Quotes & Sayings About Being The Only One In Love

Next time we will look at this from a much more basic point of view and one antedating all zoology, which, glimpsed only a little after my twentieth year, made write in those days that what is most valuable in man is his eternal and almost divine discontent, a discontent which is a kind of love without a beloved, and like an ache which we feel in members of our body that we do not have. Man is the only being that misses he has never had. And the whole of what we miss, without ever having had it, is never what we call happiness. From this one could start a meditation on happiness, an analysis of that strange condition which makes man the only being who is unhappy for the very reason that he needs to be happy. That is, because he needs to be what he is not. — Jose Ortega Y Gasset

It's the same struggle for each of us, and the same path out: the utterly simple, infinitely wise ultimately defiant act of loving one thing and then another, loving our way back to life ... Maybe being perfectly happy is not really the point. Maybe that is only some modern American dream of the point, while the truer measure of humanity is the distance we must travel in our lives, time and again, "twixt two extremes of passion
joy and grief," as Shakespeare put it. However much I've lost, what remains to me is that I can still speak to name the things I love. And I can look for safety in giving myself away to the world's least losable things. — Barbara Kingsolver

But I'm also really angry at myself for not being loyal to Sam, for not remaining steadfast and true in my devotion, like I have promised him I would be. I am mad at myself for being unsure, for not being the sort of woman who can tell him he's the only one, for not giving him the kind of love he deserves. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

Sometimes work was just what you clocked into while you were falling in love. Sometimes sex was just something you did while you weren't at work. Drugs were something you did sometimes when you couldn't deal with one of those things, or with yourself. The City was so expensive and so grueling sometimes that it was easy to be unsure why you were there. Many were there to make money, money that could largely only be made there, in the long spiny arms of industries that could never grow anywhere else or anywhere smaller. Some people just liked it, its loudness and crowdedness and surprises. Some started there for a reason and then couldn't imagine being anywhere else, but maybe lost track of that reason along the way. Some people had a plan. Some were just chancing it. Either way the months flew by, and over the years you came up with something or you came up with not much. — Choire Sicha

I believe that the universe is one being, all its parts are different expressions of the same energy ... parts of one organic whole ... (This is physics, I believe, as well as religion.) The parts change and pass, or die, people and races and rocks and stars; none of them seems to me important in itself, but only the whole. This whole is in all its parts so beautiful, and is felt by me to be so intensely in earnest, that I am compelled to love it, and to think of it as divine. — Robinson Jeffers

About the only good thing about being sex-starved and hornier than the blue wildebeest in mating season she'd once had to write an essay on, was the vast improvement on her pen-pal repertoire. Phone sex? Pah! Any schmuck could talk dirty and get off on it. The art of airmail sex, however, presented a much greater challenge and one she'd excelled at, if Mark's responses were anything to go by. It was a wonder the planes didn't catch fire. — Allie A. Burrow

I have only known two men's souls in my life, one the devil, the other the the bird's wings which picked me up and carried me back to the freedom of being. — Wendy Gibbins

I didn't know his age or how he liked his tea, I was wearing a terrible coat and I was drunk as a stoat - but this moment felt like it. The one I'd been waiting patiently for since I was a little girl. I'd worked so hard, for so long, at being ok with being single, but all of the things I'd told myself about independence were disappearing rapidly into the cold night. Right now, he felt like the only person who mattered in the whole world. — Lucy Robinson

What you call poetry and passion are nothing but lies - with beautiful facades. Out of your hundred poets, ninety-nine are not really poets but only people in a state of turmoil, emotion, passion, heat, lust, sexuality, sensuality. Only one out of your hundred poets is a real poet. And the real poet may never compose any poetry, because his whole being is poetry. The way he walks, the way he sits, the way he eats, the way he sleeps - it is all poetry. He exists as poetry. He may create poetry, he may not create poetry, that is irrelevant. But what you call poetry is nothing but the expression of your fever, of your heated state of consciousness. It is a state of insanity. Passion is insane, blind, unconscious - because it gives you the feeling as if it is love. Love — Osho

The truth of history lies simultaneously in the substratum of created existence (since all beings are the willed realizations of God's love); in the fulfillment of the future of history (since God's love, in His will and its expressions - namely, created existence - is identifiable with the final communion of creation with the life of God); and in the incarnate Christ (since on God's part the personification of this loving will is the incarnate Christ). Whereby Christ becomes the "principle" and "end" of all things, the One who not only moves history from within its own unfolding but who also moves existence even from within the multiplicity of created things, toward the true being which is true life and true communion. — John D. Zizioulas

There is only one state- admittedly an unusual state, but not one that can be stigmatized as pathological- in which it does not do this. At the height of being in love the boundary between ego and object threatens to melt away. Against all the evidence of his senses, a man who is in love declares that 'I' and 'you' are one, and is prepared to behave as if it were a fact. — Sigmund Freud

Don't be embarrassed about being loved. I'm not asking you for anything; just let me love you and play the piano again tonight, just once more, if I still have the strength to do it. In exchange I ask only one thing: If you hear anyone say that I'm dying, go straight to my ward. Let me have my wish. — Paulo Coelho

I thought women enjoyed affairs. I thought they got sparks of pleasure at the buzz of their phone, thought they ran around with a glow, their world suddenly on fire with new love. I thought they were women with terrible husbands and unhappy lives, an affair the first step in an eventual ending of their marriage. I thought that they were horrible, selfish women. I never thought that I would be one of them. I never thought that I'd be so weak. It turned out being the perfect wife was only easy when there was no temptation, no mistake haunting and overshadowing your marriage. — Alessandra Torre

These tears are proof that there is love in the world. Tears are only bitter when we cry selfishly for ourselves. When we deny and forget the sweet love that tears are made of. When we let sorrow turn to anger. When people cry for each other, it is a good thing. Always remember that you are a human being, connected to all other human beings. When you cry for others you are opening your heart to God, who must see what we do and weep for us, too, for the suffering we cause to one another and to ourselves. — Nafisa Haji

There's a poetry to it, engineer's poetry ... it suggests Haverie - average, you know - certainly you have two lobes, don't you, symmetrical about the rocket's intended azimuth ... hauen, too-smashing someone with a hoe or a club ... off on a voyage of his own here, smiling at no one in particular, bringing in the popular wartime expression ab-hauen, quarterstaff technique, peasant humor, phallic comedy dating back to the ancient Greeks ... Slothrop's first impulse is to get back to what that Plas is into, but something about the man, despite obvious membership in the plot, keeps him listening ... an innocence, maybe a try at being friendly in the only way he has available, sharing what engages and runs him, a love for the Word. — Thomas Pynchon

Not only did I rise above my drooling-hunchback-in-the-dungeon status, but I also made our meeting seem like a chance encounter, one of the most powerful aphrodisiacs known to man. Thanks to chick flicks, the concept of true love being orchestrated by the rough, construction worker hands of fate is an easy sell. — Shane Kuhn

Dear Mama,
I am being stalked by not one but two men of exceptionally high birth. One is a madman who tortured me and promised to make me love him forever. The other is a madman who gave me his shadow and lives to make my life difficult. No doubt you would be pleased, but I intend to deny you grandchildren for the foreseeable future. Henry is a dear, but I suspect the only reason his parents were willing to consider me for his bride was that he does not, in fact, like women at all. In place of comforting news about my marriageability and future grandchildren, please know I have adopted a bird. You would like him.
Much love,
Hopeless Jessamin — Kiersten White

Unfortunately, oppression does not automatically produce only meaningful struggle. It has the ability to call into being a wide range of responses between partial acceptance and violent rebellion. In between you can have, for instance, a vague, unfocused dissatisfaction; or, worst of all, savage infighting among the oppressed, a fierce love-hate entanglement with one another like crabs inside the fisherman's bucket, which ensures that no crab gets away. This is a serious issue for African-American deliberation.
To answer oppression with appropriate resistance requires knowledge of two kinds: in the first place, self-knowledge by the victim, which means awareness that oppression exists, an awareness that the victim has fallen from a great height of glory or promise into the present depths; secondly, the victim must know who the enemy is. He must know his oppressor's real name, not an alias, a pseudonym, or a nom de plume! — Chinua Achebe

Love is just like God. Some believe in it, some don't. You can only feel love and that too if you are open to its existence. Likewise, an atheist cannot feel the presence of the divine because his mind is shut to the possibility of there being one. — Anurag Shourie

LOVE Love is the only way to grasp another human being in the innermost core of his personality. No one can become fully aware of the very essence of another human being unless he loves him. By his love he is enabled to see the essential traits and features in the beloved person; and even more, he sees that which is potential in him, which is not yet actualized but yet ought to be actualized. Furthermore, by his love, the loving person enables the beloved person to actualize these potentialities. By making him aware of what he can be and of what he should become, he makes these potentialities come true. In logotherapy, — Viktor E. Frankl

The powerful changes that happen in the life of a disciple never come from the disciple working hard at doing anything. They come from arriving at a place where Jesus is everything, and we are simply overwhelmed with the gift. Sometimes it seems as if God loves us too much. His love goes far beyond our ability to stop being moral, religious, obedient, and victorious, and we just collapse in his arms.
Out of the gospel that Jesus is the only Mediator between God and humanity comes a Christian life that looks like Jesus, a life Jesus would recognize. It's a life that looks like Jesus, because Jesus does everything, and all we do is accept his gift. And to accept his gift, we have to give up trying to be Jesus.
Out of that discovery comes a Christian life that is free from the tyranny of unnecessary adjectives - even my preferred modified, Jesus-shaped - and simply follows after the One who loves us beyond words or repayment. — Michael Spencer

The greatest hope, I say, is the one in which all the others are met, is that it is exists for everyone and that for everyone it lasts. That the absolute gift of one being to another, which can exist only in reciprocity, be in the eyes of everyone the only natural and supernatural hanging bridge cast across life itself. — Andre Breton

When I was eight, I found my best friend. Then, one day, I came home and she'd changed. During my absence, she'd become the most beautiful girl I'd ever seen in my life and I fell in love with her so completely that the very idea of ever being without her became an impossibility I couldn't stand. That same girl has always been the only one to ever hold my heart in her hands. She's the only one who can both build me and destroy me if she wishes and I wouldn't change that for anything. I can't live without her." ~ Isaiah — Airicka Phoenix

You see,' he said, 'I always imagine our being really happy with some few other people - a little freedom with people.'

She pondered for a moment.

'Yes, one does want that. But it must happen. You can't do anything for it with your will. You always seem to think you can force the flowers to come out. People must love us because they love us - you can't make them.'

'I know,' he said. 'But must one take no steps at all? Must one just go as if one were alone in the world - the only creature in the world? — D.H. Lawrence

I think the strangest thing that exists, is how there are seven billion people on the planet and yet, so many people can spend their whole lives looking for somebody to love and never, ever find that. There are so many things that we can find in other people - friendship, learning processes, enrichment - so many things, nevertheless, the most elusive and fragile of all the things we can possibly find in another human being, is love. To be the one that someone loves and for that person to be the one that you love. Why is this difficult to find? My answer is that, because out of the seven billion, there really is only one. You don't find something and make it work; you find the one and when you do, you work until it works. The problem is finding the one. Many, many people are born and die never finding that. — C. JoyBell C.

One has only to set a loved human being against the fact that we are all in peril all the time to get back a sense of proportion. What does anything matter compared to the reality of love and its span, so brief at best, maintained against such odds? — May Sarton

Love is the degree to which you are willing to sacrifice your own interests for those of another. It doesn't matter what sex you are. It doesn't matter who you are, or were. It only matters that you care more for someone else than you do for yourself. It's when you eat minlatta with tarragon oil even when you hate pasta because someone with you enjoys it. It's when you value being alone more than anything but agree to move in with someone because they need you. And believe this, Ellis Rogers, for I am quite certain that love is most certainly when you push away the one person in all the world you want to be with because you think your thoughts would cause them pain. — Michael J. Sullivan

To love is not to possess,
To own or imprison,
Nor to lose one's self in another.
Love is to join and separate,
To walk alone and together,
To find a laughing freedom
That lonely isolation does not permit.
It is finally to be able
To be who we really are
No longer clinging in childish dependency
Nor docilely living separate lives in silence,
It is to be perfectly one's self
And perfectly joined in permanent commitment
To another--and to one's inner self.
Love only endures when it moves like waves,
Receding and returning gently or passionately,
Or moving lovingly like the tide
In the moon's own predictable harmony,
Because finally, despite a child's scars
Or an adult's deepest wounds,
They are openly free to be
Who they really are--and always secretly were,
In the very core of their being
Where true and lasting love can alone abide. — James Kavanaugh

What is it which makes a man and a woman know that they, of all other men and women in the world, belong to each other? Is it no more than chance and meeting? no more than being alive together in the world at the same time? Is it only a curve of the throat, a line of the chin, the way the eyes are set, a way of speaking? Or is it something deeper and stranger, something beyond meeting, something beyond chance and fortune? Are there others, in other times of the world, whom we should have loved, who would have loved us? Is there, perhaps, one soul among all others
among all who have lived, the endless generations, from world's end to world's end
who must love us or die? And whom we must love, in turn
whom we must seek all our lives long
headlong and homesick
until the end? — Robert Nathan

A controlling relationship can start with over-the-top romantic gestures and gifts, and great protestations of you 'being the only one' and their love being a special kind of 'you and me against the world', often disconcertingly early in a relationship. There may be a charm campaign aimed at you and even friends and family, your other potential allies and 'protectors'. Suddenly or gradually there are rules, or flashes of mystifying rage or sulking designed to modify your behaviour to what they want you to do. Then the 'nice' person reappears, and all is well, he's romantic and doting again, before the next flashpoints of anger or rage or sullen tension. This is not a 'return to the good times'. It's the classic cycle of abuse, recognised — Kaz Cooke

He knew that she was to have an elaborate wedding, and the being who loved her most, who would love her forever, would not even have the right to die for her. Jealousy, which until that time had been drowned in weeping, took possession of his soul. He prayed to God that lightning of divine justice would strike Fermina Daza as she was about to give her vow of love and obedience to a man who wanted her for his wife only as a social adornment, and he went into rapture at the vision of the bride, his bride or no one's, lying face up on the flagstones of the Cathedral, her orange blossoms laden with the dew of death, and the foaming torrent of her veil covering the funerary marbles of the fourteen bishops who were buried in front of the main altar. Once his revenge was consummated, however, he repented of his own wickedness, and then he saw Fermina Daza rising from the ground, her spirit intact, distant but alive, because it was not possible for him to imagine the world without her. — Gabriel Garcia Marquez

In the opera, there was only one great love for the characters. In... tales there was only one love as well - yes, even after death. Everything I had read or sung or felt said this was always the case. If you ignored this great truth, if you gave up on it of being too hard to hold on to, or let it slip away to have mere things, no real meaning could be left in life. — Lenore Hart

The thing I was beginning to figure out about Sam and Grace, the thing about Sam not being able to function without her, was that that sort of love only worked when you were sure both people would always be around for each other. If one half of the equation left, or died, or was slightly less perfect in their love, it became the most tragic, pathetic story invented, laughable in its absurdity. Without Grace, Sam was a joke without a punch line. — Maggie Stiefvater

I think I had a more European outlook about the body and sex. The body is in no way dirty, and sex is something beautiful to give to and share with a lover. It has nothing to do with promiscuity, because I only believe in being in love with one man at a time. — Dorothy Stratten

He got to know me, not with the minuteness with which I knew him, but with his spontaneous conclusions. He talked about everyone and defined them, but I had the privilege of being the only one in whom he discovered new facets, the only one to whom he addressed questions from the soul, the only one he examined and in whom he found what they never gave him, but he was frightened by the discovery. The two of us were filled with fear that night, the only night, when we again closed what we'd opened, as if we'd never seen it. — Jorge Franco

We've made a beautiful mess of things lately, haven't we?" He flashed that sexy crooked smile at me, which made my heart flutter.
"But it's our crazy story," "It's been ours, only ours. There's been a lot of romance, sometimes way too much drama ... " "very memorable comedy, a few pulse-racing action scenes ... "
"We've also had our fair share of suspense and raw terror, and unfortunately gut-wrenching heartache too."
"I think we've covered it all, everything except fo being captured by aliens!"
"But through it all you've loved me unconditionally, and I know how fortunate I am to have your love. I don't want to live without you, not for one more minute, not for one more second. I want to spend the rest of my days living my story with you ... only you."
"It is here that I fell in love with you"
"And as fate would have it, it is here that I humbly kneel before you and ask you to be my wife. — Tina Reber

Only one thing is necessary: we should all have a pure heart, with no anger, hatred, irritation, or hostility in it. If you feel hostility toward another person, think about their inner state. Do not think about yourself, or that you want to prove yourself right. In your quiet, inner thoughts, try to find the good in others. Do not say anything bad about others, even in your own thoughts. When you interact with a person, try to find as much common ground as possible, the more the better, and try to nurture this feeling. To cease being angry with a person and instead to seek peace, forgiveness and love toward him, remind yourself of any sins you may have in common and compare them. — Leo Tolstoy

The first time I opened one I felt indecent. I love the feel of a book. I love the touch and smell and sound of the pages. I love the handling. A book is a sensual thing. You sit curled in a chair with it or like me you take it to bed and it's, well, enveloping. Weird I am. I know. What the Hell? as Bobby Bowe says to everything. You either get it or you don't. When my father first took me to Ennis Library I went down among the shelves and felt company, not only the company of the writers, but the readers too, because they had lifted and opened and read these books. The books were worn in a way they can only get worn by hands and eyes and minds; these were the literal original Facebooks, the books where faces had been, and I just loved it, the whole strange sense of being aboard a readership. — Niall Williams

The problem about cutting out the best of your heart and giving it to people, is that 1. It hurts to do that; and 2. You never know if they are going to throw it away or not. But then you should still do it. Because any other way is cowardice. At the end of the day, it's about being brave and we are only haunted by the ghosts that we trap within ourselves; we are not haunted by the ghosts that we let out. We are haunted by the ghosts that we cover and hide. So you let those ghosts out in that best piece of your heart that you give to someone. And if the other person throws it away? Or doesn't want it to begin with? Someone else will come along one day, cut out from his/her heart that exact same jagged shape that you cut out of your own heart, and make their piece of heart fit into the rest of yours. Wait for that person. And you can fill their missing piece with your soul. — C. JoyBell C.

While I'd been plagued by nightmares of Jonathan's unrest in the hereafter, it was only now that I'd seen Adair again - and seen him so changed - that I could admit, even to myself, that it was him I daydreamed of, who I longed for, who I ached for, physically. That was how I'd betrayed Luke - in my desire for Adair. It wasn't so uncommon, was it? Living with one man while your mind is on another? Being unable to stop thinking of this other man who, for one reason or another, was not the one sitting beside you. Thinking of the way his eyes lit up when he saw you, of his wicked smile and what it was like when he held you, how you responded to the touch of his hands. In solitary moments, you remembered the little intimacies, the feel of his skin against yours, the way he liked to be touched, the velvet nap of his member, the way he tasted. You thought of him even though you could never be with him. His absence nagged like an itch you could never scratch. — Alma Katsu

Her heart
is given him, with all its love and truth. She would joyfully die with him, or better than that, die for him. She knows he has failings, but she thinks they have grown up through his being like one cast away, for the want of something to trust in, and care for, and think well of. And she says, that lady rich and beautiful that I can never come near, 'Only put me in that empty place, only try how little I mind myself, only prove what a world of things I will do and bear for you, and I hope that you might even come to be so much better than you are, through me who am so much worse, and hardly worth the thinking of beside you. — Charles Dickens

Unconditional love corresponds to one of the deepest longings, not only of the child, but of every human being; on the other hand, to be loved because of one's merit, because one deserves it, always leaves doubt; maybe I did not please the person whom I want to love me,
maybe this, or that - there is always a fear that love could disappear. Furthermore, "deserved" love easily leaves a bitter feeling that one is not loved for oneself, that one is loved only because one pleases, that one is, in the last analysis, not loved at all but used. — Erich Fromm

One possessed a thousand and three women (in Spain alone), the other only one. But it is multiplicity that is impoverished, whilethe entire world is concentrated in a single being infinitely possessed. Tristan no longer needs the world
because he loves! While Don Juan, always loved, cannot love in return. Hence his anguish and his frenzied course. — Denis De Rougemont

Being in love isn't the only way of loving. I realized with all my being that if you loved somebody- it didn't matter who it was- and dedicated yourself to bringing joy to your loved one, you, too, would be redeemed. — Sayo Masuda

My personal assessment is that Dr. King is the greatest American we have ever produced. I can argue for Lincoln, I can argue for FDR, but for my money, King is the greatest American we have ever produced. His only weapon was love. He transforms a nation, transforms the world with one weapon and that of course being again the weapon of love. So that for me, King is the quintessential example of everything that I could ever want to be in my lifetime. — Tavis Smiley

It's probably not just by chance that I'm alone. It would be very hard for a man to live with me, unless he's terribly strong. And if he's stronger than I, I'm the one who can't live with him. ... I'm neither smart nor stupid, but I don't think I'm a run-of-the-mill person. I've been in business without being a businesswoman, I've loved without being a woman made only for love. The two men I've loved, I think, will remember me, on earth or in heaven, because men always remember a woman who caused them concern and uneasiness. I've done my best, in regard to people and to life, without precepts, but with a taste for justice. — Coco Chanel

Sometimes, when one is moving silently through such an utterly desolate landscape, an overwhelming hallucination can make one feel that oneself, as an individual human being, is slowly being unraveled. The surrounding space is so vast that it becomes increasingly difficult to keep a balanced grip on one's own being. The mind swells out to fill the entire landscape, becoming so diffuse in the process that one loses the ability to keep it fastened to the physical self. The sun would rise from the eastern horizon, and cut it's way across the empty sky, and sink below the western horizon. This was the only perceptible change in our surroundings. And in the movement of the sun, I felt something I hardly know how to name: some huge, cosmic love. — Haruki Murakami

One of the best things about gratitude is that it serves both you and the one to whom you are giving thanks. When you share your feelings of being blessed and grateful, not only do you vibrate at higher level, but your expression contributes to an increase in the energy of those around you, and especially serves the individual to whom you have expressed your thanks. The result is that you raise the level of universal well-being by choosing to focus with gratitude on your blessings. — Susan Barbara Apollon

Matters of the heart were important, but people tended to put too much stock in the particular organ when, in retrospect, it was only tissue. It pumped blood and the body couldn't live without it, sure, but it had no actual bearing on love. The soul was what made a person distinct - the part that lived on after death, how one being connected to another, and what bound essence. — Kelly Moran

I was the first man to fall in love with you, son of Clinias, and now that the others have stopped pursuing you I suppose you're wondering why I'm the only one who hasn't given up - and also why, when the others pestered you with conversation, I never even spoke to you all these years. Human causes didn't enter into it; I was prevented by some divine being, the effect of which you'll hear later on. But now it no longer prevents me, so here I am. I'm confident it won't prevent me in future either. — Plato

How do I describe the feeling that envelopes my being when he is near? It is like a cocoon of warmth and peace, but beneath that there is a deep longing, a hunger that one kiss would not be able to satisfy, one kiss would only make the hunger greater. But oh, how I long for that kiss, a kiss that might never come.
Being close to him does things to me, makes me feel things I never knew existed, makes me want things I have never wanted before. I have never desired to know a man's body before I met Ariston. I wonder if he knows that I desire him in such a way, that I not only want to know his body, but that I want him to know mine. There is a part of me that would not care if he loves me or not if I could just have one beautiful, passionate night with him, while the rest of me knows that one night would never be enough. — Jasmine Dubroff

I guess we'll never know exactly what ... the reasons behind the losses we experience in this life. But being angry doesn't make them any less devastating. It only robs us of the happiness and love we can experience. Only forgiveness can set us free. — Christene Houston

Without your wounds where would your power be? It is your melancholy that makes your low voice tremble into the hearts of men and women. The very angels themselves cannot persuade the wretched and blundering children on earth as can one human being broken on the wheels of living. In Love's service, only wounded soldiers can serve. Physician, draw back. — Thornton Wilder

Every time a man (myself) gives way to vanity, every time he thinks and lives in order to show off, this is a betrayal. Every time, it has always been the great misfortune of wanting to show off which has lessened me in the presence of the truth. We do not need to reveal ourselves to others, but only to those we love. For then we are no longer revealing ourselves in order to seem but in order to give. There is much more strength in a man who reveals himself only when it is necessary. I have suffered from being alone, but because I have been able to keep my secret I have overcome the suffering of loneliness. To go right to the end implies knowing how to keep one's secret. And, today, there is no greater joy than to live alone and unknown. — Albert Camus

Six hundred and forty fish later, the only thing I know is everything you love will die. The first time you meet someone special, you can count on them one day being dead and in the ground. — Chuck Palahniuk

Her self-respect had suffered a head-on collision with love, a clash that generally only ends one way. Love does not fight fair. In that moment her pride, the gut knowledge that she was right, even her sense of who she was, meant nothing, faced as she was with the prospect of being unloved. Faith — Frances Hardinge

He who had known us before we were even born came to know us infinitely better as he knelt in Gethsemane and as he hung on the cross of Calvary. We come to know those we serve (Mosiah 5:13; compare 1 John 2:3-4). And we certainly come to love and treasure those for whom we sacrifice. Conversely, the depth of the pain we feel in behalf of a loved one is intimately tied to the depth of the love we bear that loved one. Thus only a being filled with infinite and eternal love could perform an infinite and eternal sacrifice. — Robert L. Millet

Now, I did know a certain young lady of the 'romantic' generation of not so long ago who, after being mysteriously in love for several years with a certain gentleman whom she could have married at any time without the least difficulty, suddenly broke off their relationship, inventing for herself all manner of insurmountable obstacles, and one stormy night plunged from a high, precipitous cliff into a fairly deep and fast-flowing river, where she perished from her own caprice solely through her attempt to imitate Shakespeare's Ophelia, for, had the precipice, which she had long before singled out and been compulsively drawn to, been less picturesque, and had there been only a prosaically flat bank in its stead, perhaps there would have been no suicide at all. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

All men are liars, fickle, chatterers, hypocrites, proud or cowardly, despicable, sensual ; all women faithless, tricky, vain, inquisitive, and depraved. The world is only a bottomless cesspool, where the most shapeless sea-beasts climb and writhe on mountains of slime. But there is in the world a thing holy and sublime - the union of two of these beings, imperfect and frightful as they are. One is often deceived in love, often wounded, often unhappy ; but one loves, and on the brink of the grave one turns to look back and says : I have suffered often, sometimes I have been mistaken, but I have loved. It is I who have lived, and not a spurious being bred of my pride and my sorrow — Alfred De Musset

He only wished he'd had the chance to explain more fully how prayer worked. That it wasn't a matter of asking for things and being accepted or rejected, it was a matter of adding one's energy - insignificant in itself - to the vastly greater energy that was God's love. In fact, it was an affirmation of being part of God, an aspect of His spirit temporarily housed inside a body. — Michel Faber

Each of us have a winner within. Tap into your potential and gain unlimited success! The only one who can stop you is yourself. Think Positive! Be Optimistic! Don't be fooled into thinking it can't be done. Look around amazing things are accomplished everyday. New inventions, discoveries are happening all the time. If you can get one foot in the door, you can make it happen. — Amaka Imani Nkosazana

There lives at least one being who can never change-one being who would be content to devote his whole existence to your happiness-who lives but in your eyes-who breathes but in your smiles-who bears the heavy burden of life itself only for you. — Charles Dickens

Isn't it interesting that emotionally abusive personalities always expect their victim to feel guilt for them so that they can feel sorry for themselves? They live in a constant torture by the demons of fear and regret, and the less they assume responsibility for their own behavior and words, the greater the legion that eventually possesses their soul and leads them to hell before they reach it. A normal communication is a luxury for such individuals, for their spirit is now a hostage to the torture of ignorance, the separation between their brain and their soul. The only thing they can do is manipulate and provoke, because they're being distracted by their new hosts towards pushing away the ones that could take them out of the water where they have chosen to drown themselves when giving up on trust, empathy, compassion and love. No one can save them because they have not clearly stated that they want to be saved. And each human is responsible for his own fate. — Robin Sacredfire

You were right the first time, Cathy. It was a stupid, silly story.
Ridiculous! Only insane people would die for the sake of love. I'll
bet you a hundred to one a woman wrote that junky romantic trash!"
Just a minute ago I'd despised that author for bringing about such a
miserable ending, then there I went, rushing to the defense. "T. M.
Ellis could very well have been a man! Though I doubt any woman writer
in the nineteenth century had much chance of being published, unless
she used her initials, or a man's name. And why is it all men think
everything a woman writes is trivial or trashy-or just plain silly
drivel? Don't men have romantic notions? Don't men dream of finding
the perfect love? And it seems to me, that Raymond was far more
mushy-minded than Lily! — V.C. Andrews

Though I love you to the core of my being, so thoroughly that every cell comprising me aches to be near you, I must accept that we can never be together. For our existence parallels the sun and the moon - a temptation in constant, beautiful view, yet if the sun were ever to kiss the moon it would devour the heavenly orb whole. Oh, my darling, if only I were the moon! Then I would dare taste your lips and be happy for my last and final joy! But alas, I am the sun, and I will not venture to destroy the one I love. — Richelle E. Goodrich

When seventeenth-century Jesuit missionary Paul Le Jeune lectured a Montagnais Indian man about the dangers of the rampant infidelity he'd witnessed, Le Jeune received a lesson on proper parenthood in response. The missionary recalled, "I told him that it was not honorable for a woman to love any one else except her husband, and that this evil being among them, he himself was not sure that his son, who was there present, was his son. He replied, 'Thou hast no sense. You French people love only your own children; but we all love all the children of our tribe.'"5 — Christopher Ryan

The disciples of the One resurrected are the oddest of people; we live honestly in the now but yearn for a future so greatly that we take on its future characteristics. In a world of competition, power, and hatred, we live into the future by taking on the future's characteristics of being last, weak, and loving. In this way we provide a world that knows only certainty, immediacy, and domination with a vision of the future encompassed in the faith, hope, and love made possible by the resurrection of Jesus, who has been crucified as our place-sharer. — Andrew Root

Me?" he said in some surprise. "I won't be dancing! It's the bridal dance. The bride and groom dance alone!"
For one circuit of the room," she told him. "After which they are joined by the best man and first bridesmaid, then by the groomsman and the second bridesmaid."
Will reacted as he had been stung. He leaned over to speak across Jenny on his left, to Gilan.
Gil! Did you know we have to dance?" he asked. Gilan nodded enthusiastically.
Oh yes indeed. Jenny and I have been practicing for the past three days, haven't we, Jen?"
Jenny looked up at him adoringly and nodded. Jenny was in love. Gilan was tall, dashing, good-looking, charming and very ammusing. Plus he was cloaked in the mystery and romance tat came with being a Ranger. Jenny had only ever known one ranger and that had been grim-faced, gray-bearded Halt. — John Flanagan

If you've ever known the love of God, you know it's nothing but reckless and it's nothing but raging. Sometimes it hurts to be loved, and if it doesn't hurt it's probably not love, may be infatuation. I think a lot of American people are infatuated with God, but we don't really love Him, and they don't really let Him love them. Being loved by God is one of the most painful things in the world, it's also the only thing that can bring us salvation and it's like everything else that is really wonderful, there's a little bit of pain in it, little bit of hurt. — Rich Mullins

Without your wound where would your power be? It is your very remorse that makes your low voice tremble into the hearts of men. The very angels themselves cannot persuade the wretched and blundering children on earth as can one human being broken on the wheels of living. In love's service only the wounded soldiers can serve. — Thorton Wilder

Ivy hugs me tighter. "Wonderful, Rylan. This is good to know. And thank you for calling me...your friend. I love being called that."
Love. My cheeks catch fire and my heart races as we continue holding each other. That word has become so foreign in my house, ever since my dad started distancing himself. But here's my best friend using it in a way that makes me feel like everything's okay and I'm whole again.
It's the same one word - the only word - that could describe what I'm feeling for Ivy. — Colleen Boyd

The Fathers intent desire is that none would 'perish'. The promise God has given us is one of 'liberation'- Freedom. Being set free "from" captivity and reconciled "to" your Father. Intimacy with Jesus garners son-ship with Abba. As Jesus "demonstrated" that Son-ship of Grace he said, 'I only "say" and "do" what I hear the Father saying and doing'. Proclaiming the Kingdom of God by "Do'in the Stuff". The early church 'got' Jesus. John Wimber 're-got' Jesus and began proclaiming the Kingdom and demonstrating it as any loving son would of his Father. Now, we are no longer refuges but 'Bona Fide' citizens in good standing with our King and our new country. Where Love, Mercy, Grace; Peace 'rains' on us eternally here and now. 'The Already But Not Yet' (Ruis)."

~R. Alan Woods [2013] — R. Alan Woods

When you are young, you think it's going to be solved by love. But it never is. Being close
as close as you can get
to another person only makes clear that impassable distance between you.'
If being in love only made people more lonely, why would everyone want it so much?'
Because of the illusion. You fall in love, it's intoxicating, and for a little while you feel like you've actually become one with the other person. Merged souls and so on. You think you'll never be lonely again. — Nicole Krauss

THE MEANING OF LOVE Love is the only way to grasp another human being in the innermost core of his personality. No one can become fully aware of the very essence of another human being unless he loves him. By his love he is enabled to see the essential traits and features in the beloved person; and even more, he sees that which is potential in him, which is not yet actualized but yet ought to be actualized. Furthermore, by his love, the loving person enables the beloved person to actualize these potentialities. By making him aware of what he can be and of what he should become, he makes these potentialities come — Viktor E. Frankl

He loves me, and I reward his love by forcing on him something he hates. In the evening, after we dance, he rarely returns to the throne; he dances with others or moves from place to place through the room. The court thinks he is trying to be gracious, sharing his attention. Only I see that he moves always to the empty spot and the court always moves after him. He is like a dog trying to escape his own tail. He indulged himself in one brief moment of privacy, and almost died of it. Relius, he hates being king. — Megan Whalen Turner

Fortunately a human being can comprehend only a certain degree of unhappiness; anything beyond it destroys him or leaves him cold. There are situations in which fear and hope become one and the same, cancel one another out, and lose themselves in a dark insensateness. How else could we know the people we love best to be in continual danger and yet go on with our daily lives as usual? — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

This universe is shot through with mystery. The very fact of its being, and of our own, is a mystery absolute, and the only miracle worthy of the name. The consciousness that animates us is itself central to this mystery and the ground for any experience we might wish to call 'spiritual.' No myths need be embraced for us to commune with the profundity of our circumstance. No personal God need be worshiped for us to live in awe at the beauty and immensity of creation. No tribal fictions need be rehearsed for us to realize, one fine day, that we do, in fact, love our neighbors, that our happiness is inextricable from their own, and that our interdependence demands that people everywhere be given the opportunity to flourish. — Sam Harris

After years of falling into the same pattern of disappointments and heartbreak, I finally began to realize something profound. I had always thought that love of dunya meant being attached to material things. And I was not attached to material things. I was attached to people. I was attached to moments. I was attached to emotions. So I thought that the love of dunya just did not apply to me. What I didn't realize was that people, moments, emotions are all a part of dunya. What I didn't realize is that all the pain I had experienced in life was due to one thing, and one thing only: love of dunya. — Yasmin Mogahed

There is a terrible blindness in the love that wants only to accommodate. It's not only to do with omissions and half-truths. It implants a lack of being in the speaker and robs the self of an identity without which it is impossible for one to grow close to another. — Alexander Theroux

If love were the only thing, I
would follow you - in rags, if need be - to the world's end; for you hold
my heart in the hollow of your hand! But is love the only thing?
I know people write and talk as if it were. Perhaps, for some, Fate lets
it be. Ah, if I were one of them! But if love had been the only thing, you
would have let the King die in his cell.
Honour binds a woman too, Rudolf. My honour lies in being true to
my country and my House. I don't know why God has let me love you;
but I know that I must stay. — Anthony Hope

How I understand that love of living, of being in this wonderful, astounding world even if one can look at it only through theprison bars of illness and suffering! Plus je vois, the more I am thrilled by the spectacle. — Edith Wharton

All humans are frightened of their own solitude. Yet only in solitude can man learn to know himself, learn to handle his own eternity of aloneness. And love from one being to another can only be that two solitudes come nearer, recognize and protect and comfort each other. - The Mountain is Young — Han Suyin

I might be the only person on the face of the earth that knows you're the greatest woman on earth. I might be the only one who appreciates how amazing you are in every single thing that you do, and how you are with Spencer, "Spence," and in every single thought that you have, and how you say what you mean, and how you almost always mean something that's all about being straight and good. I think most people miss that about you, and I watch them, wondering how they can watch you bring their food, and clear their tables and never get that they just met the greatest woman alive. And the fact that I get it makes me feel good, about me. — Mark Andrus

We begin to understand marriage as the insistently practical union that it is. We begin to understand it, that is, as it is represented in the traditional marriage ceremony, those vows being only a more circumstantial and practical way of saying what the popular songs say dreamily and easily: "I will love you forever"
a statement that, in this world, inescapably leads to practical requirements and consequences because it proposes survival as a goal. Indeed, marriage is a union much more than practical, for it looks both to our survival as a species and to the survival of our definition as human beings
that is, as creatures who make promises and keep them, who care devotedly and faithfully for one another, who care properly for the gifts of life in this world. — Wendell Berry

I also very well remember that on another occasion the father dean said: 'In order that at responsible age a man may be a real man and not a parasite, his education must without fail be based on the following ten principles. 'From early childhood there should be instilled in the child: Belief in receiving punishment for disobedience. Hope of receiving reward only for merit. Love of God - but indiference to the saints. Remorse of conscience for the ill-treatment of animals. Fear of grieving parents and teachers. Fearlessness towards devils, snakes and mice. Joy in being content merely with what one has. Sorrow at the loss of the goodwill of others. Patient endurance of pain and hunger. The striving early to earn one's bread. — G.I. Gurdjieff

We enter this universe alone in search of microscopic beauty - and while we love, or are loved by others - we leave this world completely alone, having only found infinite sorrow. Despite there being so many of us, each of us tragically realizes that everyone is on a solitary journey. No one else can see what we see, hear what we hear, feel, what we feel. All we have of each other are glimpses of moments, whispers of experiences, memories of the past we wish we could make eternal, but in the end, we become a faint memory in the minds of a few good people. — Bruce Crown

Love of God thus becomes the dominant passion of life; like every other worth-while love, it demands and inspires sacrifice. But love of God and man, as an ideal, has lately been replaced by the new ideal of tolerance which inspires no sacrifice. Why should any human being in the world be merely tolerated? What man has ever made a sacrifice in the name of tolerance? It leads men, instead, to express their own egotism in a book or a lecture that patronizes the downtrodden group. One of the cruelest things that can happen to a human being is to be tolerated. Never once did Our Lord say, "Tolerate your enemies!" But He did say, "Love your enemies; do good to them that hate you" (Matt. 5:44). Such love can be achieved only if we deliberately curb our fallen nature's animosities. — Fulton J. Sheen

His voice gentled and his touch became more like a caress. "I love you," he whispered.
"Romeo ... "
"I love your glasses, your clumsiness, your wild hair, even the way you snort when you laugh." He smiled. "I love you in spite of yourself, Rim. Can't you love me in spite of myself?"
I couldn't help it, I smiled.
"You do come with a lot of baggage." I sighed. "You're impossibly good-looking, terrible at math, and you like to drink that swill you call beer." I mock shuddered.
He smiled, but I saw the relief in his eyes.
"Me being good-looking is a bad thing?" he teased.
"You have a lot of options," I said seriously. "I'm not the best one."
"No." He agreed. "You're not."
Geez, he could have said it a little nicer.
"You're the only one."
Oh, well, that was much better.
- Romeo & Rimmel — Cambria Hebert

Many people think that love represents chains, bondage, the opposite of freedom. But people who believe such things are simple-minded creatures who have been lied to, and who easily accept the general trend of the lie. It is in fact love that is the only thing powerful enough to set one free from even the most deeply-embedded and thoroughly-wound chains of the soul, the mind, and the body. The fact is that we are born into chains and born into bondages; these things are put upon us by fear, pain and doubt. When you are thoroughly loved by someone in mind and in heart, this has the power to set you so free, more free than you have ever been before. And that is because freedom is not the equivalent of detachment. Freedom is the equivalent of that which sets you free. And when someone loves you the way that only they can, that is what sets you free. — C. JoyBell C.

The best thing for being sad," replied Merlin, beginning to puff and blow, "is to learn something. That's the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then - to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn. — T.H. White

When a parent interferes with a child's anger response in these heavy-handed ways [ridiculing, ignoring, isolating, goading, punishing, distracting, hitting, joking], the anger increases and is redirected at the parent: now the parent is the one who's violating the child's sense of well-being by interfering with a natural and necessary outlet of emotion. Most parents stifle this secondary outburst of anger, too, only this time with more force. [...] Instead of allowing the anger to flow through the child's system the first time it's expressed, the parent unwittingly fans the anger, then dams it up. The anger becomes trapped in the little girl's stomach, muscles, and jaw, and becomes an enduring wound. — Patricia Love

For what Luc was in fact proposing was just a game, an enticing game, but, even so, one that could destroy my undoubtedly quite genuine feelings for Bertrand; and it could destroy something else within me, something ill-defined but fiercely felt, which, whether I liked it or not, was opposed to transience. Or, at the very least, to the intentionally transient nature of what Luc what was offering. And then, even if I was able to conceive of any passion or liaison as being short-lived, I couldn't accept in advance that it had to be that way. Like any individual for whom life is a series of charades, I could bear the charades only if they were written by me, and by me alone. — Francoise Sagan

The rock, when one came to think of it, was the utmost expression of human need; even mere feeling yearned for it; it was the highest comparison of loyalty in love and friendship. Christ Himself had used that comparison for the disciple to whom He gave the keys of His Church. And the Hebrews of the Old Testament, always being carried captive into foreign lands,
their rock was an idea of God, the only thing their conquerors could not take from them. — Willa Cather

I saw you, and I wanted to be close to you.
I wanted you to let me in.
I wanted to know you in a way no one else did.
I wanted you, all of you.
That wanting nearly drove me mad.
And now that I have you, the only thing that terrifies me is having to go back to that place.
Having to want you all over again, with no hope of my desire ever being fulfilled. — Becca Fitzpatrick

A story is like a giant jigsaw puzzle, a jigsaw puzzle that would cover the whole floor of a room with its tiny pieces. Buts it's not that sort of puzzle that comes with a box. There is no lid with a picture on it so that you can see what the puzzle will look like when it's finished. And you have only some of the pieces. All you can do is keep looking and listening, sniffing about in all sorts of places, until you find the next piece. And then you'll be amazed where that next piece will take you. Suddenly your puzzle can have a whole new person in it, or it can go from being on a train to a hot air balloon, from city to country, from love to sadness to loneliness and back to love. Pieces can come to you at any time. When you're having a cup of tea or sitting on a bus or talking with a friend.it will be like a bell going off in your head. That's what comes next you'll think. And that's why it's serendipity. Serendipity is luck and chance and fate all tumbled into one. — Angelica Banks

We as Americans are completely obsessed and wrapped up in a lot of the wrong values
looking good, having cash in the bank, being perceived as rich, famous and successful or just being famous, .. It's the most superficial part of the American dream and who would know better than me? The only thing that's going to bring you happiness is love and how you treat your fellow man and having compassion for one another. — Madonna Ciccone

Did you love well what very soon you left? Come home and take me in your arms and take away this stomach ache, headache, heartache. Never so full, I never was bereft so utterly. The winter evenings drift dark to the window. Not one work will make you, where you are, turn in your day, or wake from your night toward me. The only gift I got to keep or give is what I've cried, floodgates let down to mourning for the dead chances, for the end of being young, for everyone I loved who really died. I drank our one year out in brine instead of honey from the seasons of your tongue. — Marilyn Hacker

The essence of motherhood is not restricted to women who have given birth; it is a principle inherent in both women and men. It is an attitude of the mind. It is love - and that love is the very breath of life. No one would say, 'I will breathe only when I am with my family and friends; I won't breathe in front of my enemies.' Similarly, for those in whom motherhood has awakened, love and compassion for everyone are as much part of their being as breathing. — Mata Amritanandamayi

In fact i only contemplated one thing - a happy marriage. About that i had complete self-assurance - as all my friends did. We were conscious of all the happiness that awaited us. We looked forward to love, to being looked after, cherished and admired, and we intended to get our own way in the thiggs which mattered to us while at the same time putting our husband's life, career and success before all, as was our proud duty. we didn't need pep pills or sedatives; we had belief and joy in life. We had our own personal disappointments - moments of unhappiness - but on the whole life was fun. — Agatha Christie

It's the only way to know you're really in love, when you ask the question would it be harder to watch him die, or to know he'll watch me die? Is there more mercy in being the one who does the watching or in being the one who does the dying? It's when you realize what mercy-killing actually means, it's when you actually care to the point of tormenting worry. It's not roses and white horses, it's fucking brutal and it can send a person running for the hills. To love is brave. — Renee Carlino