Love Is Not A Feeling Quotes & Sayings

I might not be a psychiatrist, but I am convinced that sex is not as important as we tend to make it. First there is that little feeling, that little red flame, called love. Blow on the flame and make it get bigger like a fire, don't blow it out like a candle. — Xaviera Hollander

Knowledge can last, principles can last, habits can last; but feelings come and go ... But, of course, ceasing to be "in love" need not mean ceasing to love. Love in this second sense - love as distinct from "being in love" - is not merely a feeling. It is a deep unity, maintained by the will and deliberately strengthened by habit; reinforced by (in Christian marriage) the grace which both partners ask, and receive, from God ... "Being in love" first moved them to promise fidelity: this quieter love enables them to keep the promise. It is on this love that the engine of marriage is run: being in love was the explosion that started it. — C.S. Lewis

If it will give you any satisfaction in the end, I still care for you. Either there is no such thing as love, or the word does not mean what I have thought it to mean on many different occasions. It is a feeling without a name, really - better to leave it at that. So take it and go away and have your fun with it. You know that we would both be at one another's throats again one day, as soon as we run out of common enemies. We had many fine reconciliations, but were they ever worth the pain that preceded them? Know that you have won and that you are the goddess I worship - for are not worship and religious awe a combination of love and hate, desire and fear? — Roger Zelazny

At the core of love is validation. It is what gives love power.
For when love is given away, validation seeps in and expands in the heart of the recipient, filling up every empty, dark corner. It is a wonderful, light, consuming feeling we long for, and once found, we hope - even expect - it will forever remain. But there are times when that most precious love is revoked, and a hard scab forms over the empty hole. Though this scab is both healing and protective, it is the reason why validation from future love may not seep in so easily, no matter how wanting the heart. — Richelle E. Goodrich

Love is the feeling we have for those we care deeply about and hold in high regard. It can be light as the hug we give a friend or heavy as the sacrifices we make for our children. It can be romantic, platonic, familial, fleeting, everlasting, conditional, unconditional, imbued with sorrow, stoked by sex, sullied by abuse, amplified by kindness, twisted by betrayal, deepened by time, darkened by difficulty, leavened by generosity, nourished by humor, and "loaded with promises and commitments" that we may or may not want or keep. — Cheryl Strayed

During the game, we never sit down. Not only is there action on the field, but we also have to cover the half-time show and interview all the celebrities attending. But once it's all over, it's a pretty satisfying feeling. My team and I love delivering an exciting and all-encompassing story the next day for our viewers. We want them to see and experience all that we did. — Megan Alexander

In faith, I do not love thee with mine eyes,
For they in thee a thousand errors note;
But 'tis my heart that loves what they despise,
Who in despite of view is pleased to dote;
Nor are mine ears with thy tongue's tune delighted,
Nor tender feeling, to base touches prone,
Nor taste, nor smell, desire to be invited
To any sensual feast* with thee alone*:
But my five wits* nor my five senses can
Dissuade one foolish heart from serving thee,
Who leaves unsway'd the likeness of a man*,
Thy proud hearts slave and vassal wretch to be:
Only my plague thus far I count my gain,
That she that makes me sin awards me pain. — William Shakespeare

I don't eat & drink good clean food because I want my body to look more like Taylor Swift's. Actually, I am among a rare breed of humans that knows my worth is not determined by the size of my ass. That said, I eat and drink clean food because I love myself. Besides, when I eat shitty food, I feel like shit. Period. When I eat refined sugar and a bunch of processed foods, my mind gets all foggy and my body feels lethargic.
No thanks! I mean, how am I supposed to change the world for the better feeling like that? — Brooke Hampton

Love is not a feeling; it's giving someone what he or she needs most when it is least deserved. That's how God loved me, and I choose to stick with the program. — Chip Ingram

Do you believe in chaos- in random, uncontrolled events, in the idea that anything can happen at any time without fixed laws governing it? If you believe that, you will always be in a state of fear, not knowing what will happen from one moment to the next. The fear might be small, but it is there. That fear results in a lack of security and a feeling of mistrust. — Chris Prentiss

Love at first sight is not rare, in fact it is extremely common, it happens to some people a few times a year. The feeling of what if when meeting the eyes of a stranger can be love unrecognized. — Craig Ferguson

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

Faith is a decision.It is not a deduction from the facts around us. We would not look at the world of today and logically conclude that God loves us. It doesn't always look as though He does.Faith is not an instinct. It certainly is not a feeling - feelings don't help much when you're in the lion's den or hanging on a wooden Cross. Faith is not inferred from the happy way things always work. It is an act of the will, a choice, based on the Unbreakable Word of a God who cannot lie, and who showed us what love and obedience and sacrifice mean, in the person of Jesus Christ. — Elisabeth Elliot

Love is not the same thing as a marriage or a relationship or having children. Love is not work. Love is a feeling, pure and simple. It's a feeling you can have one moment, in which you believe you could throw yourself in front of a speeding train for someone; and it can vanish the next, when they tear your heart out and steal every last beat for themselves. — Renee Carlino

It wasn't that I wanted to know her now. I wanted to have already known her. I wanted her fears and her desires to have shaped my life. I know this is not love, of course. What it is is a queer feeling of nostalgia for an impossible future, for what can never be. That's fantasy. Love is different. — John Dufresne

But I want to give in to it sometimes, only because I'm tired and the feeling that I've had for a while-that something is haunting me down-becomes all consuming and I'm frightened that one morning there will be not enough to keep me going. — Melina Marchetta

I don't really know a whole lot about complicated, worldly things. But I think parents and siblings, they need to be able to care for each other unconditionally. How many people could you risk your life to protect? Not that many, I bet. Everyone's top priority is taking care of themselves. But if there's anyone who can overcome that, it's flesh and blood. If you understand that feeling, then you can look at other people, and realize, this person's family cares about them, too. That's a really heavy feeling. When you think about that, it becomes a lot harder to do horrible things to them. So I think that love for your family ... is really at the root of what it means to care for other people. — Mohiro Kitoh

You act as though love is a goal you only achieve after so long spent working at it. And yes, work is involved, but at the end of it all, love is a choice - the kind you have with a spouse, with your people, with yourself. If you acted on those things only when you felt them, you'd be like most people - eternally waiting for a feeling that may or may not come. But if you choose, every day, to love yourself — Sara Raasch

Recent events have shown us that we are a single, interdependent world. But the burden of any world crisis falls most heavily on the developing countries and on their peoples. And everything that we have learnt tells us that it is the children who will be feeling the harshest and the most permanent effects. Can we therefore claim in all earnestness to love our children--the children of the North and the South--if we do not give the most serious attention to preventing a world that has more than enough resources from dividing ever more deeply between rich and poor? — Graca Machel

In the Christian sense, love is not primarily an emotion but an act of the will. When Jesus tells us to love our neighbors, he is not telling us to love them in the sense of responding to them with a cozy emotional feeling. You can as well produce a cozy emotional feeling as you can a cough or sneeze. On the contrary, he is telling us to love our neighbors in the sense of being willing to work for their well-being even if it means sacrificing our well-being to that end. — Frederick Buechner

Being loved and admired by a man like that - and she knew that this man, this mechanic, this fixer of machines with their broken hearts, did indeed love and admire her - was like walking in the sunshine; it gave the same feeling of warmth and pleasure to bask in the love of one who has promised it, publicly at a wedding ceremony, and who is constant in his promise that such love will be given for the rest of his days. What more could any woman ask? None of us, she thought, not one single one of us, could ask for anything more than that. — Alexander McCall Smith

My love for you, Lord, is not an uncertain feeling, but a matter of concious certainty. With your word you pierced my heart, and I loved you. But heaven and earth and everything in them on all sides tell me to love you. — Saint Augustine

Biblical hope means confidence in the future. It's a confidence born of faith. Faith, hope and love go together (1 Cor. 13). When we have faith in God, we claim His promises, and they give us hope for the future. Hope for the Christian is not a feeling of "I hope it's going to happen." It's exciting expectancy because God controls the future. When Jesus Christ is your Savior and your Lord, the future is your friend. You don't have to worry. — Warren W. Wiersbe

There is not a name for what I'm feeling. There is no description for it.
To call it yearning would be like calling the ocean water.
Whatever this thing is, it shoves you inside itself and you can't measure its boundaries because they go too far and you don't have enough time. Or you move toward the boundaries and they move away.
There has been an earthquake in my life.
Catastrophic, civilization-ending. — R.A. Nelson

My feeling on the subject of sex with a man is - don't give it up unless you're willing to give him up. Not in the beginning. Sex is power! — Julieanne O'Connor

I began to experience, over the course of the next three months, full-blown insomnia. I'm not talking about the romantic kind, not the sweet sleeplessness one has when one is in love, anxiously awaiting the morn so one can rendezvous with a lover in an illicit gazebo. No, this was the torturous, clammy kind, when one's pillow slowly takes on the properties of a block of wood and one's sheets, the air of the Everglades. — Marisha Pessl

And there is enchantment in the very hour I am now spending with you. Who can tell what a dark, dreary, hopeless life I have dragged on for months past? Doing nothing, expecting nothing; merging night in day; feeling but the sensation of cold when I let the fire go out, of hunger when I forgot to eat: and then a ceaseless sorrow, and, at times, a very delirium of desire to behold my Jane again. Yes: for her restoration I longed, far more than for that of my lost sight. How can it be that Jane is with me, and says she loves me? Will she not depart as suddenly as she came? To-morrow, I fear I shall find her no more. — Charlotte Bronte

The truth is I love being alive. And I love feeling free. So if I can't have those things then I feel like a caged animal and I'd rather not be in a cage. I'd rather be dead. And it's real simple. And I think it's not that uncommon. — Angelina Jolie

Light Breeze

As regards feeling pain,
like a hand cut in battle,
consider the body a robe you wear.


When you meet someone you love,
do you kiss their clothes?
Search out who's inside.


Union with God is sweeter
than body comforts.

We have hands and feet
different from these.
Sometimes in dream we see them.
That is not illusion.
It's seeing truly.
You do have a spirit body;

don't dread leaving the physical one. Sometimes someone feels this truth so strongly that he or she can live in mountain solitude totally refreshed.


The worried, heroic doings of men and women seem weary and futile to dervishes enjoying the light breeze of spirit. — Jalaluddin Rumi

When Charlie arrived home from his mother's funeral, he was met at the door by two very large very enthusiastic canines, who , undistracted by keeping watch over Sophie's love hostage, were now able to visit the full measure of their affection and joy upon their returning master. It is generally agreed, and in fact stated in the bylaws of the American Kennel Club, that you have not been truly dog-humped until you have been double-dog-humped by a pair of four-hundred-pouund hounds from hell (Section 5, paragraph 7: Standards of Humping and Ass-dragging). And despite having used an extra-strength antiperspirant that very morning before leaving Sedona, Charlie found that getting poked repeatedly in the armpits by two damp devil-dog dicks was leaving him feeling less than fresh.
Sophie, call them off. Call them off."
The puppies are dancing with Daddy," Sophie giggled. "Dance, Daddy! — Christopher Moore

Loneliness is not a feeling caused by the lack of people around - it is a feeling caused by the lack of one person. — Low Kay Hwa

True love is not a wish list but a "wish feeling." And the number one feeling - even before the feeling of love - is the feeling of safety. Without feeling safe, you will never feel true love. You must have trust in your partner's character and prioritize finding a partner who is honest, communicative, and empathic - someone who values growing - so you can feel safe to vulnerably be your truest core self with him - and then together the two of you can support one another to grow into your best possible selves. — Karen Salmansohn

3. There is a good scared and a bad scared. Try to learn the difference. The wrong kind of fear will feel like driving into a storm, stepping onto a boat and feeling it begin to sink, knowing you don't have a life jacket. If that's what you feel, something needs to change. But the right kind of fear is more like meeting a friend of a friend you've been told you would love, or visiting a new country you don't know well- you might not understand the language, but you still want to learn. Good scared means you're growing. Know the difference. 4. — Elizabeth McNamara

I take editing seriously. It's a joy to edit. I always hand a manuscript to several editors and can't wait to get back their notes and see what they've said. I don't criticize myself for making blunders here and there, because it's just natural. You write in chunks, and you may not remember that that sentence you wrote yesterday had the same word repeated three times. I do enjoy that. I love the feeling of repairing. Repairing is really nice. — Steve Martin

I know we have only been together for a little over a year," I explained, quickly. "Maybe it's too soon? I understand if it's too soon. It's just that how you feel about the way we kiss? I feel that way about everything we do together. I love it. I love to be inside you, I love working with you, I love watching you work, I love fighting with you, and I love just sitting on the couch and laughing with you. I'm lost when I'm not with you, Chloe. I can't think of anything, or anyone, who is more important to me, every second. And so for me, that means we're already sort of married in my head. I guess I wanted to make it official somehow. Maybe I sound like an idiot?" I looked over at her, feeling my heart try to jackhammer its way up my throat. "I never expected to feel this way about someone. — Christina Lauren

To diminish the worth of women, men had to diminish the worth of the moon. They had to drive a wedge between human beings and the trees and the beasts and the waters, because trees and beasts and waters are as loyal to the moon as to the sun. They had to drive a wedge between thought and feeling ... At first they used Apollo as the wedge, and the abstract logic of Apollo made a mighty wedge, indeed, but Apollo the artist maintained a love for women, not the open, unrestrained lust that Pan has, but a controlled longing that undermined the patriarchal ambition. When Christ came along, Christ, who slept with no female ... Christ, who played no musical instrument, recited no poetry, and never kicked up his heels by moonlight, this Christ was the perfect wedge. Christianity is merely a system for turning priestesses into handmaidens, queens into concubines, and goddesses into muses. — Tom Robbins

My feeling is that the judge has a responsibility to the Constitution first, precedent second. Precedent is one factor. It is not the only factor. If it was the only factor, then, you know, we wouldn't have had Roe vs. Wade. We wouldn't have had Griswold. We wouldn't have had Lawrence. We wouldn't have had all these cases which the Left love. — Rick Santorum

Blues is my life. It's a true feeling that comes from the heart, not something that just comes out of my mouth. Blues is what I love, and blues is what I always do. — Koko Taylor

Frankl theorized a sense of meaning was existential, that it was something that passed through us not unlike the recognition of beauty or a feeling of gratitude. And he believed life could be structured in such a way people would experience meaning. His prescription to experience a deep sense of meaning, then, was remarkably pragmatic. He had three recommendations: 1. Have a project to work on, some reason to get out of bed in the morning and preferably something that serves other people. 2. Have a redemptive perspective on life's challenges. That is, when something difficult happens, recognize the ways that difficulty also serves you. 3. Share your life with a person or people who love you unconditionally. — Donald Miller

It seemed he was the perfect lover, at least for the moment. He did not live where you lived. He did not see you often enough, or for long enough, for you to grow bored, or to feel afraid that you were not feeling love---or worse, that you were. The perfection had a cost, which is that he was not in any true sense a real person. He was a coat you bought off the rack, an unsuperlative fashion statement. — Ben Greenman

A heartsong doesn't have to be a song in your heart. It doesn't have to be talking about love and peace. It can just be your message. It can be your feeling. Some people might even call it a conscience, even though that's not really what it is. It's your message, what you feel like you need to do. — Mattie Stepanek

Happiness is not exuberant or noisy, like pleasure or joy; it's silent, tranquil, and gentle; it's a feeling of satisfaction inside that begins with self-love. — Isabel Allende

It's like taking a photograph containing all the people you love and suddenly some of those people purposely cut themselves out of the picture. And the gaping hole left behind is in some ways worse than death. If their absence was caused by death, you would grieve their loss. But when their absence is caused by rejection, you not only grieve their loss but you also have to wrestle through the fact that they wanted this. They chose to cut themselves out. Though you are devastated, they are possibly walking away feeling relieved. Or worse, they might even feel happy. And there you sit, staring at a jacked-up photograph that no glue in the world can fix. Normal has been taken. Not by accident. But very much on purpose by someone you never expected could be such a thief. — Lysa TerKeurst

These times are hard, but I won't walk away jaded, darker, different. I feel. I cry to heal. If you saw me in those moments, maybe you'd think I was a mess. But I don't call it a mess. I call it strength.

Real strength isn't about building walls. Real strength is about staying open, no matter what. It's about taking life - with all the pleasures that fade and all the pain that sticks around for too long - and not shutting down, not closing down, not building up those walls.

Resilience isn't hard, impenetrable, iron. Resilience is flexible, soft, warm.

Stay strong. The real kind of strong. Don't let your automatic mind reflexes make you jump away from pain and towards pleasure. Make choices. See clearly. And never, ever, stop feeling.

Don't go numb. The world, even with all its horror, is too beautiful to miss. — Vironika Tugaleva

Love is not selfish or unkind. Nor is it boastful or disloyal. Love is simply a deep feeling found within the heart that money cannot buy. — April Haney

This is love. I have my self-consciousness not in myself but in the other. I am satisfied and have peace with myself only in this other and I AM only because I have peace with myself; if I did not have it then I would be a contradiction that falls to pieces. This other, because it likewise exists outside itself, has its self-consciousness only in me; and both the other and I are only this consciousness of being-outside-ourselves and of our identity; we are only this intuition, feeling, and knowledge of our unity. This is love, and without knowing that love is both a distinguishing and the sublation of this distinction, one speaks emptily of it. — Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

The biggest mistake any of us can make is thinking that love is a feeling, an emotion. It's not that at all. It's an action. — Luanne Rice

Only later I felt that poetry is like feeling another person lying next to you in the dark. Do you believe in poetry, in the spirit of poetry? I could see poetry in ballads, in the picture of the cathedral on the back of the postcard that my father sent my mother from London, in glaciers, peaks of mountains, river dust, Ian McEwan's covers of his books, cheap thrillers. Running gave me a gravitational pull. Running was my mother love. I was barefoot. There I was dressed in white. Matchstick legs. Hair standing up. I did not feel like a zero. I did not feel like a lost oar, unloved and unwanted, like a plant that needed water. A fleet of paper ships that needed to be mourned. I often felt homesick for the country of my mother. — Abigail George

If all you had ever felt toward another person were the cold wish to "win," how would you understand the meaning of love, of friendship, of caring? You would not understand. You would simply go on dominating, and denying, and feeling superior. Perhaps you would experience a little emptiness sometimes, a remote sense of dissatisfaction, but that is all. — Martha Stout

The Amorous Shepherd is a fruitless interlude, but those few poems are among the world's greatest love poems, because they're love poems about love, not about being poems. The poet loves because he loves, not because love exists. — Alvaro De Campos

Having experimented in both poetry and prose, I can say that the two are such loaded words. But neither are quite as weighted as the word "poet". I think some people can write poetry their whole lives, and never truly BE a "poet". Whereas I see poets in the wanderers I encounter, the baristas who serve me, and the truckers I, so, love to talk to.To be a poet in my humble opinion is to be a muse of the human experience. I love that I love the idea, that anything can be poetry, it can't be defined. It's a feeling, like punk rock. I'm not one for form or structure. I say if your words are visceral and honest, it's poetry. If you see the beauty of the world and humanity, and you preach it, you're a poet. — Mallory Smart

Theirs was that substantial affection which arises (if any arises at all) when the two who are thrown together begin first by knowing the rougher sides of each other's character, and not the best till further on, the romance growing up in the interstices of a mass of hard prosaic reality. This good-fellowship - camaraderie - usually occurring through similarity of pursuits, is unfortunately seldom superadded to love between the sexes, because men and women associate, not in their labours, but in their pleasures merely. Where, however, happy circumstance permits its development, the compounded feeling proves itself to be the only love which is strong as death - that love which many waters cannot quench, nor the floods drown, beside which the passion usually called by the name is evanescent as steam. — Thomas Hardy

God will publish your love story in His perfect time and not your own "designated" time. The more you desperately search for it, the more elusive your prospective love would be.Simply let it find you. Let yourself grow first and be ready to get involved in a sincere and healthy relationship and not just because the "last train" might leave without you on board or that you are lonely and feeling pressured. True love comes when it is meant to be yours and if it is your right time." -Elizabeth's Quotes — Elizabeth E. Castillo

The Love you have for what you're doing is actually the most important thing. Love is the only thing that's going to pull you through and get you to finish... but there is also a paradoxical and interesting fact: The thing you actually end up making is going to be such a failure compared to the original feeling that you had, the original vision that you had. If you finish and you find out that it's not a failure, it means that you didn't try hard enough, because when you really fall in love with something, you idealize it, and you develop a vision of it that's actually unattainable in reality. The feeling is so pure that you can't make a real thing that has that feeling and so you're inevitably going to be disappointed by it. And in some way, the depth of that disappointment is in direct correlation to how beautiful the vision was to begin with. — Jonathan Harris

I wonder if this is what it feels like, falling out of love: feeling yourself fading out of existence - the gray sky, the coffee shop limbo - everything a way station of sorts. Making promises you know you can't keep. Making promises - period. People in love shouldn't have to vow or demand, petition or exhort. Nothing. Not even question. No collisions with your surroundings or yourself - you move gently, unknowing, in time. — Michael Thomas

Bodily delight is a sensory experience, not any different from pure looking or the pure feeling with which a beautiful fruit fills the tongue; it is a great, an infinite learning that is given to us, a knowledge of the world, the fullness and the splendor of all knowledge ... the individual ... can remember that all beauty in animals and plants is a silent, enduring form of love and yearning, and he can see the animal, as he sees plants, patiently and willingly uniting and multiplying and growing, not out of physical pleasure, not out of physical pain, but bowing to necessities that are greater than pleasure and pain, and more powerful than will and withstanding. If only human beings could more humbly receive this mystery
which the world is filled with ... — Rainer Maria Rilke

Is love a fancy, or a feeling? No.
It is immortal as immaculate Truth,
'Tis not a blossom shed as soon as youth,
Drops from the stem of life
for it will grow,
In barren regions, where no waters flow,
Nor rays of promise cheats the pensive gloom.
A darkling fire, faint hovering o'er a tomb,
That but itself and darkness nought doth show,
It is my love's being yet it cannot die,
Nor will it change, though all be changed beside;
Though fairest beauty be no longer fair,
Though vows be false, and faith itself deny,
Though sharp enjoyment be a suicide,
And hope a spectre in a ruin bare. — Hartley Coleridge

Love ... is not merely a feeling. It is a deep unity, maintained by the will and deliberately strengthened by habit; reinforced by (in Christian marriages) the grace which both partners ask, and receive, from God. They can have this love for each other even at those moments when they do not like each other; as you love yourself even when you do not like yourself. — C.S. Lewis

The worst feeling in the world is not losing your friend forever, but rather having patronizing people tell you that the love you have for your friend and the connection and emotion you have towards them is an illness to be cured, a problem to be covered up and hidden away by the power of mood-altering drugs. I used to trust doctors when I was younger... now I've lost my trust in all mental health professionals forever. — Rebecca McNutt

Do you think the people you preach to have a feeling of love?" the young man asked. "Well, I'm not talking about weak love," King explained. "I'm talking about love with justice. Weak love can be sentimental and empty. I'm talking about the love that is strong, so that you love your fellow men enough to lead them to justice. — Calvin Trillin

Tell a wise person, or else keep silent,
because the mass man will mock it right away.
I praise what is truly alive,
what longs to be burned to death.
In the calm water of the love-nights,
where you were begotten, where you have begotten,
a strange feeling comes over you,
when you see the silent candle burning.
Now you are no longer caught
in the obsession with darkness,
and a desire for higher love-making
sweeps you upward.
Distance does not make you falter.
Now, arriving in magic, flying,
and finally, insane for the light,
you are the butterfly and you are gone.
And so long as you haven't experienced
this: to die and so to grow,
you are only a troubled guest
on the dark earth. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

It takes courage and strength to be sensitive to things and even more strength and courage to own up to it or be vocal about it. Robots, the only things with a perfect lack of emotional capacity, are easily controlled, and I suddenly realized that's why the military often trains people to suppress their emotions. Unfortunately for them, humans aren't machines. We feel, we love, we cry, we despair, and we rejoice. Anyone who's ever tried to convince me not to feel is someone I shouldn't have trusted. The only reason you should shut off your emotions and emulate a robot is if you're doing horrible things. How fatal my decisions have been. How many people would be loving, rejoicing, and feeling right now rather than crying indefinitely in the depths of the afterlife? If only I'd figured this out sooner. — Bruce Crown

This is beyond understanding." said the king. "You are the wisest man alive. You know what is preparing. Why do you not make a plan to save yourself?"
And Merlin said quietly, "Because I am wise. In the combat between wisdom and feeling, wisdom never wins. — John Steinbeck

I am slowly coming to understand with all my heart as well as my head that love is not a feeling. It is a person. — Madeleine L'Engle

I don't like feeling sorry for myself. That's not who I am. And most of the time I don't feel that way. Instead, I am grateful for having at least found you. We could have flashed by one another like two pieces of cosmic dust.
God or the universe or whatever one chooses to label the great systems of balance and order does not recognize Earth-time. To the universe, four days is no different than four billion light years. I try to keep that in mind.
But, I am, after all, a man. And all the philosophic rationalizations I can conjure up do not keep me from wanting you, every day, every moment, the merciless wail of time, of time I can never spend with you, deep within my head.
I love you, profoundly and completely. And I always will.
The last cowboy,
Robert — Robert James Waller

Love is not a feeling; it's a sensation. Drinking water when you're thirsty is a sensation, not a feeling. Being in nature or swimming in the sea is a sensation, not a feeling. Lying down when you're tired is sensational, not a feeling, although you may say it feels good. Feeling is an emotional interpretation of experience and these sensations don't need interpretation; they are just good or right. Making physical love rightly is a sensation, not a feeling. So is the love of God. The same goes for joy and beauty; both are sensational.' — Barry Long

We can move in that direction as a country, in greater polarization - black people amongst blacks, and white amongst whites, filled with hatred toward one another. Or we can make an effort, as Martin Luther King did, to understand and to comprehend, and replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land, with an effort to understand, compassion and love ... What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness, but is love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black. — Robert F. Kennedy

There are lots of women who are attracted to tyrannical men. Like moths to a flame. And there are some women who do not need a hero or even a stormy lover but a friend. Just remember that when you grow up. Steer clear of the tryant lovers, and try to locate the ones who are looking for a man as a friend, not because they are feeling empty themselves but because they enjoy making you full too. And remember that friendship between a woman and a man is something much more precious and rare than love: love is actually something quite gross and even clumsy compared to friendship. Friendship includes a measure of sensitivity, attentiveness, generosity, and a finely tuned sense of moderation. — Amos Oz

The third doorway is the Doorway of Unconditional Self-love, which corresponds to the energy center located in the solar plexus area. As I said earlier, the key to feeling love and living in love is having self-love. I mean real unconditional self-love, not "I love myself because I'm a good wife" or "I love myself because I do a good job at work" or "I love myself because I look a particular way." It's because I love myself no matter what. That's where our real power lies, in the ability to love ourselves unconditionally. — Marci Shimoff

Dear Pat,
You came upon me carving some kind of little figure out of wood and you said, 'Why don't you make something for me?'
I asked you what you wanted, and you said, 'A box.'
'What for?'
'To put things in.'
'What things?'
'Whatever you have,' you said.
Well, here's your box. Nearly everything I have is in it, and it is not full. Pain and excitement are in it, and feeling good or bad and evil thoughts and good thoughts - the pleasures of design and some despair and the indescribable joy of creation.
And on top of these are all the gratitude and love I have for you.
And still the box is not full.
John — John Steinbeck

The meaning of life is creative love. Not love as an inner feeling, as a private sentimental emotion, but love as a dynamic power moving out in the world and doing something original. — Old Tom Morris

Love is about needing someone, about feeling as if the day isn't quite right if they're not there. Its about knowing that, no matter how bad a day you've had, the moment you see them again or hear their voice, the world is back in its place. — Jessica Hart

In psychoanalytical theory there is a phenomenon called transference. The therapist becomes a blank screen, onto which the patient projects some incident or feeling that began in childhood ... it would not be a far reach for someone to look at my feelings for Jess and assume that, in the context of our relationship as tutor and pupil, I am not in love. I'm just in transference. — Jodi Picoult

If a parent does not know how to love and nurture a child while he is young, especially black boys, that child will grow up out of balance mentally, therefore feeling inferior. — Daniel Whyte III

I've always been a very restless person. I work hard, spend too much time looking after my son, I dance like a mad thing, I learned calligraphy. I go to courses on selling, I read one book after another. But that's all a way of avoiding those moments when nothing is happening, because those blank spaces give me a feeling of absolute emptiness, in which not a single crumb of love exists. — Paulo Coelho

Most people think of love as a feeling, but love is not so much a feeling as a way of being present. — David Richo

Love is not a feeling to pass away
Like the balmy breath of a Summer's day ...
Love is not a passion of earthly mould
As a thirst for honour, or fame, or gold — Charles Dickens

She smiles when she sees me. That's it. All she did just now was smile, but all of a sudden, my chest is on fire, and it feels as if a wave of heat just rolled down the entire length of my body. I recognize this feeling, and it's not good. — Colleen Hoover

Date someone who appreciates how worthy you are. I don't care if that person isn't me. A man who appreciates how precious you are. A man who's concerned about whether or not you're feeling cold. A man who can recognize what it is that you need. — On Joo-wan

Falling in love is not a spur of the moment thing. There wasn't love at first sight as I always believed there to be. It crept and overpowered me. Once I was in its power, it was the most amazing feeling in the world. — Eveli Acosta

{God's] presence is not contingent upon our feeling it. It simply is. We must learn to remember this and calm ourselves. By His apparent 'absence', He is leading us to a more mature level of consciousness, self-offering, and love. He is leading us from the love of God for the sake of His gifts to love of God for His own sake. — Monks Of New Skete

Growing up in a home of abuse, you struggle with the notion that you can love a person you hate, or hate a person you love. It's a strange feeling. You want to live in a world where someone is good or bad, where you either love or hate them, but that's not how people are. — Trevor Noah

I don't resent working long hours. I shouldn't- I'm the one who set up my life this way. I love to work. It's the thing that I get the most satisfaction out of-nd probably what I do best. Not that I don't enjoy days off. I love vacations and loafing around. But I think much of the world has the wrong idea of working. It's one of the good things in life. The feeling of accomplishment is more real and satisfying than finishing a good meal- or looking at one's accumulated wealth. — Jim Henson

When it comes to acting, it's about creating a character and bringing forth a director's vision. It's a weird feeling, because with acting, it's just not about me. I love being in that position, because with the music, it's always about me. — Lenny Kravitz

Examine yourself to see whether you have within you a strong sense of your own self importance, or negatively, whether you have failed to realize that you are nothing. This feeling of self-importance is deeply hidden, but it controls the whole of our life. Its first demand is that everything should be as we wish it, and as soon as this is not so we complain to God and are annoyed with people. — Theophan The Recluse

So I'm reading some poem by Louise . . . something, I forget her last name, but it's about Hades and the underworld, and I don't even notice that Paige has come up to my table until she says, 'Doesn't everyone want love?' And I'm thinking, wow, that's a pretty deep question, but then again Paige is really smart, and this is my chance to finally show her that I'm not just a dumb jock. So I say, 'I heard this theory once that love means your subconscious is attracted to someone else's subconscious.'"

"Very deep," Cade said.

"Exactly. And I'm feeling proud of myself for that one, until she points to the book and says, 'Oh, that wasn't a question. I was just quoting a line from the poem. — Julie James

If you are not a feminist in love, you fail to recognise someone who does not love you. Feminism makes love easier. Otherwise, there is the danger of feeling romantically drawn to someone who does not see you as an equal. — Gloria Steinem

Feel whatever arises fully, and then let go of any identification with what you're feeling. You are at choice. You don't have to go through another moment of suffering. Break free from the societal constructs that say, 'Life is meant to be a challenge.' This is not true. You have the capacity to become the observer of your emotional reactions and check in with your heart each time, to respond from love and compassion. This is the key to becoming liberated from the bonds of emotional suffering. — Dashama Konah Gordon

There are some words I find impossibly difficult ... 'Love,' 'feeling' and especially 'happiness' are at the head of the list. This is not because I haven't experienced any of them but because whenever I think about using the words I don't really know what anyone means by them. I'd find it easier to sit down and write a book about each (coming, obviously, to no conclusion) than to use them casually in speech or writing. — Jenny Diski

The people in their overwhelming majority are so feminine by nature and attitude that sober reasoning determines their thoughts and actions far less than emotion and feeling.

And this sentiment is not complicated, but very simple and all of a piece. It does not have multiple shadings; it has a positive and a negative; love or hate, right or wrong, truth or lie, never half this way and half that way, never partially, or that kind of thing. — Adolf Hitler

After that day, I discovered one indelible truth. I discovered that love wasn't everything that mattered in life. It was an emotion that not many had the luxury of feeling without any pain attached to it. Many say that love will set you free, but I disagree. Love is a cage, a very painful one; its gilded bars made with yearning, heartache, and unfulfilled dreams. And the moment I realized that love wasn't necessary to one's survival I became free. No one would have the power to hurt me again. — Mia Asher

I hit you. Won't that make you go away? What else can I do?" he snarled. He'd fallen back on his old standby, anger.
"I'm not going away, Cole, so maybe we can cut out the assaults in the future. You don't want me to go away. I know that. You love me, Cole. That's the feeling that makes you so angry." She'd sighed and looked at the ceiling. "You don't know what to do with it, because the people you've loved in the past caused you pain. That's what you think love is. Pain."
She'd looked at his face until he met her eyes. They were still green.
"But, Cole, I love you. Have I hurt you? Ever?"
Cole had to shake his head. She hadn't. Not once.
"I'm showing you what to do with love, Cole." She stood and held out her arms.
A hug. A simple hug he didn't have to earn by throwing a chair. Human contact that wasn't required because he was trying to hurt someone. She still trusted him. She still saw something in him. — Debra Anastasia

I do not suppose she had ever really cared for her husband, and what I had taken for love was no more than the feminine response to caresses and comfort which in the minds of most women passes for it. It is a passive feeling capable of being roused for any object, as the vine can grow on any tree; and the wisdom of the world recognises its strength when it urges a girl to marry the man who wants her with the assurance that love will follow. It is an emotion made up of the satisfaction of security, pride of property, the pleasure of being desired, the gratification of a household, and it is only by an amiable vanity that women ascribe to it spiritual value. It is an emotion which is defenceless against passion. — W. Somerset Maugham

Thanksgiving is a time for gratitude. It can also be a time when feeling grateful can be an acrobatic feat that you're just not up for. There's no rules that need to be followed here. Authentic living is your only option, so it's ok to turn off the tv when another ad screams for you to be a certain way just because the calendar says so. Power of suggestion can be great medicine - but don't judge yourself or a loved one who is having trouble learning the words to this song. It's a tough season from some people. Huddle and cuddle with those you trust and love. That's real medicine and it's a good place to be during the holidays. xoxo — Deborah Pardes

Love is an activity, not a feeling ... True love is not the helpless desire to possess the cherished object of one's fervent affection; true love is the disciplined generosity we require of ourselves for the sake of another when we would rather be selfish. — Stephen L. Carter

Life like candies.
You have your favorite candy, you have tasted it hundred times, you have got used to that, you know the taste, it is a perfect match for you. But there are plenty of the other ones, not tested yet, some of the them look so delicious that you wish to try them out, that feeling is so strong and instantaneous, but stop and think about it for a second, as soon as you will try it out, your favorite candy will never taste the same. — Unknown

in life. It is important, I think, to remember that in a mature relationship, love is not a feeling, but rather a way of being and, as some have said, it is a decision. If we are to love we must avoid the trap of behaving however we might happen to feel on any given day. That puts love on a seesaw with us; down one day and up the next! Rather, to love someone while also maintaining our own love for ourselves, we must deliberately and wisely choose what we do in our relationship. At least as importantly, we must control how we respond to what our partner may do. After all, love doesn't grow from being adored. It grows when it persists and endures through times when we or our partner are difficult to love. Indeed, love thrives on challenges, especially those we address within our own hearts. — John Gray

I think sometimes it's hard to know what you feel, or to know what's real and what's not, because love or hate or any feeling is a belief. You can say you hate someone, but you don't truly know them. — Charlyne Yi

Love, he thought. That too is love. The old miracle. It not only casts a rainbow of dreams against the gray sky of facts - it also sheds romantic light upon a heap of dung - a miracle and a mad mockery. Suddenly he had the strange feeling of having become, in a remote way, an accomplice. — Erich Maria Remarque

I sincerely believe that the best criticism is the criticism that is entertaining and poetic; not a cold analytical type of criticism, which, claiming to explain everything, is devoid of hatred and love, and deliberately rids itself of any trace of feeling, but, since a fine painting is nature reflected by an artist, the best critical study, I repeat, will be the one that is that painting reflected by an intelligent and sensitive mind. Thus the best accounts of a picture may well be a sonnet or an elegy ... But that type of criticism is destined for books of poetry and for readers of poetry. As to criticism proper, I hope philosophers will understand what I am about to say: to be in focus, in other words to justify itself, criticism must be partial, passionate, political, that is to say it must adopt an exclusive point of view, provided always the one adopted opens up the widest horizons. — Charles Baudelaire