To love is to risk not being loved in return. A relationship is like a rose,I have been astonished that men could die martyrs for their religion Calling it a simple schoolgirl crush was like saying a Rolls Royce was a vehicle with four wheels, something like a hay wagon. She did not giggle wildly and blush when she saw him, nor did she chalk his name on trees or write it on the walls of the Kissing Bridge. She simply lived with his face in her heart all of the time, a kind of sweet, hurtful ache. She would have died for him. ››What I can give you now is nothing you can touch with your hands. I give you my love. Never forget that. My love always. ››Young lovers seek perfection. Old lovers learn the art of sewing shreds together and of seeing beauty in a multiplicity of patches. ››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. ››May those who love us, love us. And those who don't love us, may God turn their hearts. And if He cannot turn their hearts, may he turn their ankles, so that we may know them by their limping. ››How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. Listen to no one who tells you how to love. I love you. And not, not in a friendly way, although I think we're great friends. And not in a misplaced affection, puppy-dog way, although I'm sure that's what you'll call it. I love you. Very, very simple, very truly. You are the-the epitome of everything I have ever looked for in another human being. And I know that you think of me as just a friend, and crossing that line is-is-is the furthest thing from an option you would ever consider. But I had to say it. I just, I can't take this anymore. I can't stand next to you without wanting to hold you. I can't-I can't look into your eyes without feeling that-that longing you only read about in trashy romance novels. I can't talk to you without wanting to express my love for everything you are. And I know this will probably queer our friendship - no pun intended - but I had to say it, 'cause I've never felt this way before, and I-I don't care. I like who I am because of it. And if bringing this to light means we can't hang out anymore, then that hurts me. But God, I just, I couldn't allow another day to go by without just getting it out there, regardless of the outcome, which by the look on your face is to be the inevitable shoot-down. And, you know, I'll accept that. But I know, I know that some part of you is hesitating for a moment, and if there's a moment of hesitation, then that means you feel something too. And all I ask, please, is that you just - you just not dismiss that, and try to dwell in it for just ten seconds. Alyssa, there isn't another soul on this fucking planet who has ever made me half the person I am when I'm with you, and I would risk this friendship for the chance to take it to the next plateau. Because it is there between you and me. You can't deny that. Even if, you know, even if we never talk again after tonight, please know that I am forever changed because of who you are and what you've meant to me, which - while I do appreciate it - I'd never need a painting of birds bought at a diner to remind me of. ››Everyone should carefully observe which way his heart draws him and then choose that way with all his strength. ››Doubt that the stars are fire; Once you have loved, you will always love. Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator, but among those whom I love, I can. All of them make me laugh. ››I fell in love with her courage, her sincerity, and her flaming self-respect, and it's these things I'd believe in even if the whole world indulged in wild suspicions that she wasn't all she should be. I love her and that's the beginning of everything. ››Grief can take care of itself, but to get the full value of a joy you must have somebody to divide it with. ››You know it's love when all you want is that person to be happy, even if you're not part of their happiness. ››To love one who loves you, You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams. ››Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that. ››When you trip over love, it is easy to get up. But when you fall in love, it is impossible to stand again. ››Yet each man kills the thing he loves If I am to be fallen into love, I will. And if as a result I will appear to be stupid, disillusioned, and of poor judgment, I will. And I would be damned if I cared what other people think. For I would rather be thought of as all of these things, than not love. If in loving, I become the naked woman on the horse, I will ride that horse with my head held high. This is my spirit. I am unbreakable. ››We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearth-stone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature. ››To be brave is to love someone unconditionally, without expecting anything in return. To just give. That takes courage, because we don't want to fall on our faces or leave ourselves open to hurt. ››My point is that love is the most powerful motivator in the world. It spurs mortals to greatness. Their noblest, bravest acts are done for love. ››There are only two emotions: love and fear. All positive emotions come from love, all negative emotions from fear. From love flows happiness, contentment, peace, and joy. From fear comes anger, hate, anxiety and guilt. It's true that there are only two primary emotions, love and fear. But it's more accurate to say that there is only love or fear, for we cannot feel these two emotions together, at exactly the same time. They're opposites. If we're in fear, we are not in a place of love. When we're in a place of love, we cannot be in a place of fear. ››If we could raise one generation with unconditional love, there would be no Hitlers. We need to teach the next generation of children from Day One that they are responsible for their lives. ››Mankind’s greatest gift, also its greatest curse, is that we have free choice. We can make our choices built from love or from fear. ››I think that modern medicine has become like a prophet offering a life free of pain. It is nonsense. The only thing I know that truly heals people is unconditional love. ››Love is the expression of the one who loves, not of the one who is loved. Those who think they can love only the people they prefer do not love at all. Love discovers truths about individuals that others cannot see. ››To cheat oneself out of love is the most terrible deception; it is an eternal loss for which there is no reparation, either in time or in eternity. ››You will find as you look back upon your life that the moments when you have truly lived are the moments when you have done things in the spirit of love. ››Why do we want to live for ever? Because we hope that tomorrow will bring us someone we can love. Because we want to live another day with the person we love beside us. Because we want to find someone who deserves our Love and who, in turn, will know how to love us as we deserve to be loved. That is why, when a man has no one to love him, he feels a great desire to die. As long as he has friends, people who love him and whom he loves too, he will live. Because to live is to love. ››He that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God. God is love. Therefore love. Without distinction, without calculation, without procrastination, love. Lavish it upon the poor, where it is very easy; especially upon the rich, who often need it most; most of all upon out equals, where it is very difficult, and for whom perhaps we do the least of all. ››You cannot give anything more important than the Love reflected in your own life. That is the one true universal language, which allows us to speak Chinese or the dialects of India. For if, one day, you go to those places, the silent eloquence of Love will mean that you will be understood by everyone. ››"Love is the fulfilling of the law." Did you ever think what he meant by that? In those days men were working the passage to Heaven by keeping the Ten Commandments, and the hundred and ten other commandments which they had manufactured out of them. Christ came and said, "I will show you a more simple way. If you do one thing, you will do these hundred and ten things, without ever thinking about them. If you love, you will unconsciously fulfill the whole law." ››Politeness has been defined as love in trifles. Courtesy is said to be love in little things. And the one secret of politeness is to love. ››You know the meaning of the word "gentleman." It means a gentle man — a man who does things gently, with love. That is the whole art and mystery of it. The gentle man cannot in the nature of things do an ungentle, an ungentlemanly thing. The ungentle soul, the inconsiderate, unsympathetic nature, cannot do anything else. "Love doth not behave itself unseemly." ››Hence it is not enough to deal with the Temper. We must go to the source, and change the inmost nature, and the angry humors will die away of themselves. Souls are made sweet not by taking the acid fluids out, but by putting something in — a great Love, a new Spirit, the Spirit of Christ. Christ, the Spirit of Christ, interpenetrating ours, sweetens, purifies, transforms all. This only can eradicate what is wrong, work a chemical change, renovate and regenerate, and rehabilitate the inner man. Will-power does not change men. Time does not change men. CHRIST DOES. Therefore, "Let that mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus." ››It is a wonderful thing that here and there in this hard, uncharitable world there should still be left a few rare souls who think no evil. This is the great unworldliness. Love "thinketh no evil," imputes no motive, sees the bright side, puts the best construction on every action. What a delightful state of mind to live in! What a stimulus and benediction even to meet with it for a day! ››What makes a man a good cricketer? Practice. What makes a man a good artist, a good sculptor, a good musician? Practice. What makes a man a good linguist, a good stenographer? Practice. What makes a man a good man? Practice. Nothing else. There is nothing capricious about religion. We do not get the soul in different ways, under different laws, from those in which we get the body and the mind. If a man does not exercise his arm he develops no biceps muscle; and if a man does not exercise his soul, he acquires no muscle in his soul, no strength of character, no vigor of moral fibre, no beauty of spiritual growth. Love is not a thing of enthusiastic emotion. It is a rich, strong, manly, vigorous expression of the whole round Christian character — the Christlike nature in its fullest development. And the constituents of this great character are only to be built up by CEASELESS PRACTICE. ››Talent develops itself in solitude — the talent of prayer, of faith, of meditation, of seeing the unseen; character grows in the stream of the world's life. That chiefly is where men are to learn love. ››Darling, I don't want you; I've got no place for you; I only want what you give. I don't want the whole of anyone.... What you want is the whole of me - isn't it, isn't it? - and the whole of me isn't there for anybody. In that full sense you want me I don't exist. ››In a time when nothing is more certain than change, the commitment of two people to one another has become difficult and rare. Yet, by its scarcity, the beauty and value of this exchange have only been enhanced. ››Across the years I will walk with you -I will ask no more of life than this:Sometimes your nearness takes my breath away; and all the things I want to say can find no voice. Then, in silence, I can only hope my eyes will speak my heart. ››Through all of our seasons this will be certain; this will be constant, shining and true: with the gift of your heart you gave my life meaning; and I'll spend a lifetime cherishing you. ››At last, when all the summer shineAsk the child why it is born,The hardest of all is learning to be a well of affection and not a fountain, to show them that we love them, not when we feel like it, but when they do. ››Love comes when manipulation stops; when you think more about the other person than about his or her reactions to you. When you dare to reveal yourself fully. When you dare to be vulnerable. ››Real intimacy is only possible to the degree that we can be honest about what we are doing and feeling. ››Being taken for granted can be a compliment. It means that you've become a comfortable, trusted element in another person's life. ››Marriages, like careers, need constant nurturing... the secret of having it all is loving it all. ››The topic of trust is an important factor in all matters of the heart - and here's why. Men lie to women. Women lie to men. And most people agree that some lying is even necessary - to avoid petty squabbles and to grease the wheels of a relationship. ››The cynic finds love with the idealist. The rebel with the conformist. The social butterfly with the bookworm. They help each other balance their lives. ››Men are not conditioned to be less powerful than a woman. It will be the wise woman who realizes this and is sensitive to that issue. ››To fall in love is easy, even to remain in it is not difficult; our human loneliness is cause enough. But it is a hard quest worth making to find a comrade through whose steady presence one becomes steadily the person one desires to be. ››I'm not sentimental - I'm as romantic as you are. The idea, you know, is that the sentimental person thinks things will last - the romantic person has a desperate confidence that they won't. ››They were still in the happier stage of love. They were full of brave illusions about each other, tremendous illusions, so that the communion of self with self seemed to be on a plane where no other human relations mattered. They both seemed to have arrived there with an extraordinary innocence as though a series of pure accidents had driven them together, so many accidents that at last they were forced to conclude that they were for each other. They had arrived with clean hands, or so it seemed, after no traffic with the merely curious and clandestine. ››Suddenly she realized that what she was regretting was not the lost past but the lost future, not what had not been but what would never be. ››I think... if it is true that If, then, I were asked for the most important advice I could give, that which I considered to be the most useful to the men of our century, I should simply say: in the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you. ››Only people who are capable of loving strongly can also suffer great sorrow, but this same necessity of loving serves to counteract their grief and heals them. ››What counts in making a happy marriage is not so much how compatible you are but how you deal with incompatibility. ››I wanted movement and not a calm course of existence. I wanted excitement and danger and the chance to sacrifice myself for my love. ››There are two basic motivating forces: fear and love. When we are afraid, we pull back from life. When we are in love, we open to all that life has to offer with passion, excitement, and acceptance. We need to learn to love ourselves first, in all our glory and our imperfections. If we cannot love ourselves, we cannot fully open to our ability to love others or our potential to create. Evolution and all hopes for a better world rest in the fearlessness and open-hearted vision of people who embrace life. ››Love is like a precious plant. You can't just accept it and leave it in the cupboard or just think it's going to get on by itself. You've got to keep on watering it. You've got to really look after it and nurture it. ››A broken heart is a monument to a love that will never die; fulfillment is a monument to a love that is already on its deathbed. ››Nowadays even lust is taken for love. The subtle difference is missed. There is a very subtle difference between love and lust, but it is quite clear. They are two different things. You love rice and curry; this is lust. You love a cigar; lust again. You love curry and eat it, but do not give anything by the act. You finish the beloved! ››Happiest is he who expects no happiness from others. Love delights and glorifies in giving, not receiving. So learn to love and give, and not to expect anything from others. ››Love is a gift. You can't buy it, you can't find it, someone has to give it to you. Learn to be receptive of that gift. ››Do you want me to tell you something really subversive? Love is everything it's cracked up to be. That's why people are so cynical about it. It really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don't risk anything, you risk even more. ››Be careful not to hurt people, they can begin to love you less. The pain you cause can chisel their hearts, until there's nothing left. ››To be fully seen by somebody, then, and be loved anyhow - this is a human offering that can border on miraculous. ››A friend is someone who gives you total freedom to be yourself - and especially to feel, or not feel. Whatever you happen to be feeling at any moment is fine with them. That's what real love amounts to - letting a person be what he really is. ››True love is not a strong, fiery, impetuous passion. It is, on the contrary, an element calm and deep. It looks beyond mere externals, and is attracted by qualities alone. It is wise and discriminating, and its devotion is real and abiding. ››And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course. ››If you love somebody, let them go, for if they return, they were always yours. And if they don't, they never were. ››Hallow the body as a temple to comeliness and sanctify the heart as a sacrifice to love; love recompenses the adorers. ››Love one another, but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. ››I hold it true, whate'er befall; I feel it, when I sorrow most; 'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. ››When love beckons to you, follow him, Though his ways are hard and steep. And when his wings enfold you yield to him, Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you. ››Yesterday we obeyed kings and bent our necks before emperors. But today we kneel only to truth, follow only beauty, and obey only love. ››There is always something left to love. And if you ain't learned that, you ain't learned nothing. ››When you love someone, the best thing you can offer is your presence. How can you love if you are not there? ››"What's wrong with being number 2?"There are a few rules I know to be true about love and marriage: If you don't respect the other person, you're gonna have a lot of trouble. If you don't know how to compromise, you're gonna have a lot of trouble. If you can't talk openly about what goes on between you, you're gonna have a lot of trouble. And if you don't have a common set of values in life, you're gonna have a lot of trouble. Your values must be alike. ››The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and to let it come in. Let it come in. We think we don’t deserve love, we think if we let it in we’ll become too soft. But a wise man named Levin said it right. He said, "Love is the only rational act." ››The most painful thing is losing yourself in the process of loving someone too much, and forgetting that you are special too. ››You don't love someone for their looks, or their clothes, or for their fancy car, but because they sing a song only you can hear. ››Acceptance is not love. You love a person because he or she has lovable traits, but you accept everybody just because they're alive and human. ››
