forbids their marriage.
Verified in the full text of A Midsummer Night's Dream on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #100 · Collected in The Complete Works of William Shakespeare
Painted the same decade: Madonna and Child with Saints, Ludovico Carracci, 1607
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: …
Our note: The opening of Shakespeare's best-known sonnet.
Verified in the full text of Sonnet 18 on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #100 · Collected in The Complete Works of William Shakespeare
Painted the same decade: The Golden Age, Joachim Wtewael, 1605
For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings, That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
Our note: The closing couplet of the sonnet that begins in despair.
Verified in the full text of Sonnet 29 on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #100 · Collected in The Complete Works of William Shakespeare
Painted the same decade: The Golden Age, Joachim Wtewael, 1605
Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments, love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds
Our note: The opening of the sonnet about love that does not change.
Verified in the full text of Sonnet 116 on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #100 · Collected in The Complete Works of William Shakespeare
Painted the same decade: A Woodland Road with Travelers, Jan Brueghel the Elder, 1607
If music be the food of love, play on, Give me excess of it; that, surfeiting, The appetite may sicken and so die.
Our note: The play's opening lines, spoken by the lovesick Duke Orsino.
Verified in the full text of Twelfth Night on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #100 · Collected in The Complete Works of William Shakespeare
Painted the same decade: Saint Rosalie Interceding for the Plague-stricken of Palermo, Anthony van Dyck, 1624
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.
Our note: The novel's famous first sentence, which is gently ironic.
Verified in the full text of Pride and Prejudice on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #1342
Painted the same decade: The Public Viewing David's "Coronation" at the Louvre, Louis Léopold Boilly, 1810
I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look, or the words, which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.
Our note: Darcy answers when Elizabeth asks when he first fell in love with her.
Verified in the full text of Pride and Prejudice on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #1342
Painted the same decade: Waterfall at Mont-Dore, Achille-Etna Michallon, 1818
You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope.
Our note: From the letter Captain Wentworth writes to Anne Elliot near the end of the novel.
Verified in the full text of Persuasion on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #105
Painted the same decade: The Public Viewing David's "Coronation" at the Louvre, Louis Léopold Boilly, 1810
There is in every true woman's heart a spark of heavenly fire, which lies dormant in the broad daylight of prosperity; but which kindles up, and beams, and blazes in the dark hour of adversity.
Our note: The narrator of the same essay, on the strength shown in hard times.
Verified in the full text of The Wife on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #2048 · Collected in The Sketch-Book of Geoffrey Crayon
Painted the same decade: The Public Viewing David's "Coronation" at the Louvre, Louis Léopold Boilly, 1810
Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same; …
Our note: Catherine tells the housekeeper Nelly about her bond with Heathcliff.
Verified in the full text of Wuthering Heights on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #768
Painted the same decade: Study of a Female Nude, Henri Lehmann, 1840
My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods: time will change it, I'm well aware, as winter changes the trees
Our note: Catherine comparing her feelings for Edgar Linton and for Heathcliff.
Verified in the full text of Wuthering Heights on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #768
Painted the same decade: Study of a Female Nude, Henri Lehmann, 1840
If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger
Our note: Catherine tells Nelly what Heathcliff means to her.
Verified in the full text of Wuthering Heights on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #768
Painted the same decade: Study of a Female Nude, Henri Lehmann, 1840
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach
Our note: The opening of Sonnet 43, from the sequence she wrote during her courtship with Robert Browning.
Verified in the full text of Sonnets from the Portuguese on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #2002
Painted the same decade: Madame Frederic Breyer (Fanny Hélène Van Bruyssel, 1830–1894), Gustave Courbet, 1858
What we did had a consecration of its own.
Our note: Hester Prynne to Arthur Dimmesdale in the forest, refusing to call their love shameful.
Verified in the full text of The Scarlet Letter on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #33
Painted the same decade: Louis Gueymard (1822–1880) as Robert le Diable, Gustave Courbet, 1857
…a hand is put into theirs, which leads them forth gently towards a calm and bright land, so that they look no more backward; and the hand may be a little child's
Our note: On the little girl Eppie, who brings the lonely weaver Silas back to life.
Verified in the full text of Silas Marner on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #550
Painted the same decade: The Calm Sea, Gustave Courbet, 1869
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