Tolstoy Quotes

In order to be happy, you should love - love with self-sacrifice, love all and everything, and spread a network of love everywhere. No matter who gets into this net, catch them all and fill them with love.

Love brings people to unification. The universal intellect, which is the same for everyone, supports this unification.

Try to live with the part of your soul which understands eternity, which is not afraid of death. And that part of your soul is love.

The purpose of life is to express love in all its manifestations.

Anything you do should be filled with love.

There is only one thing in this world which is worth dedicating all your life. This is creating more love among people and destroying barriers which exist between them.

-Leo Tolstoy

Fausto Papetti - Emmanuelle

Fausto Papetti: Emmanuelle

When Someone You Love Dies

When someone you love dies, and you're not expecting it, you don't lose her all at once; you lose her in pieces over a long time - the way the mail stops coming, and her scent fades from the pillows and even from the clothes in her closet and drawers. Gradually, you accumulate the parts of her that are gone. Just when the day comes - when there's a particular missing part that overwhelms you with the feeling that she's
gone, forever - there comes another day, and another specifically missing part.

-John Irving: A Prayer for Owen Meany

Love Is a Sour Delight

Love is a sour delight; a sug'red grief
A living death; an ever-dying life
A breach of Reason's law; a secret thief
A sea of tears; an ever-lasting strife
A bait for fools; a scourge of noble wits
A Deadly wound; a shot which ever hits.
Love is a blinded God; an angry boy
A Labyrinth of doubts; an idle lust
A slave to Beauty's will; a witless toy
A ravening bird, a tyrant most unjust
A burning heat; a cold; a flattering foe
A private hell; a very world of woe.
Yet mighty Love regard not what I say,
Which lie in trance bereft of all my wits,
But blame the light that leads me thus astray,
And makes my tongue blaspheme by frantic fits:
Yet hurt her not, left I sustain the smart,
Which am content to lodge her in my heart.

-Thomas Watson: Hekatompathia, or Passionate Centurie of Love, Sonnet XVIII (1582)

The Way to Arcady

Love must kiss that mortal’s eyes
Who hopes to see fair Arcady.
No gold can buy you entrance there;
But beggared Love may go all bare—
No wisdom won with weariness;
But Love goes in with Folly’s dress—
No fame that wit could ever win;
But only Love may lead Love in.

-Henry Cuyler Bunner (1855–1896)

What Thing Is Love?

What thing is love? for sure I am it is a thing,
It is a prick, it is a thing, it is a prettie, prettie thing.
It is a fire, it is a coale, whose flame creeps in at every hoale.
And as my wits do best devise,
Loves dwelling is in Ladies eies.

-The Wisdom of Doctor Dodypoll, an anonymous play (1600)

Happiness from Loving

Happiness comes more from loving than being loved; and often when our affection seems wounded it is only our vanity bleeding. To love, and to be hurt often, and to love again - this is the brave and happy life.

-J.E. Buckrose

Classical Romance Love Plot

A handsome youth and a beautiful girl meet by chance and fall in love, but unexpected obstacles obstruct their union; they are separated, and each is launched on a series of journeys and dangerous adventures; through all their tribulations, however, they remain faithful to each other and to the benevolent deities who at critical junctures guide their steps; and eventually they are reunited and live happily ever after.

-Bryan P. Reardon: The Form of Greek Romance; Quoted in Barbara Fuchs: Romance.

Love Metaphors - Metaphor Examples of Love

Examples of Love metaphors:


Love is a nutrient: I am starved for love.

Love is a journey: It’s been a long, bumpy road.

Love is a unity of parts: We’re as one. They’re breaking up. We’re inseparable.

Love is a bond: There is a close tie between them.

Love is a fluid in a container: She was overflowing with love.

Love is fire: I am burning with love.

Love is an economic exchange: I’m putting more into this than you are.

Love is a natural force: She swept me off my feet.

Love is a physical force: I was magnetically drawn to her.

Love is an opponent: She tried to fight her feelings of love.

Love is a captive animal: She let go of her feelings.

Love is war: She conquered him. Love is insanity: I am crazy about you.

Love is a social superior: She is completely ruled by love.

Love is rapture/a high: I have been high on love for weeks.

The object of love is a small child: Well, baby, what are we gonna do?

The object of love is a deity: Don’t put her on a pedestal. He worships her.

-Zoltán Kövecses: Metaphor and Emotion in The Cambridge Handbook of Metaphor and Thought

Wedding Speeches and Toasts!

First Love

First Love

I ne'er was struck before that hour
With love so sudden and so sweet,
Her face it bloomed like a sweet flower
And stole my heart away complete.

My face turned pale as deadly pale,
My legs refused to walk away,
And when she looked "what could I ail?"
My life and all seemed turned to clay.

And then my blood rushed to my face
And took my sight away.
The trees and bushes round the place
Seemed midnight at noonday.

I could not see a single thing,
Words from my eyes did start;
They spoke as chords do from the string
And blood burnt round my heart.

Are flowers the winter's choice?
Is love's bed always snow?
She seemed to hear my silent voice
And love's appeal to know.

I never saw so sweet a face
As that I stood before:
My heart has left its dwelling-place
And can return no more.

-John Clare (1793-1864)