Love Courtship Quotes & Sayings

The first six months are what I call the La La Land phase. This is what a lot of romantic novels, songs, and movies are based upon. Enjoy the courtship, nights out, and fun. You will eventually come back to reality. — Pamela Cummins

Whilst ladies persist in maintaining the strictly defensive condition, men must naturally, as it were, take the oppposite line, that of attack; otherwise, if both parties held aloof, there would be no more marriages; and the two hosts would die in their respective inaction, without ever coming to a battle. Thus it is evident that as the ladies will not, the men must take the offensive ... Is it not time that the ladies should take an innings? Let us widowers and bachelors form an association to declare that for the next hundred years we will make love no longer. Let the young women come and make love to us; let them write us verses; let them ask us to dance, get us ices and cups of tea, and help us on with our cloaks at the hall-door; and if they are eligible, we may perhaps be induced to yield and say, 'La, Miss Hopkins - I really never - I am so agitated - Ask papa! — William Makepeace Thackeray

During courtship, guarding each other's purity and refraining from intimacy are the acts of lovemaking. — Joshua Harris

Beginning today, make the decision to love and accept yourself just the way you are. Say your name followed by the words "I love you" and make this your daily mantra, repeating it often, especially during times of stress. Let it be your first thought upon arising and the last you think before falling asleep at night. This simple act of self-courtship can profoundly change your world. Try it for yourself and see. Make a personal decision to be in love with the most beautiful, exciting, worthy person ever - you. — Wayne Dyer

Be merry, and employ your chiefest thoughts
To courtship and such fair ostents of love
As shall conveniently become you there. — William Shakespeare

If you can't ignore imperfections, then your imaginary ideal soulmate will always remain pending till you grow old and die. — Michael Bassey Johnson

Each time a girl approached the table, Mortimer would smile. Like this: And each time the girl would shriek and run away. — Kelly DiPucchio

Falling in love is better than standing in hate. — Matshona Dhliwayo

If insemination were the sole biological function of sex, it could be achieved far more economically in a few seconds of mounting and insertion. Indeed, the least social of mammals mate with scarcely more ceremony. The species that have evolved long-term bonds are also, by and large, the ones that rely on elaborate courtship rituals ... Love and sex do indeed go together. — E. O. Wilson

Jack shook his head. 'Books. What is it with women and books? My sisters were the same. They were always buying books for boys they fancied.'
Ellie bent down and picked up the stone and put it on the table. 'It's like sending a love letter without having to write it yourself,' she said softly. — Hazel Osmond

Jemma, I know that we have known each other for only a few short weeks, but I feel as if I have known you all my life. This courtship may have been arranged at the beginning, but my love for you is truer than ever. So, I ask you, my love, as a man would rightly ask the woman he wishes to be his wife, if you will marry me. Don't say yes because of the original arrangement, say yes because you want to. I will love you forever Jemma Girard, and I would never force you to stay in an arrangement you did not want. If you wish it, we can eliminate the plans of marriage. I stood there in a breathless shock, staring at this wonderful and handsome young man who loved me enough to let me go. — Katlyn Charlesworth

None of us marry perfection; we marry potential. — Robert D. Hales

Why marry an abuser when you can marry a nurturer?
Why marry a belittler when you can marry an encourager?
Why marry a hater when you can marry a supporter?
Why marry an intimidator when you can marry a defender?
Why marry a tormentor when you can marry a protector?
Why marry a betrayer when you can marry a helper?
Why marry a quitter when you can marry a winner?
Why marry a loser when you can marry a victor?
Why marry a follower when you can marry a leader? — Matshona Dhliwayo

There is something revolting about the way girls' minds so often jump to marriage long before they jump to love. — Dodie Smith

As Narc became busier at work, he developed a bold new dating philosophy. His idea of a perfect first date was doggy-style, followed by a cup of coffee. He just didn't have the time or patience for anything resembling conventional courtship patterns and felt too depressed to be the charming smooth talker that he had once been. — Zack Love

I hate the countrie's dirt and manners, yet I love the silence; I embrace the wit; A courtship, flowing here in full tide. But loathe the expense, the vanity and pride. No place each way is happy. — William Habington

A bagel shop isn't the most romantic spot to tell a girl you like her. But that night romance wasn't the priority. Our time there wasn't intended to be mushy. I didn't propose marriage or say I was madly in love with her, and she didn't swoon.
What I did tell her was that through our friendship I'd grown to respect her. — Joshua Harris

My letters! all dead paper, mute and white!
And yet they seem alive and quivering
Against my tremulous hands which loose the string
And let them drop down on my knee to-night.
This said,
he wished to have me in his sight
Once, as a friend: this fixed a day in spring
To come and touch my hand ... a simple thing,
Yet I wept for it!
this, ... the paper's light ...
Said, Dear I love thee; and I sank and quailed
As if God's future thundered on my past.
This said, I am thine
and so its ink has paled
With lying at my heart that beat too fast.
And this ... O Love, thy words have ill availed
If, what this said, I dared repeat at last! — Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Fears and expectations that date back to earlier experiences of dependency, but that didn't arise during courtship or dating, are activated as commitment to the relationship increases. As a result, partners start to anticipate the worst, not the best from their relationship. — Stan Tatkin

The only man meant to be in your life is a man that knows your worth. — Shannon L. Alder

What tale do you like best to hear?' 'Oh, I have not much choice! They generally run on the same theme - courtship; and promise to end in the same catastrophe - marriage. — Charlotte Bronte

If you were to succeed in prolonging the deliriously ecstatic puppy-dog love stage of the first months of courtship through-out the entire relationship itself-through marriage, unto death-would this same love, so celebrated, so sought after, break down in utter incredulity at the duration of its own existence? — Courtney Maum

I'm not letting you go after this." He raised his head. "Marry me, Phoebe, please. Damn the courtship. Damn your brother. Damn the waiting. I can't ... I can't breathe when you're not with me. I love you with all my cynical heart. Be my wife and teach me to laugh and let me buy you beer and ride with me on the beaches of Cornwall. Be my love and my wife forevermore." (Captain James Trevellion) — Elizabeth Hoyt

No sooner would such a temptation present itself than I would smother it. The effect was of snuffing out a candle, two candles, a row of twenty, until the lens pulled back to reveal an entire votive stand exhaling a hundred thin lines of smoke as a terraced offering before the shrine. In this religion hidden lights had been declared superior to those that glared. Somewhere I was storing up merit, accumulating the credit I'd need to buy, one day, the salvation I longed for. Until then (and it was a reckoning that could be forestalled indefinitely, that I preferred putting off) I'd live in that happiest of all conditions: the long but seemingly prosperous courtship. It was a series of tests, ever more arduous, even perverse. For instance, I was required to deny my love in order to prove it. — Edmund White

So there I was eating haute cuisine in a mobile home. He cooked for me as seduction, a courtship, so that I'd never again be impressed with a man who simply took me out to dinner. And I fell in love with him over a deer's liver. — Kristin Kimball

Allow your relationship to progress at its own pace. Enjoy each moment of each date, the courtship, the friendship, and the natural progression to commitment. If it is meant to be, it will happen. — Pamela Cummins

Time goes on crutches till love have all his rites. — William Shakespeare

Thou and I are too wise to woo peaceably. — William Shakespeare

Do you see a theme emerging? Women like flowers; men like food! — Joshua Harris

Courtship is an activity whereby one losses oneself ... whilst trying to win someone's love. — Mokokoma Mokhonoana

He's already chasing you. Now all you have to do is keep running. Just not too fast. — Tammara Webber

I have been used to consider poetry as "the food of love" said Darcy.
"Of a fine, stout, healthy love it may. Everything nourishes what is
strong already. But if it be only a slight, thin sort of inclination, I
am convinced that one good sonnet will starve it entirely away. — Jane Austen

The Scotchman seemed hardly the same Farfrae who had danced with her, and walked with her, in a delicate poise between love and friendship - that period in the history of a love when alone it can be said to be unalloyed with pain. — Thomas Hardy

In a dating and courtship relationship, I would not have you spend five minutes with someone who belittles you, one who is constantly critical of you, one who is cruel at your expense and may even call it humor. Life is tough enough without the person who is supposed to love you leading the assault on your self-esteem, your sense of dignity, your confidence, and your joy. In this person's care, you deserve to feel physically safe and emotionally secure. — Jeffrey R. Holland

Love is a blazing, crackling, green-wood flame, as much smoke as flame; friendship, married friendship particularly, is a steady,intense, comfortable fire. Love, in courtship, is friendship in hope; in matrimony, friendship upon proof. — Samuel Richardson

Sex is not about reproduc-tion, gender is not about males and females, courtship is not aboutpersuasion, fashion is not about beauty, and love is not about affec-tion. Below the surface of every banality and cliche there lies irony,cynicism, and profundity. — Matt Ridley

Darwin speculated that "music tones and rhythms were used by our half-human ancestors, during the season of courtship, when animals of all kinds are excited not only by love, but by strong passions of jealousy, rivalry, and triumph" and that speech arose, secondarily, from this primal music. — Oliver Sacks

There is no greater code for courtship than walking. Learning to keep in step; the opportunity to express little concerns
alarm, caution, the touch on the elbow; the blood running in the veins; the sense of movement and shared goal; the sense of just being two amid the swirl; and above all the ability to talk expansively in the open air without the anxiety of each other's gaze and close scrutiny.
Those who wish to find love should learn to walk. — Tarun J. Tejpal

They were both lean and blond and weather-beaten, and one evening, as they were portaging gear from their respective Zodiacs, Libby unzipped her survival suit and tied the sleeves around her waist so she could move more freely. Nate said, "You look good in that."
No one, absolutely no one, looks good in a survival suit (unless a Day-Glo orange marshmallow man is your idea of a hot date), but Libby didn't even make the effort to roll her eyes. "I have vodka and a shower in my cabin," she said.
"I have a shower in my cabin, too," Nate said.
Libby just shook her head and trudged up the path to the lodge. Over her shoulder she called, "In five minutes, there's going to be a naked woman in my shower. You got one of those?"
"Oh," said Nate. — Christopher Moore

Love has little to do with romance and everything to do with honor. — Jesikah Sundin

Those Marriages generally abound most with Love and Constancy, that are preceded by a long Courtship. — Joseph Addison

I'm gonna love you like nobody's loved you come rain or come shine. — Johnny Mercer

Then as now, evil begins its courtship cloaked in light. And the heart embraces what is should flee. Forgetting it once had a true lover. Love will prove greater than lust. Sacrifice will overcome seduction. And blood will flow. — Ted Dekker

I've never understood why looking hot had to be equated with sex and conquest. Whatever happened to anticipation, to courtship, to true love? Can't a person look hot and not have it mean something? Call me an old-fashioned Naomi bitch, but I'm holding out for true love. Even if it's an unattainable fantasy — David Levithan

Any relationship with long-term potential has a honeymoon period, however brief, marked by the happy illusion that one's lover might be uniquely perfect. This fool's paradise is sustained by the elaborate deception artfully employed in every courtship: the diplomatic dodging of difficult issues, the careful concealing of unflattering flaws, and the strategic stressing of charming virtues. But as trust increases and each person grows weary of maintaining this initial beguilement, the blissfully blurry lens through which the other is perceived eventually refocuses to a clearer picture. — Zack Love

There is no pleasure in the world like writing well and going fast. It's like nothing else. It's like a love affair, it goes on and on, and doesn't end in marriage. It's all courtship. — Tennessee Williams

I don't believe in courtship, it's a waste of time. If I love the person, I'll tell her right away. But for you, I'll make an exemption: Just love me now, and I will court you forever. — Ferdinand E. Marcos

The pleasantest part of a man's life is generally that which passes in courtship, provided his passion be sincere, and the party beloved kind with discretion. Love, desire, hope, all the pleasing emotions of the soul, rise in the pursuit. — Joseph Addison

That nameless and infinitely delicate aroma of inexpressible tenderness and attentiveness which, in every refined and honorable attachment, is contemporary with the courtship, and precedes the final banns and the rite; but which, like the bouquet of the costliest German wines, too often evaporates upon pouring love out to drink, in the disenchanting glasses of the matrimonial days and nights. — Herman Melville

Yes, faith; it is my cousin's duty to make curtsy and say 'Father, as it please you.' But yet for all that, cousin, let him be a handsome fellow, or else make another curtsy and say 'Father, as it please me. — William Shakespeare

President David O. McKay (1873-1970) observed that too many couples come to "marriage looking upon the marriage ceremony as the end of courtship instead of the beginning of an eternal courtship ... Love can be starved to death as literally as the body that receives no sustenance. Love feeds upon kindness and courtesy" — David O. McKay

Don't believe a man will give you the world if he doesn't even buy you flowers. — Matshona Dhliwayo

I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow, than a man swear he loves me. — William Shakespeare

It is wrong to think that love comes from long companionship and persevering courtship. Love is the offspring of spiritual affinity and unless that affinity is created in a moment, it will not be created for years or even generations. — Kahlil Gibran

They say sweethearts and squabbles are like flowers and rain. Takes both to make it springtime. — Pamela Morsi

My husbands weren't any of them bad men, I was the problem. Marriage seemed like such a small space whenever I was in it. I liked the getting married. Courtship has a plotline. But there's no plot to being married. Just the same things over and over again. Same fights, same friends, same things you do on a Saturday. The repetition would start to get to me.

And then I couldn't fit my whole self into a marriage, no matter who my husband was. There were parts of me that John liked, and different parts for the others, but no one could deal with all of me, So I'd lop some part off, but then I'd start missing it, wanting it back. I didn't really fall in love until I had that first child. — Karen Joy Fowler

But indeed an old religious uncle of mine taught me to speak, who was in his youth an inland man; one that knew courtship too well, for there he fell in love. I have heard him read many lectures against it; and I thank God I am not a woman, to be touched with so many giddy offenses as he hath generally taxed their whole sex withal. — William Shakespeare

Here are officers enough in Meryton to disappoint all the young ladies in the country. — Jane Austen

I love songs about horses, railroads, land, Judgment Day, family, hard times, whiskey, courtship, marriage, adultery, separation, murder, war, prison, rambling, damnation, home, salvation, death, pride, humor, piety, rebellion, patriotism, larceny, determination, tragedy, rowdiness, heartbreak and love. And Mother. And God. — Johnny Cash

Love has no spear but conquers hearts. — Matshona Dhliwayo

Wisdom bought with a tremendous price, Jane. You know what William and I suffered. I suppose the benefit to our tumultuous courtship was the trial-by-fire aspect of it all.We learned our lessons via grievous methods, but we did learn them. — Sharon Lathan

I am anchored on a resolve you cannot shake. My heart, my conscience shall dispose of my hand
they only. Know this at last. — Charlotte Bronte

Kissing - and I mean like, yummy, smacking kissing - is the most delicious, most beautiful and passionate thing that two people can do, bar none. Better than sex, hands down. — Drew Barrymore

You might be surrounded by clouds, but you'll be like sunshine to me. — Richelle Mead

In the interest of ultimate honesty," Celine cut in, "I'm pretty sure that everyone present would appreciate it if you two got a room."
"I wouldn't," Dean grumbled.
"I am unbothered by displays of physical and emotional intimacy," Sloane volunteered. "The nuances and statistics underlying courtship behavior are quite fascinating."
The edges of Celine's lips quirked upward as she met Sloane's gaze. "You don't say."
Sloane frowned. "I just did. — Jennifer Lynn Barnes

God has put into the heart of man love and the boldness to sue, and into the heart of woman fear and the courage to refuse. — Margaret Of Valois

Most girls take one look at you and swoon. You've never had to really work for someone's affection or put effort into maintaining it. In many ways, your natural gifts have done you a disservice
they've stunted your sensitivity and charm! You've never had to develop insight into what will make a girl laugh and come to love you for reasons that aren't handsome or heroic. That's why smees are experts on the subtle arts of courtship and seduction; nothing comes easy to us, but we do understand and live by the Lover's Maxim."
"And what on earth is the Lover's Maxim?" asked Maz, feeling very uninformed.
The smee cleared his throat. "If you can't be handsome, be rich. If you can't be rich, be strong. If you cant be strong, be witty."
"But what if you can't be witty?" Max wondered.
"Learn the guitar. — Henry H. Neff

Wooing, wedding, and repenting is as a Scotch jig, a measure, and a cinque-pace: the first suit is hot and hasty like a Scotch jig
and full as fantastical; the wedding, mannerly modest, as a measure, full of state and ancientry; and then comes repentance and with his bad legs falls into the cinque-pace faster and faster, till he sink into his grave. — William Shakespeare

To say that one waits a lifetime for his soulmate to come around is a paradox. People eventually get sick of waiting, take a chance on someone, and by the art of commitment become soulmates, which takes a lifetime to perfect. — Criss Jami

Privacy is a protection from the unreasonable use of state and corporate power. But that is, in a sense, a secondary thing. In the first instance, privacy is the statement in words of a simple understanding, which belongs to the instinctive world rather than the formal one, that some things are the province of those who experience them and not naturally open to the scrutiny of others: courtship and love, with their emotional nakedness; the simple moments of family life; the appalling rawness of grief. That the state and other systems are precluded from snooping on these things is important - it is a strong barrier between the formal world and the hearth, extended or not - but at root privacy is a simple understanding: not everything belongs to everyone. — Nick Harkaway

My love affair with (him) had a wonderful element of romance to it, which I will always cherish. But it was not an infatuation, and here's how I can tell: because I did not demand that he become my Great Emancipator or my Source of All Life, nor did I immediately vanish into that man's chest cavity like a twisted, unrecognizable, parasitical homonculus. During our long period of courtship, I remained intact within my own personality, and I allowed myself to meet (him) for who he was. — Elizabeth Gilbert

Then is courtesy a turncoat. But it is certain I am loved of all ladies, only you excepted: and I would I could find in my heart that I had not a hard heart; for, truly, I love none.
Beatrice: A dear happiness to women: they would else have been troubled with a pernicious suitor. I thank God and my cold blood, I am of your humour for that: I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me. -Much Ado About Nothing — William Shakespeare

My love to thee is sound, sans crack or flaw. — William Shakespeare

A military man's courtship rites may not be poetic, but then, they're not cryptic, either. Even if he's bashful, when he fancies you, you know it, because you can't hide a lover's blush under the Army's signature high-and-tight haircut. — Lily Burana

Courtship is exciting and romantic because it thrives on the edge of disaster. It co-exists with the threat that, at any moment, it could fall apart and be lost forever. — Karen Scalf Linamen

Birds build nests because they cannot fly forever. — Matshona Dhliwayo

I asked of Echo 't other day (Whose words are few and often funny), What to a novice she could say Of courtship, love, and matrimony. Quoth Echo, plainly, Matter-o'-money. — John Godfrey Saxe

People are romantic idiots in the ideals of courtship. When a person says they have x, y, and z, their romantic counterpart takes x, y, and z as distinct points in a person's timeline-versus the imperceptibly messy distances in between (and the attributed entanglement). Thus resulting in happily never afters. — Solange Nicole

I dare say if you'd asked him plumply what he meant in regard to the young lady, he would have told you - if he knew.'
'Why, don't you think he does know, Bromfield?'
'I'm not at all sure he does. You women think that because a young man dangles after a girl, or girls, he's attached to them. It doesn't at all follow. He dangles because he must, and doesn't know what to do with his time, and because they seem to like it. I dare say that Tom has dangled a good deal in this instance because there was nobody else in town. — William Dean Howells

It is not the size of the ring, but the size of the love. — Matshona Dhliwayo

If you fall in love, make sure your landing is soft. — Matshona Dhliwayo

Courtship is romantic. Marriage ... is an act of will," said Pippa, taking a sip of water. "I mean, I adore Herb. But the marriage functions because we will it to. If you leave love to hold everything together, you can forget it. — Rebecca Miller

Normal. What did normal mean, Ferguson asked himself , and why wasn't it normal for him to feel the way he did about wanting to kiss and make love to other boys, the sex of one-sex was just as normal and natural as the sex of two-sex sex, maybe even more normal and more natural because a cock was something boys understood better than girls, and therefore it was easier to know what the other person wanted without having to guess, without having to play the courtship and seduction games that could make the sex of two-sex sex confounding, and why did a person have to choose between one or the other, why block out one-half of the humanity in the name of normal or natural when the truth was that everyone was Both, and people and society and the laws and religions of people in different societies were just too afraid to admit it. — Paul Auster

We have better relationships with those who truly seek us rather than those sitting on the couch watching us move mountains trying to prove ourselves. — Criss Jami

I knelt, and with the fervor of a lip unused to the cool breath of reason, told my love. — Nathaniel Parker Willis

Love is sweet even when what you go through is bitter. — Matshona Dhliwayo

When your life is all taking, what need to learn courtship? Carcharos's passion for Jassi Belnarak deepened and darkened with every sleepless night, but it did not keep him from understanding that neither beneficence nor meek wistfulness would win her honestly. Power would have to do, after all; and I think that for the only time in that bad life, Carcharos may truly have regretted the necessity of forcing his will on another person. The moment can't have lasted long, but I think further that it may have been the closest Carcharos ever came to knowing love. — Peter S. Beagle

No serious courtship or engagement or marriage is worth the name if we do not fully invest all that we have in it and in so doing trust ourselves totally to the one we love. You cannot succeed in love if you keep one foot out on the bank for safety's sake. The very nature of the endeavor requires that you hold on to each other as tightly as you can and jump in the pool together. — Jeffrey R. Holland

If you want to know how the heart is related to the soul, love someone. — Matshona Dhliwayo

He keeps looking at me so oddly."
"Oddly? How? Give me an imitation."
Considering that she had only about a second and a half to do it in, I must say it was a jolly fine exhibition. She opened her mouth and eyes pretty wide and let her jaw drop sideways, and managed to look so like a dyspeptic calf that I recognized the symptoms immediately.
"Oh, that's all right," I said. "No need to be alarmed. He's simply in love with you. — P.G. Wodehouse

All is fair in love and war; and if this is not love, it was the usual thing that stands as a counterpart for it. — Anthony Trollope