Never pretend to a love which you do not actually feel, for love is not ours to command.

Alan Watts¹

Such is the inconsistency of real love, that it is always awake to suspicion, however unreasonable²; always requiring new assurances from the object of its interest.

Ann Radcliffe (1764 - 1823), The Mysteries of Udolpho, 1764

To love deeply in one direction makes us more loving in all others.

Anne-Sophie Swetchine

Perhaps the feelings that we experience when we are in love represent a normal state. Being in love shows a person who he should be.

Anton Chekhov (1860 - 1904)

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

Bertrand Russell (1872 - 1970), Marriage and Morals (1929) ch. 19

Love is not enough. It must be the foundation, the cornerstone - but not the complete structure. It is much too pliable³, too yielding.

Bette Davis (1908 - 1989)

Clarity of mind means clarity of passion, too; this is why a great and clear mind loves ardently⁴ and sees distinctly what it loves.

Blaise Pascal (1623 - 1662)

The meeting of two personalities⁵ is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed.

Carl Jung (1875 - 1961)

Nothing takes the taste out of peanut butter quite like unrequited love.

Charles M. Schulz (1922 - 2000), Charlie Brown in "Peanuts"

It is the caring and sharing that count—love is not prevented by the things and the time that you haven’t shared.

Claudia Jewett Jarrett, Adopting the Older Child, 1978

There's an evolutionary⁶ imperative⁷ why we give a crap about our family and friends. And there's an evolutionary imperative why we don't give a crap about anybody else. If we loved all people indiscriminately, we couldn't function.

David Foster, House M.D., TB or Not TB, 2005

To love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides.

David Viscott, How to Live with Another Person, 1974

Couples are jigsaw⁸ puzzles that hang together by touching⁹ in just enough points. They're never total fits or misfits.

Diane Ackerman, One Hundred Names for Love: A Stroke, A Marriage, and the Language of Healing, 2011

There's a lot to be said for self-delusionment when it comes to matters of the heart.

Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider, Northern Exposure, First Snow, 1993

Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,

A medley¹⁰ of extemporanea;

And love is a thing that can never go wrong;

And I am Marie of Romania.

Dorothy Parker (1893 - 1967), Not So Deep as a Well (1937), "Comment"

One's first love is always perfect until one meets one's second love.

Elizabeth Aston, The Exploits & Adventures of Miss Alethea Darcy, 2005

All love that has not friendship for its base, is like a mansion¹¹ built upon sand.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, O Magazine, February 2004

Love is everything it's cracked up to be…It really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for.

Erica Jong, O Magazine, February 2004

People are such great mysteries. Just when we think we have understood them, a wonderful new aspect shows in them.

Eucharista Ward¹², Match For Mary Bennet, 2009

When love is in excess it brings a man no honor nor worthiness¹³.

Euripides (484 BC - 406 BC), Medea, 431 B.C.

There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 - 1900), "On Reading and Writing"

What else is love but understanding and rejoicing in the fact that another person lives, acts, and experiences otherwise than we do…?

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 - 1900)

They wouldn't call it falling in love if you didn't get hurt sometimes, but you just pick yourself up and move on.

Gregory Thomas Garcia, Elijah Aron, Jordan Young, Raising Hope, Cheaters, April 2011

Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.

H. L. Mencken (1880 - 1956)

Sometimes when you look back on a situation, you realize it wasn't all you thought it was. A beautiful girl walked into your life. You fell in love. Or did you? Maybe it was only a childish infatuation, or maybe just a brief moment of vanity.

Henry Bromel, Northern Exposure, The Big Kiss, 1991

There is no remedy for love but to love more.

Henry David Thoreau (1817 - 1862), Journal, July 25, 1839

Just because you love someone doesn't mean you have to be involved with them. Love is not a bandage to cover wounds.

Hugh Elliott, Standing¹⁴ Room Only weblog, February 16, 2004

Passion makes the world go round. Love just makes it a safer place.

Ice T, The Ice Opinion

A kiss is a lovely trick, designed by nature, to stop words when speech becomes unnecessary.

Ingrid Bergman (1915 - 1982)

Love is the difficult realization¹⁵ that something other than oneself is real.

Iris Murdoch (1919 - 1999)