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

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)

Sonnet 116

(Sonnet CXVI)

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

Sonnet 116 is probably one of the most famous Shakespearean sonnets. It is quoted by many literature teachers when they need to provide an example of structure and form, versification and rhyme. However, I want to discuss its meaning rather than the A-B-A-B rhyme and such. After all, I believe it is way more important to understand the content of a poem because even someone who can barely read would realize that ‘minds’ rhymes with ‘finds’ and such…

This sonnet was first published more than four centuries ago, back in 1609. Ever since, it has been quoted and analyzed by many, and most agree on the fact that the whole poem is a definition of true love. We all believe we can recognize true love when we experience it, but do we? The Bard arguments that true love is an ever lasting love, so if it fades, then it was probably something else (infatuation is not true love, and modern psychology would probably agree on that!).

Despite the difficulties, love should stand. Love should last all through the distance, and the time passing by, because it is constant and unchanging. True love is compared to marriage in a religious sense in at least two ways in the sonnet: first, the word ‘marriage’ itself appears on the first verse, although metaphorically meaning ‘union’; second, when Shakespeare writes “But bears it out even to the edge of doom.”, that is the equivalent of “till death do us part”.

How can something as deep and obscure as love be defined? The Bard achieves it (who else could?) thanks to well chosen comparisons, some of them proper of the time the sonnet was written. For example, take “It is the star to every wondering bark”, written way before GPS was invented, and sailors could only find their way home if they could follow the map of the stars, so this verse implies that true love provides a sense of hope even if you are going through a really rough time in your life…

True love is not based on looks, of course, and that is why Sonnet 116 establishes that “rosy lips and cheeks” don’t last in time, but true love does. I’m thinking about those old couples who have aged together and they are still crazy for each other!

Finally, the poem closes with a sort of paradox: if it is not the actual definition of true love, then no man has ever loved at all, and Shakespeare himself hasn’t written anything! Of course, since we are actually reading the sonnet, that can only mean Sonnet 116 is the real definition of love.

The original spelling version. The f = s -> ftar = star; u = v -> loue = love.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonnet_116

Tristram Shandy Quotes

Harsh and untuneful are the notes of love,
Unless my Julia strikes the key,
Her hand alone can touch the part,
Whose dulcet movement charms the heart,
And governs all the man with sympathetick sway.

---------------

As the ancients agree, brother Toby, said my father, that there are two different and distinct kinds of love, according to the different parts which are affected by it — the Brain or Liver — I think when a man is in love, it behoves him a little to consider which of the two he is fallen into.

-Laurence Sterne: The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (1759-1769)

Sonnet 8

I live, I Die. I drown and I burn.
I shiver with cold and perish with heat.
I leap from anguish to delight; from sweet
To bitter. No two moments are the same.

Suddenly my laughter and my cries
Join in a single instant, each pleasure
Aches with a hidden torment, and the night
Fades, yet endures. I wither and I bloom.

So Love leads me on forever.
And when I think I know the limits of pain
Without knowing, I find myself at peace.

When I think my joy is lasting and I see
Some future hope, some present certainty,
He returns and brings back the past again.

-Louise Labé (1525-1565): Sonnet 8
(transl. Richard A. Branyon)

When Love Is Done

The night has a thousand eyes,
And the day but one;
Yet the light of the bright world dies,
With the dying sun.
The mind has a thousand eyes,
And the heart but one;
Yet the light of a whole life dies,
When love is done.

-F. W. Bourdillon: Among the Flowers

William Blake Love Quote - Tell Thy Love

Never pain to tell thy love
Love that never told can be
For the gentle wind does move
Silently, invisibly.

-William Blake: MS Note-Book

Twilight Love Quotes

About three things I was absolutely positive. First, Edward was a vampire. Second, there was part of him — and I didn't know how potent that part might be — that thirsted for my blood. And third, I was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with him.
...

My head was spinning at the rapid change in direction our conversation had taken. From the cheerful topic of my impending demise, we were suddenly declaring ourselves. He waited, and even though I looked down to study our hands between us, I knew his golden eyes were on me. "You already know how I feel, of course," I finally said. "I'm here… which, roughly translated, means I would rather die than stay away from you." I frowned. "I'm an idiot."

"You are an idiot," he agreed with a laugh. Our eyes met, and I laughed, too. We laughed together at the idiocy and sheer impossibility of such a moment.

"And so the lion fell in love with the lamb…" he murmured. I looked away, hiding my eyes as I thrilled to the word.
...

"Isn't it supposed to be like this?" He smiled. "The glory of first love, and all that. It's incredible, isn't it, the difference between reading about something, seeing it in the pictures, and experiencing it?"
...

His gold eyes grew very soft. "You said you loved me."
"You knew that already," I reminded him, ducking my head.
"It was nice to hear, just the same."
I hid my face against his shoulder.
"I love you," I whispered.
"You are my life now," he answered simply.
There was nothing more to say for the moment. He rocked us back and forth as the room grew lighter.
...

"I love you," he said. "It's a poor excuse for what I'm doing, but it's still true."
It was the first time he'd said he loved me — in so many words. He might not realize it, but I certainly did.
"Now, please try to behave yourself," he continued, and he bent to softly brush his lips against mine.
I held properly still. Then I sighed.
...

I stopped on the porch and took hold of his face in my hands. I looked fiercely into his eyes.
"I love you," I said in a low, intense voice. "I will always love you, no matter what happens now."
"Nothing is going to happen to you, Bella," he said just as fiercely.
...

"Edward." I tried to tell him, but my voice was so heavy and slow. I couldn't understand myself.
"Bella, you're going to be fine. Can you hear me, Bella? I love you."
...

He sighed without returning my gaze. "It was impossible… to stop," he whispered. "Impossible. But I did." He looked up finally, with half a smile.
"I must love you."
...

-Stephenie Meyer: Twilight

Edward Cullen (The Twilight Saga: New Moon) - Life-Size Standup Poster

Romantic Music - Wuthering Heights

Heathcliff, it's me, Cathy, I've come home
I'm so cold, let me in your window

I'm coming back love , cruel Heathcliff
My one dream, my only master...

Kate Bush wrote this song when she was 18 years old. Hayley Westenra sings this beautifully also.

This is the scene of the novel Wuthering Heights (by Emily Brontë) where the chorus of the song is from (chapter III):

This time, I remembered I was lying in the oak closet, and I heard distinctly the gusty wind, and the driving of the snow; I heard, also, the fir bough repeat its teasing sound, and ascribed it to the right cause: but it annoyed me so much, that I resolved to silence it, if possible; and, I thought, I rose and endeavoured to unhasp the casement. The hook was soldered into the staple: a circumstance observed by me when awake, but forgotten.
‘I must stop it, nevertheless!’ I muttered, knocking my knuckles through the glass, and stretching an arm out to seize the importunate branch; instead of which, my fingers closed on the fingers of a little, ice-cold hand!
The intense horror of nightmare came over me: I tried to draw back my arm, but the hand clung to it, and a most melancholy voice sobbed,
‘Let me in—let me in!’
‘Who are you?’ I asked, struggling, meanwhile, to disengage myself.
‘Catherine Linton,’ it replied, shiveringly (why did I think of Linton? I had read Earnshaw twenty times for Linton)—‘I’m come home: I’d lost my way on the moor!’
As it spoke, I discerned, obscurely, a child’s face looking through the window. Terror made me cruel; and, finding it useless to attempt shaking the creature off, I pulled its wrist on to the broken pane, and rubbed it to and fro till the blood ran down and soaked the bedclothes: still it wailed, ‘Let me in!’ and maintained its tenacious gripe, almost maddening me with fear.
‘How can I!’ I said at length. ‘Let me go, if you want me to let you in!’
The fingers relaxed, I snatched mine through the hole, hurriedly piled the books up in a pyramid against it, and stopped my ears to exclude the lamentable prayer.
I seemed to keep them closed above a quarter of an hour; yet, the instant I listened again, there was the doleful cry moaning on!
‘Begone!’ I shouted. ‘I’ll never let you in, not if you beg for twenty years.’
‘It is twenty years,’ mourned the voice: ‘twenty years. I’ve been a waif for twenty years!’
Thereat began a feeble scratching outside, and the pile of books moved as if thrust forward.
I tried to jump up; but could not stir a limb; and so yelled aloud, in a frenzy of fright.
To my confusion, I discovered the yell was not ideal: hasty footsteps approached my chamber door; somebody pushed it open, with a vigorous hand, and a light glimmered through the squares at the top of the bed. I sat shuddering yet, and wiping the perspiration from my forehead: the intruder appeared to hesitate, and muttered to himself.
At last, he said, in a half-whisper, plainly not expecting an answer, ‘Is any one here?’
I considered it best to confess my presence; for I knew Heathcliff’s accents, and feared he might search further, if I kept quiet. With this intention, I turned and opened the panels. I shall not soon forget the effect my action produced.