Philosopher Quotes on Love

“Of Fronto, to how much envy and fraud and hypocrisy the state of a tyrannous king is subject unto, and how they who are commonly called [Eupatridas Gk.], i.e. nobly born, are in some sort incapable, or void of natural affection.”

I, 8

“Not to display anger or other emotions. To be free of passion and yet full of love. (Hays translation)”

I, 9

“Doth perfect beauty stand in need of praise at all? Nay; no more than law, no more than truth, no more than loving kindness, nor than modesty.”

Meditations, Book IV | IV, 20

“Observe always that everything is the result of a change, and get used to thinking that there is nothing Nature loves so well as to change existing forms and to make new ones like them.”

Meditations, Book IV | IV, 36

“In the constitution of that rational animal I see no virtue which is opposed to justice, but I see a virtue which is opposed to love of pleasure, and that is temperance .”

Meditations, Book VIII | VIII, 39

“Love is of all the passions the strongest, for it attacks simultaneously the head, the heart, and the body. Le Dernier Volume Des Œuvres De Voltaire: Contes — Comédie — Pensées -— Poésies — Lettres (1862)”

L'amour est de toutes les passions la plus forte, parce qu'elle attaque à la fois la tête, le cœur et le corps.

“Written by Voltaire in an over-long letter to a friend, quoted to A. P. Martinich in Philosophical Writing: An Introduction , Note to the Second Edition (1996)”

If I had had more time, this letter would have been shorter.

“I die adoring God, loving my friends, not hating my enemies, and detesting superstition.”

1770s | Déclaration de Voltaire, note to his secretary, Jean-Louis Wagnière (28 February 1778)

“Pleasure has its time; so, too, has wisdom. Make love in thy youth, and in old age, attend to thy salvation.”

A Thousand Flashes of French Wit, Wisdom, and Wickedness(1902) | p. 50

“One dies twice: to cease to live is nothing, but to cease to love and to be loved is an insupportable death.”

A Thousand Flashes of French Wit, Wisdom, and Wickedness(1902) | p. 113

“We always deceive ourselves twice about the people we love — first to their advantage, then to their disadvantage. A Happy Death (written 1938), first published as La mort heureuse (1971), as translated by Richard Howard (1972)”

Nous nous trompons toujours deux fois sur ceux que nous aimons: d'abord à leur avantage, puis à leur désavantage.

“In Oran, as elsewhere, for want of time and thought, people have to love one another without knowing it.”

The Plague(1947)

“No human being, even the most passionately loved and passionately loving, is ever in our possession.”

The Rebel(1951) | Part 4: Rebellion and Art

“Let's not beat around the bush; I love life — that's my real weakness. I love it so much that I am incapable of imagining what is not life.”

The Fall(1956)

“We always deceive ourselves twice about the people we love — first to their advantage, then to their disadvantage.”

A Happy Death (written 1938), first published as La mort heureuse (1971), as translated by Richard Howard (1972)

“Love, and do what you will.”

Once for all, then, a short precept is given thee: Love , and do what thou wilt: whether thou hold thy peace , through love hold thy peace; whether thou cry out, through love cry out; whether thou correct, through love correct; whether thou spare, through love do thou spare: let the root of love be within, of this root can nothing spring but what is good .

“The mind itself, its love [of itself] and its knowledge [of itself] are a kind of trinity.”

On the Trinity(417) | (Cambridge: 2002), Book 9, Chapter 4, Section 4, p. 27

“Shut out the evil love of the world, that you may be filled with the love of God. You are a vessel that was already full: you must pour away what you have, that you may take in what you have not.”

Ten Homilies on the First Epistle of John(414) | Second Homily, as translated by John Burnaby (1955), p. 274

“Beauty grows in you to the extent that love grows, because charity itself is the soul 's beauty.”

Ten Homilies on the First Epistle of John(414) | Ninth Homily, Paragraph 9, as translated by Boniface Ramsey (2008) Augustinian Heritage Institute

“Inasmuch as love grows in you, in so much beauty grows; for love is itself the beauty of the soul.”

Ten Homilies on the First Epistle of John(414) | as translated by H. Browne and J. H. Meyers, The Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers (1995)

“The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge.”

What I Believe, 1925

“To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead.”

Marriage and Morals, 1929

“Thee will find out in time that I have a great love of professing vile sentiments, I don't know why, unless it springs from long efforts to avoid priggery.”

Letter to Alys Pearsall Smith (1894). Smith was a Quaker, thus the archaic use of "Thee" in this and other letters to her.

“I like mathematics because it is not human and has nothing particular to do with this planet or with the whole accidental universe – because, like Spinoza 's God, it won't love us in return.”

1910s | Letter to Lady Ottoline Morrell, March, 1912, as quoted in Gaither's Dictionary of Scientific Quotations (2012), p. 1318

Attributed to Bertrand Russell:

“Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.”

“He who is in love is wise and is becoming wiser, sees newly every time he looks at the object beloved, drawing from it with his eyes and his mind those virtues which it possesses.”

The Method of Nature (1841), p. 25

“Yet a man may love a paradox, without losing either his wit or his honesty.”

Walter Savage Landor ", from The Dial , xii (1841)

“Though thou loved her as thyself, As a self of purer clay, Tho' her parting dims the day, Stealing grace from all alive, Heartily know, When half-gods go, The gods arrive.”

Poems(1847) | Give All to Love , st. 4

“Though love repine, and reason chafe, There came a voice without reply, — "'T is man's perdition to be safe When for the truth he ought to die."”

May-Day and Other Pieces(1867) | Sacrifice

“The word liberty in the mouth of Mr. Webster sounds like the word love in the mouth of a courtesan.”

Journals (1822–1863) | February 12, 1851; cf. the remark of John Wilkes about Samuel Johnson , " Liberty is as ridiculous in his mouth as Religion in mine" (20 March 1778), quoted in Boswell 's Life of Johnson (1791)

“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

Все счастливые семьи похожи друг на друга, каждая несчастливая семья несчастлива по-своему.

“All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love.”

Thoughts of Prince Andrew Bk XII, Ch. 16

“The hero of my tale, whom I love with all the power of my soul, whom I have tried to portray in all his beauty, who has been, is, and will be beautiful, is Truth.”

Sevastopol in May (1855), Ch. 16

“Where Love Is, God Is " (1885), also translated as "Where Love is, There God is Also" - (full text online)”

Martin's soul grew very very glad. He crossed himself put on his spectacles, and began reading the Gospel just where it had opened; and at the top of the page he read: I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink; I was a stranger, and ye took me in. And at the bottom of the page he read: Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of these my brethren even these least, ye did it

“Seize the moments of happiness, love and be loved! That is the only reality in the world, all else is folly. It is the one thing we are interested in here.”

War and Peace(1865–1867; 1869) | Book IV, Ch. 11

“Anyone in whom the troublemaking self has died, sun and cloud obey. As his heart is afire with knowledge and love, the sun cannot burn him.”

Masnavi | I, 3004-5 (tr. Helminski, 1990)

“For love of our Almighty God, the Lord of all, Who would not die; a stock, a block, we needs must call.”

A Dictionary of Oriental Quotations(1911) | p. 26 (Redhouse)

“Alas for this life so light, beware of this slumber so heavy, O soul seek the Beloved, O friend seek the Friend O watchman be wakeful; it behoves not a watchman to sleep.”

A Dictionary of Oriental Quotations(1911) | p. 88, Diwan-i-Shams-i-Tabriz (Nicholson)

“Every moment the voice of Love is coming from left and right We are bound for heaven; who has a mind to sight-seeing?”

A Dictionary of Oriental Quotations(1911) | p. 118, Diwan-i-Shams-i-Tabriz (Nicholson)

“'Twere better that the spirit which wears not true love as a garment Had not been; its being is but shame.”

A Dictionary of Oriental Quotations(1911) | p. 248, Diwan-i-Shams-i-Tabriz (Nicholson)

“All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”

Revelations of Divine Love, Chapter 27

“Love was His meaning.”

Revelations of Divine Love, Chapter 86

“We are kept all as securely in Love in woe as in weal, by the Goodness of God.”

Wikiquote

“Our Lord Jesus sheweth in love His blissful heart even cloven in two, rejoicing.”

Wikiquote

“The love that made Him to suffer passeth as far all His pains as Heaven is above Earth.”

Chapter 22

“On a dark night, Kindled in love with yearnings — oh, happy chance ! — I went forth without being observed, My house being now at rest. In darkness and secure, By the secret ladder, disguised — oh, happy chance! — In darkness and in concealment, My house being now at rest.”

En una noche oscura, con ansias, en amores inflamada , ¡oh dichosa ventura!, salí sin ser notada, estando ya mi casa sosegada;

“One dark night, fired with love's urgent longings — ah, the sheer grace ! — I went out unseen, my house being now all stilled. In darkness, and secure, by the secret ladder, disguised, — ah, the sheer grace! — in darkness and concealment, my house being now all stilled. Variant translation by Kieran Kavanaugh and Otilio Rodriguez (1991)”

En una noche oscura, con ansias, en amores inflamada , ¡oh dichosa ventura!, salí sin ser notada, estando ya mi casa sosegada;

“Upon a darkened night the flame of love was burning in my breast And by a lantern bright I fled my house while all in quiet rest. Shrouded by the night and by the secret stair I quickly fled. The veil concealed my eyes while all within lay quiet as the dead Variant adapted for music by Loreena McKennitt (1994)”

En una noche oscura, con ansias, en amores inflamada , ¡oh dichosa ventura!, salí sin ser notada, estando ya mi casa sosegada;

“Oh, night that guided me, Oh, night more lovely than the dawn, Oh, night that joined Beloved with lover, Lover transformed in the Beloved!”

O guiding night! O night more lovely than the dawn! O night that has united the Lover with his beloved, transforming the beloved in her Lover. Variant translation by Kieran Kavanaugh and Otilio Rodriguez (1991) | Oh night thou was my guide Oh night more loving than the rising sun Oh night that joined the lover to the beloved one transforming each of them into the other. Variant adapted for music b

“O guiding night! O night more lovely than the dawn! O night that has united the Lover with his beloved, transforming the beloved in her Lover. Variant translation by Kieran Kavanaugh and Otilio Rodriguez (1991)”

Oh, night that guided me, Oh, night more lovely than the dawn, Oh, night that joined Beloved with lover, Lover transformed in the Beloved!

“But love for an object eternal and infinite feeds the mind with joy alone, and a joy which is free from all sorrow. This is something greatly to be desired and to be sought with all our strength.”

On the Improvement of the Understanding(1662) | I, 10; translation by W. Hale White (Revised by Amelia Hutchison Stirling)

“All happiness or unhappiness solely depends upon the quality of the object to which we are attached by love.”

On the Improvement of the Understanding(1662) | I, 9; translation by W. Hale White (Revised by Amelia Hutchison Stirling)

“I ought to love the Jews, as they seem to be my only friends intellectually, beginning with Edman —not to go back to Spinoza.”

George Santayana | George Santayana , in his letter to Mrs. Nancy Saunders Toy (who was the wife of Crawford Howell Toy ), 12 August 1938 [ specific citation needed ]

Attributed to Baruch Spinoza:

“Hatred is increased by being reciprocated, and can on the other hand be destroyed by love.”

Attributed to Baruch Spinoza:

“He who lives according to the dictates of reason endeavours, as much as possible, to render back love, or kindness, for other men's hatred, anger, and contempt towards him.”

“Alternate translation: How happy is mankind if the love that orders the stars above rules, too, in your hearts.”

The Consolation of Philosophy, Book II

“If you would give every man as he deserves, then love the good and pity those who are evil .”

The Consolation of Philosophy, Book IV | Poem IV, lines 11-12; translation by Richard H. Green

“O happy race of mortals, if your hearts are ruled as is the universe, by Love!”

The Consolation of Philosophy, Book II | Poem VIII, lines 28-30; translation by W. V. Cooper Alternate translation: How happy is mankind if the love that orders the stars above rules, too, in your hearts.

“Who can give law to lovers? Love is a greater law to itself.”

The Consolation of Philosophy, Book III | Poem XII, lines 47-48

Attributed to Boethius:

“Who would give a law to lovers? Love is unto itself a higher law.”

“To redeem creation the saint wages war on the entire fabric of creation, with the bare weapons of truth and love.”

The Range of Reason(1952) [New York: Charles Scribner's Sons] | p. 109.

“In loving things and the being in them man should rather draw things up to the human level than reduce humanity to their measure.”

True Humanism(1938) | p. xv.

“For to love is to give what one is, his very being, in the most absolute, the most brazenly metaphysical, the least phenomenalizable sense of this word.”

The Peasant of the Garonne(1968) | p 9.

Attributed to Jacques Maritain:

“The thirst for poetry is one of the most spiritual thirsts in the human being.”

Attributed to Jacques Maritain:

“The philosopher is the friend of being.”

“All real living is meeting.”

Alles wirkliche Leben ist Begegnung.

“Through the Thou a person becomes I.”

I and Thou, 1923

“Every morning I shall concern myself anew about the boundary Between the love - deed -Yes and the power -deed-No And pressing forward honor reality . We cannot avoid Using power, Cannot escape the compulsion To afflict the world , So let us, cautious in diction And mighty in contradiction , Love powerfully.”

Power and Love" (1926)

“Power and Love" (1926)”

Every morning I shall concern myself anew about the boundary Between the love - deed -Yes and the power -deed-No And pressing forward honor reality . We cannot avoid Using power, Cannot escape the compulsion To afflict the world , So let us, cautious in diction And mighty in contradiction , Love powerfully.

“It is the highest service to submit the evil impulse to God through the power of love.”

For The Sake of Heaven(1945) | p. 45

“Justice is what love looks like in public.”

Brother West (2009), p. 232

“To be a Christian - a follower of Jesus Christ - is to love wisdom , love justice , and love freedom . (p172)”

Democracy Matters: Winning the Fight Against Imperialism(2004)

“Nihilism is not overcome by arguments or analyses; it is tamed by love and care. Any disease of the soul must be conquered by a turning of one’s soul. (p19)”

Race Matters(1993)

“You can't lead the people if you don't love the people. You can't save the people, if you don't serve the people.”

Hope on a Tightrope: Words and Wisdom (2008); also on "The Way I See It" Starbucks Coffee Cup #284

“Anytime two human beings find genuine pleasure, joy, and love, the stars smile and the universe is enriched. Yet as long as that pleasure, joy, and love is still predicated on myths of black sexuality, the more fundamental challenge of humane interaction remains unmet. (p85)”

Race Matters(1993)

“The motive, principle, and end of the religious life is to make an absolute gift of self to God in a self-forgetting love, to end one's own life in order to make room for God's life.”

Wikiquote

“The deepest feminine yearning is to achieve a loving union which, in its development, validates this maturation and simultaneously stimulates and furthers the desire for perfection in others.”

Spirituality of the Christian Woman(1932)

Attributed to Edith Stein:

“Empathy is the experience of foreign consciousness in general.”

Attributed to Edith Stein:

“All that comes to me from God is a sign of His love.”

Attributed to Edith Stein:

“The deeper one is drawn into God, the more one must go out of oneself.”

“The Greek word for philosopher ( philosophos ) connotes a distinction from sophos . It signifies the lover of wisdom (knowledge) as distinguished from him who considers himself wise in the possession of knowledge . This meaning of the word still endures: the essence of philosophy is not the possession of the truth but the search for truth. … Philosophy means to be on the way. Its questions are more essential than its answers , and every answer becomes a new question.”

Way to Wisdom: An Introduction to Philosophy (1951) as translated by Ralph Mannheim , Ch. 1, What is Philosophy?, p. 12 | Variant translation: It is the search for the truth , not possession of the truth which is the way of philosophy. Its questions are more relevant than its answers, and every answer becomes a new question.

“Even the most elevated psychological understanding is not a loving understanding.”

Psychology of World Views(1919)

“The teacher of love teaches struggle. The teacher of lifeless isolation from the world teaches peace .”

Psychology of World Views(1919)

Attributed to Karl Jaspers:

“Truth begins with two.”

Attributed to Karl Jaspers:

“Communication is the unique value of philosophical life.”

Attributed to Emmanuel Levinas:

“The face of the Other commands me to responsibility.”

Attributed to Emmanuel Levinas:

“The face speaks to me and thereby invites me to a relation.”

Attributed to Emmanuel Levinas:

“The other is not me, and I am responsible for him.”

Attributed to Emmanuel Levinas:

“Religion is the bond between the same and the other without constituting a totality.”

Attributed to Emmanuel Levinas:

“The face of the other is the trace of the infinite.”

“The exalted moment of love is always full of promise: it is not closed in on itself, but open; we see its natural fruitfulness revealed in the child, even if its spiritual fruitfulness remains hidden.”

Wikiquote

“The inner reality of love can be recognized only by love.”

Wikiquote

Attributed to Hans Urs von Balthasar:

“The truly beautiful is what most fully reveals being.”

Attributed to Hans Urs von Balthasar:

“The form of beauty is the form of truth.”

Attributed to Hans Urs von Balthasar:

“Glory is what shines forth in love that gives itself away.”

“If I love God, I don't in this way pantheistically love the universe, or the animals, trees and shrubs as my fellow created beings, but rather I love in God precisely the Father of Humanity. And this higher meaning, this social significance, always has its terminus in God the Father. He is not so much the creator and author, but much more the protector and comforter of the poor. p. 81”

Wenn ich Gott liebe, so liebe ich nicht pantheistisch das Universum, nicht die Tiere, die Bäume und die Kräuter, als meine Mitgeschöpfe, sondern aber ich liebe in Gott einseitig den Vater der Menschen, und diese höhere Bedeutung und diese soziale Prägnanz hat nunmehr der religiöse Terminus von Gott alsVater: er ist nicht sowohl der Schöpfer und Urheber, sondern vielmehr der Schutz und Beistand der

“In this light the God who appears to me is the comforter of the poor and their avenger in world history. This avenger of the poor is the God I love. p. 81”

Unter dieser Beleuchtung entsteht mir der Gott, der der Beistand des Armen ist und sein Rächer in der Weltgeschichte. Diesen Rächer der Armen liebe ich.

“Worm that I am, consumed by passion, cast as bait for selfishness, I must nonetheless love humanity. If I can do this, and insofar as I can do this, I can also love God. p. 82”

Wurm, der ich bin, von Leidenschaften zerfressen, der Selbstsucht zum Köder hingeworfen, soll ich dennoch den Menschen lieben. Wenn ich dies kann, und sofern ich dies kann, kann ich auch Gott lieben.

“Love of God implies love of religion. And religion exemplifies that creative spirit of God which is at work in history as well as in the mind of man. Thus, one ought to love any religion, that is, religion as such, and in any form—as a manifestation of the moral spirit, the divine spirit of mankind.”

p. 52

Attributed to Hermann Cohen:

“The fellow-man is the discovery of ethics.”

“The fire of divine love consumes all that is not love.”

Ch. IX

“I find in myself by the grace of God a satisfaction without nourishment, love without fear”

Wikiquote

“I am so submerged in the sweet fire of love that I cannot grasp anything except the whole of love, which melts all the marrow of my soul and body.”

Wikiquote

“I am so plunged and submerged in the source of his infinite love, as if I were quite underwater in the sea and could not touch, see, feel anything on any side except water”

Sally Kempton, Meditation for the Love of It: Enjoying Your Own Deepest Experience (2011), p. 227

Attributed to Catherine of Genoa:

“My deepest me is God.”

“I am the Truth.”

Ana al-Haqq

“Mysticism and Philosophical Analysis (1978) by Steven T. Katz, p. 92; four centuries later the Christian mystic Meister Eckhart would make a very similar assertion: "The eye with which I see God is the same with which God sees me. My eye and God's eye is one eye, and one sight , and one knowledge , and one love .”

I saw my Lord with the eye of my heart . He said, "Who are you?" I said, " I am You. " You are He Who fills all place But place does not know where You are. In my subsistence is my annihilation; In my annihilation, I remain You.

“The beloved does not drink a single drop of water without seeing His Face in the cup. Allah is He Who flows between the pericardium and the heart, just as the tears flow from the eyelids.”

As quoted in Mystical Dimensions of Islam (1978) by Annemarie Schimmel

Attributed to Al-Hallaj:

“I have seen my Lord with the eye of my heart.”

Attributed to Al-Hallaj:

“Between me and Thee, there is only I; remove the I, and only Thou remains.”

“Suffering is the ancient law of love; there is no quest without pain; there is no lover who is not also a martyr.”

Quoted in Evelyn Underhill , Mysticism: A Study in the Nature and Development of Man's Spiritual Consciousness (1912), p. 152

“An unloving heart can no more understand a love-filled speaker than a German an Italian.”

Quoted in Karl An unloving heart can no more understand a love-filled speaker than a German an Italian Bihlmeyer, Heinrich Seuse. Deutsche Schriften , Stuttgart 1907, p. 199

Attributed to Henry Suso:

“Eternal Wisdom is the bride of every faithful soul.”

Attributed to Henry Suso:

“He who has lost himself for God has found everything.”

Attributed to Henry Suso:

“Love is its own theology.”

“Love is a capricious creature which desires everything and can be contented with almost nothing.”

Reported in David Newnham, "Love: Books" , The Guardian (10 February 2002), online

“Love makes mutes of those who habitually speak most fluently.”

p. 30

“Love is — I know not what; which comes — I know not whence; which is formed — I know not how; which enchants — I know not by what; and which ends — I know not when or why.”

p. 221

Attributed to Madeleine de Scudery:

“Love is the longest school of moral philosophy.”

Attributed to Madeleine de Scudery:

“He who would understand friendship must first understand the art of conversation.”

“They who stand ready to content Love are also eternal and unfathomable. For their conversation is in heaven, and their souls follow everywhere their Beloved who is unfathomable”

P. Mommaers, Hadewijch: Writer, Beguine, Love Mystic , p. 82.

Attributed to Hadewijch of Antwerp:

“Love alone gives the knowledge that love is.”

Attributed to Hadewijch of Antwerp:

“She who lives without love does not yet know what it is to live.”

Attributed to Hadewijch of Antwerp:

“The soul is at home in love when it has learned to be a stranger to everything else.”

Attributed to Hadewijch of Antwerp:

“Where God is the lover, the soul can hide nothing from God or from itself.”