The things you learn in maturity aren’t simple things such as acquiring information and skills. You learn not to engage in self-destructive behavior. You learn not to burn up energy in anxiety. You discover how to manage your tensions. You learn that self-pity and resentment are among the most toxic of drugs. You find that the world loves talent but pays off on character.
“I’m selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can’t handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don’t deserve me at my best.”
― Marilyn Monroe
“You’ve gotta dance like there’s nobody watching,Love like you’ll never be hurt,Sing like there’s nobody listening,And live like it’s heaven on earth.”― William W. Purkey
“You know you’re in love when you can’t fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.”― Dr. Seuss
“A friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you.”― Elbert Hubbard
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”― Martin Luther King Jr., A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches
“We accept the love we think we deserve.”― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower
“It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.”― Andre Gide, Autumn Leaves
“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
“The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it’s indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference.”― Elie Wiesel
“It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.”― Friedrich Nietzsche
“I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this, in which there is no I or you, so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand, so intimate that when I fall asleep your eyes close.”― Pablo Neruda, 100 Love Sonnets
“Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.”― William Shakespeare, All’s Well That Ends Well
“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
“Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.”― Lao Tzu
“There is never a time or place for true love. It happens accidentally, in a heartbeat, in a single flashing, throbbing moment.”― Sarah Dessen, The Truth About Forever
“Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.”― Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land
“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
“I’m in love with you,” he said quietly.”Augustus,” I said.”I am,” he said. He was staring at me, and I could see the corners of his eyes crinkling. “I’m in love with you, and I’m not in the business of denying myself the simple pleasure of saying true things. I’m in love with you, and I know that love is just a shout into the void, and that oblivion is inevitable, and that we’re all doomed and that there will come a day when all our labor has been returned to dust, and I know the sun will swallow the only earth we’ll ever have, and I am in love with you.”― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars
“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
“Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind,And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.”― William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream
“Love is like the wind, you can’t see it but you can feel it.”― Nicholas Sparks, A Walk to Remember
“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
“If you can make a woman laugh, you can make her do anything.”― Marilyn Monroe
“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
“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
“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
“If I had a flower for every time I thought of you…I could walk through my garden forever.”― Alfred Tennyson
“The real lover is the man who can thrill you by kissing your forehead or smiling into your eyes or just staring into space.”― Marilyn Monroe
“When someone loves you, the way they talk about you is different. You feel safe and comfortable.”― Jess C. Scott, The Intern
“To die will be an awfully big adventure.”― J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan
“A lady’s imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony in a moment.”― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
“So it’s not gonna be easy. It’s going to be really hard; we’re gonna have to work at this everyday, but I want to do that because I want you. I want all of you, forever, everyday. You and me… everyday.”― Nicholas Sparks, The Notebook
“Just when you think it can’t get any worse, it can. And just when you think it can’t get any better, it can.”― Nicholas Sparks, At First Sight
Tis better to have loved and lostThan never to have loved at all.”― Alfred Lord Tennyson, In Memoriam
“I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,in secret, between the shadow and the soul.”― Pablo Neruda, 100 Love Sonnets
“The one you love and the one who loves you are never, ever the same person.”― Chuck Palahniuk, Invisible Monsters
“Some people don’t understand the promises they’re making when they make them,” I said.”Right, of course. But you keep the promise anyway. That’s what love is. Love is keeping the promise anyway.”― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars
“I no longer believed in the idea of soul mates, or love at first sight. But I was beginning to believe that a very few times in your life, if you were lucky, you might meet someone who was exactly right for you. Not because he was perfect, or because you were, but because your combined flaws were arranged in a way that allowed two separate beings to hinge together.”― Lisa Kleypas, Blue-Eyed Devil
“When we love, we always strive to become better than we are. When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too.”― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist
“One is loved because one is loved. No reason is needed for loving.”― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist
“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it–always.”― Mahatma Gandhi
“Love is needing someone. Love is putting up with someone’s bad qualities because they somehow complete you.”― Sarah Dessen, This Lullaby
“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”― Anonymous, Holy Bible: New International Version
“We love the things we love for what they are.”― Robert Frost
“In vain have I struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.”― Jane Austen, Pride And Prejudice
“I would die for you. But I won’t live for you.”― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower
“Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.”― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
“So, I love you because the entire universe conspired to help me find you.”― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist
“Never love anyone who treats you like you’re ordinary.”― Oscar Wilde
“You are my best friend as well as my lover, and I do not know which side of you I enjoy the most. I treasure each side, just as I have treasured our life together.”― Nicholas Sparks, The Notebook
“The only thing worse than a boy who hates you: a boy that loves you.”― Markus Zusak, The Book Thief
“Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won’t either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could.”― Louise Erdrich, The Painted Drum
“I would always rather be happy than dignified.”― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
“Where there is love there is life.”― Mahatma Gandhi
“Nobody has ever measured, not even poets, how much the heart can hold.”― Zelda Fitzgerald
“Some women choose to follow men, and some women choose to follow their dreams. If you’re wondering which way to go, remember that your career will never wake up and tell you that it doesn’t love you anymore.”― Lady Gaga
“I think you still love me, but we can’t escape the fact that I’m not enough for you. I knew this was going to happen. So I’m not blaming you for falling in love with another woman. I’m not angry, either. I should be, but I’m not. I just feel pain. A lot of pain. I thought I could imagine how much this would hurt, but I was wrong.”― Haruki Murakami, South of the Border, West of the Sun
“Once upon a time there was a boy who loved a girl, and her laughter was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering.”― Nicole Krauss, The History of Love
“The best love is the kind that awakens the soul and makes us reach for more, that plants a fire in our hearts and brings peace to our minds. And that’s what you’ve given me. That’s what I’d hoped to give you forever”― Nicholas Sparks
“He’s more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.”― Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights
“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.”― John Lennon
“Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back. Those who wish to sing always find a song. At the touch of a lover, everyone becomes a poet.”― Plato
“We fell in love, despite our differences, and once we did, something rare and beautiful was created. For me, love like that has only happened once, and that’s why every minute we spent together has been seared in my memory. I’ll never forget a single moment of it.”― Nicholas Sparks, The Notebook
“Doubt thou the stars are fire;Doubt that the sun doth move;Doubt truth to be a liar;But never doubt I love.”― William Shakespeare, Hamlet
“Above all, don’t lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love.”― Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
“We loved with a love that was more than love.”― Edgar Allen Poe
This is a good sign, having a broken heart. It means we have tried for something.”― Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love
“Eleanor was right. She never looked nice. She looked like art, and art wasn’t supposed to look nice; it was supposed to make you feel something.”― Rainbow Rowell, Eleanor & Park
“The more I know of the world, the more I am convinced that I shall never see a man whom I can really love. I require so much!”― Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility
“I have decided to stick to love…Hate is too great a burden to bear.”― Martin Luther King Jr., A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches
“What’s meant to be will always find a way”― Trisha Yearwood
“They say a person needs just three things to be truly happy in this world: someone to love, something to do, and something to hope for.”― Tom Bodett
“Hearts are made to be broken.”― Oscar Wilde, De Profundis
“Two people in love, alone, isolated from the world, that’s beautiful.”― Milan Kundera
“This above all: to thine own self be true,And it must follow, as the night the day,Thou canst not then be false to any man.”― William Shakespeare, Hamlet
“Love is always patient and kind. It is never jealous. Love is never boastful or conceited. It is never rude or selfish. It does not take offense and is not resentful. Love takes no pleasure in other people’s sins, but delights in the truth. It is always ready to excuse, to trust, to hope, and to endure whatever comes.”― Anonymous, Holy Bible: New International Version
“For the two of us, home isn’t a place. It is a person. And we are finally home.”― Stephanie Perkins, Anna and the French Kiss
“The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.”― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
“They didn’t agree on much. In fact, they didn’t agree on anything. They fought all the time and challenged each other ever day. But despite their differences, they had one important thing in common. They were crazy about each other.”― Nicholas Sparks, The Notebook
“Love is so short, forgetting is so long.”― Pablo Neruda, Love
“The very essence of romance is uncertainty.”― Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays
“There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.”― Friedrich Nietzsche
“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.”― Emily Jane Brontë , Wuthering Heights
“If you remember me, then I don’t care if everyone else forgets.”― Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore
“Man may have discovered fire, but women discovered how to play with it.”― Candace Bushnell, Sex and the City
“And, in the endThe love you takeis equal to the love you make.”― Paul McCartney, The Beatles Illustrated Lyrics
“Love doesn’t just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; remade all the time, made new.”― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Lathe of Heaven
“Love does not consist of gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction.”― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Airman’s Odyssey
“I don’t trust people who don’t love themselves and tell me, ‘I love you.’ … There is an African saying which is: Be careful when a naked person offers you a shirt.”― Maya Angelou
“I am not sure exactly what heaven will be like, but I know that when we die and it comes time for God to judge us, he will not ask, ‘How many good things have you done in your life?’ rather he will ask, ‘How much love did you put into what you did?”― Mother Teresa
“Love is a fire. But whether it is going to warm your hearth or burn down your house, you can never tell.”― Joan Crawford
“We’re all seeking that special person who is right for us. But if you’ve been through enough relationships, you begin to suspect there’s no right person, just different flavors of wrong. Why is this? Because you yourself are wrong in some way, and you seek out partners who are wrong in some complementary way. But it takes a lot of living to grow fully into your own wrongness. And it isn’t until you finally run up against your deepest demons, your unsolvable problems—the ones that make you truly who you are—that we’re ready to find a lifelong mate. Only then do you finally know what you’re looking for. You’re looking for the wrong person. But not just any wrong person: it’s got to be the right wrong person—someone you lovingly gaze upon and think, “This is the problem I want to have.”I will find that special person who is wrong for me in just the right way.”― Andrew Boyd, Daily Afflictions: The Agony of Being Connected to Everything in the Universe
“If you love somebody, let them go, for if they return, they were always yours. If they don’t, they never were.”― Kahlil Gibran
“My dear,Find what you love and let it kill you.Let it drain you of your all. Let it cling onto your back and weigh you down into eventual nothingness.Let it kill you and let it devour your remains.For all things will kill you, both slowly and fastly, but it’s much better to be killed by a lover.~ Falsely yours”― Kinky Friedman
“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.”― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
“And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”― Anonymous, Holy Bible: King James Version
“You are the answer to every prayer I’ve offered. You are a song, a dream, a whisper, and I don’t know how I could have lived without you for as long as I have.”― Nicholas Sparks, The Notebook
“If pain must come, may it come quickly. Because I have a life to live, and I need to live it in the best way possible. If he has to make a choice, may he make it now. Then I will either wait for him or forget him.”― Paulo Coelho, By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept
