Love Is Not A Possession Quotes & Sayings

Understand that this isn't love. I have been in love but this is not the same. This is not my feeling, but some external force taking possession of me. I left because I decided it could not be, you understand, like a happiness that doesn't exist on earth; but I have struggled with myself and I see that without it there is no life. — Leo Tolstoy

Love wilts under the wight of possession. Love is not something to be clutched tightly in the hand. Love is a living breathing entity. For some, romantic love comes in seasons ... And for still others, love is something that comes and goes as it pleases, over a lifetime, ebbing and weaving, like the ocean tide. — Jaeda DeWalt

This might be my last chance to say this." My breath stopped. My heart pounded in my ears. "I've felt this way for a while. I knew it was just attraction at first. But after taking you to my island, I realized it was more. So much more. I love you, Kristen. I mean truly love you. Not obsession. Not lust. Not selfish possession. Not some kind of blind idealism. Not some sick, twisted version of love - but the real thing. One with eyes open. One with respect. One that never underestimates the hardships to its existence, never takes the other person for granted. The only kind of love there really is. — Priscilla West

A love story can never be about full possession. The happy marriage, the requited love, the desire that never dims
these are lucky eventualites but they aren't love stories. Love stories depend on disappointment, on unequal births and feuding families, on matrimonial boredom and at least one cold heart. Love stories, nearly without exception, give love a bad name.
We value love not because it's stronger than death but because it's weaker. Say what you want about love: death will finish it. You will not go on loving in the grave, not in any physical way that will at all resemble love as we know it on earth. The perishable nature of love is what gives love its importance in our lives. If it were endless, if it were on tap, love wouldn't hit us the way it does.
And we certainly wouldn't write about it. — Jeffrey Eugenides

Like life, love is a constant adventure and a constant process. It is not a possession. — Debasish Mridha

God is love"; He does not have love, as something added to Him, something that may or may not be present, that is capable of change, increase, or decrease. He is love; it is the way He is in His essential nature. I may tell you that I have a glass of water or a reservoir of water, but it is in an entirely different category to say that I am water! To have water means that my possession of it is subject to change whether by increase or decrease, but to be water means I am never subject to change because it is what I am! He is the definition of love; love is the way He is. Agape — Malcolm Smith

It is not enough for us to perform the works of virtue, exercising obedience, excepting poverty or disgrace or practicing humility or detachment in some other way; rather we should strive ceaselessly until we attain the essence and ground of virtue. And we can tell if we have attained this or not by asking whether we find ourselves inclined to virtue above all else and perform the works of virtue without prior preparation of the will, practicing virtue without the ulterior motive even of a great and good cause, so that the virtuous act in fact happen spontaneously on account of love of virtue and without asking 'what for?' Then and only then do we have the perfect possession of virtue. — Meister Eckhart

It is not an unbroken succession of drinking-bouts and of merrymaking, not sexual love, not the enjoyment of the fish and other delicacies of a luxurious table, which produce a pleasant life; it is sober reasoning, searching out the grounds of every choice and avoidance, and banishing those beliefs through which the greatest disturbances take possession of the soul. — Epicurus

Marriage is more than your love for each other. It has a higher dignity and power, for it is God's holy ordinance, through which He wills to perpetuate the human race till the end of time. In your love you see only your two selves in the world, but in marriage you are a link in the chain of the generations, which God causes to come and to pass away to His glory, and calls into His kingdom. In your love, you see only the heaven of your own happiness, but in marriage you are placed at a post of responsability towards the world and mankind. Your love is your own private possession, but marriage is more than something personal - it is a status, an office. Just as it is the crown, and not merely the will to rule, that makes the king, so it is marriage, and not merely your love for each other, that joins you together in the sight of God and man. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Can I always be thinking of Jesus? Thank God, you need not always be thinking of Him. You may be the manager of a bank, and your whole attention may be required to carry out the business that you have to do. But thank God, while I have to think of my business, Jesus will think of me, and He will come in and will take charge of me. That little child, three months old, as it sleeps in its mother's arms, lies helplessly there; it hardly knows its mother, it does not think of her, but the mother thinks of the child. And this is the blessed mystery of love, that Jesus the God-man waits to come in to me in the greatness of His love; and as He gets possession of my heart, He embraces me in those divine arms and tells me, "My child, I the Faithful One, I the Mighty One will abide with thee, will watch over thee and keep thee all the days. — Andrew Murray

Love often doesn't make any sense at all. It likes to creep up on you when you're least expecting it, with the person you're least expecting it to be with. It climbs walls and crosses oceans to find you. When it's your time, love will track you down. Love isn't possession, it isn't codependency, it isn't jealousy, and it isn't neediness or clinginess. It's not meant to complete you, but to complement you. If it's toxic, it isn't love. Love isn't finding a "better half," but an "equal match." Love is letting go when you want to hold on. Love will never require you to sacrifice your dreams or your dignity. Love isn't uncertainty. It isn't a "maybe" thing. It isn't a question. It's always an answer. Love is beautiful. It is magical. It is life-changing. It is breathtaking. — Mandy Hale

But if my love of truth is left as my only possession, then the greater the loss behind me, the greater the pride I may take in the price I have paid for that love. Then the wreckage will not become a funeral mount above me, but will serve as a height I have climbed to attain a wider field of vision. — Ayn Rand

A child comes from God, a child
is a gift from God, but a child is
not our possession.
Give the child unconditional love
and freedom. Respect the child, the child has its own soul. The child has its own way. — Swami Dhyan Giten

Love is not a possession but a growth. The heart is a lamp with just oil enough to burn for an hour, and if there be no oil to put in again its light will go out. God's grace is the oil that fills the lamp of love. — Henry Ward Beecher

Those who tread these paths should be informed of a matter respecting their confession in which they are apt to err. When they begin to give an account of their sins, instead of the regret and contrition they had been accustomed to feel, they find that love and tranquility sweetly pervade and take possession of their souls: now those who are not properly instructed are desirous of withdrawing from this sensation to form an act of contrition, because they have heard, and with truth, that it is requisite: but they are not aware that they lose thereby the genuine contrition, which is this Intuitive Love, infinitely surpassing any effect produced by self-exertion ... Be not then troubled about other things when God acts so excellently in you and for you. — Jeanne Marie Bouvier De La Motte Guyon

God never gives dominion to any creature which has not received his image. His image is love. Other things belong to God; but God is love. No creature that has not love will be allowed to have a permanent empire. The Father of mercy will not put the reigns of government into a hand that has no heart. Dominion is a very solemn thing; it may oppress, crush, destroy. The Father must have a guarantee for its gentleness. What guarantee can there be but his image - the possession of a nature tender as the Divine? — George Matheson

To many women marriage is only this. It is merely a physical change impinging on their ordinary nature, leaving their mentality untouched, their self-possession intact. They are not burnt by even the red fire of physical passion - far less by the white fire of love. — Mary Webb

A tattoo is art and not a possession as love is beauty and intangible. A tattoo is a promise, not an accessory. — Danielle Valenilla

When a man fighteth against his sin only with arguments from the issue or the punishment due unto it, this is a sign that sin hath taken great possession of the will, and that in the heart there is a superfluity of naughtiness. Such a man as opposes nothing to the seduction of sin and lust in his heart but fear of shame among men or hell from God, is sufficiently resolved to do the sin if there were no punishment attending it; which, what it differs from living in the practice of sin, I know not. Those who are Christ's, and are acted in their obedience upon gospel principles, have the death of Christ, the love of God, the detestable nature of sin, the preciousness of communion with God, a deep-grounded abhorrency of sin as sin, to oppose to any seduction of sin, to all the workings, strivings, fightings of lust in their hearts. So did Joseph. "How shall I do this great evil," saith he, "and sin against the Lord ?" my good and gracious God. — John Owen

The man who is proudly certain of his own value, will want the highest type of woman he can find, the woman he admires, the strongest, the hardest to conquer - because only the possession of a heroine will give him the sense of an achievement, not the possession of a brainless slut. — Ayn Rand

If you love a flower, don't pick it up. Because if you pick it up it dies and it ceases to be what you love. So if you love a flower, let it be. Love is not about possession. Love is about appreciation. — Osho

Love, in the eyes of the world, is either a carnal appetite or a vague fancy, which possession extinguishes or absence destroys. That is why it is commonly said, with a strange abuse of words, that passion does not endure. — Victor Hugo

It is foreign to a man's nature to go on loving a person when he is told that he must and shall be that person's lover. There would be a much likelier chance of his doing it if he were told not to love. If the marriage ceremony consisted in an oath and signed contract between the parties to cease loving from that day forward, in consideration of personal possession being given, and to avoid each other's society as much as possible in public, there would be more loving couples than there are now. Fancy the secret meetings between the perjuring husband and wife, the denials of having seen each other, the clambering in at bedroom windows, and the hiding in closets! There'd be little cooling then. — Thomas Hardy

Love is like a hunter, who cares not for the game when once caught, which he may have pursued with the most intense and breathless eagerness. Love is strongest in pursuit; friendship in possession ... — Ralph Waldo Emerson

A birth we embark on a good journey, seeking a destination of happiness. The journeys on our life-road facilitate development of our emotional, mental, physical and spiritual states-of-being, into a way of true power and wisdom. The Heart-center power, expressed as happiness and love, will guide us upward on a path away from frustration, bitter toil and travail. These journeys are directed inward, not outwardly in material mementos of ego and possession. The lesson is relearning that which has been suppressed and forgotten, in ourselves, since our earliest childhood. — R. Carlos Nakai

It is under all circumstances an advantage to be in full possession of one's personality, otherwise the repressed elements will only crop up as a hindrance elsewhere, not just at some unimportant point, but at the very spot where we are most sensitive. If people can be educated to see the shadow-side of their nature clearly, it may be hoped that they will also learn to understand and love their fellow men better. A little less hypocrisy and a little more self-knowledge can only have good results in respect for our neighbor; for we are all too prone to transfer to our fellows the injustice and violence we inflict upon our own natures. — C. G. Jung

You have something else of mine, Miss Wakefield," he amended. "I believe you meant to borrow it and return it directly, but you never did return . . . my heart. It's been in your possession since our first meeting."

She drew in a staggered breath, daring to hope.
"Though without a heart, one might wonder how I came to be here, standing before you right now," he went on, making her heard spin again. "Do you wonder, Miss Wakefield?"

When she nodded, he grinned and placed her hand over his chest.
"There is a heart in here, but it is not mine. You see, I believe you made a dire mistake our first meeting. When you meant to return mine, instead you gave me yours. Doesn't it beat strangely beneath my breast? — Vivienne Lorret

My former people were not totally wrong. Love is a kind of possession. It's a poison. And if Alex no longer loves me, I can't bear to think that he might love somebody else. — Lauren Oliver

You will not mock me - and you will let me finish. I have owned and lost a kingdom, and I have battled death. I have been through all that, and I will not chase after you like some lovesick poet spouting verse. If you wish to call me yours, then you will have to act as if you are mine. On the front of surrender, there is no middle ground. — Nenia Campbell

A certain type of man, when he loves for the first time, his love is not really love, it is possession. Possessions don't have rights or feelings; they are something to owned and controlled. He had spent more than a year trying to do just that, and failing. — Laurell K. Hamilton

When I tell you not to marry without love, I do not advise you to marry for love alone: there are many, many other things to be considered. Keep both heart and hand in your own possession, till you see good reason to part with them; and if such an occasion should never present itself, comfort your mind with this reflection, that though in single life your joys may not be very many, your sorrows, at least, will not be more than you can bear. Marriage may change your circumstances for the better, but, in my private opinion, it is far more likely to produce a contrary result. — Anne Bronte

You can never love anyone to your own detriment. That is not love, that is possession, control, fear, or a combination of them all. — Iyanla Vanzant

Sad hours and glad hours, and all hours, pass over;
One thing unshaken stays:
Life, that hath Death for spouse, hath Chance for lover;
Whereby decays
Each thing save one thing: - mid this strife diurnal
Of hourly change begot,
Love that is God-born, bides as God eternal,
And changes not; -
Nor means a tinseled dream pursuing lovers
Find altered by-and-bye,
When, with possession, time anon discovers
Trapped dreams must die, -
For he that visions God, of mankind gathers
One manlike trait alone,
And reverently imputes to Him a father's
Love for his son. — James Branch Cabell

God is an ironist. He folds the story up in unexpected ways, tying things together that we could never have imagined. He is the ironist of time, of history, of story. He, in possession of ultimate right-handed power, determined to set it all aside, and overcame evil by taking on an invincible vulnerability, inviting us to learn how to do the same. He is not just strong, but also wise in the authority of humility. And He is love, which means He overflows in sacrificial ways. But His sacrifices are not throwaways, but always come back to Him thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold. Love is fruitful, and in imitation of Him we begin to learn that the more we give, the more we have. — Douglas Wilson

According to this view, love is simply a direction, not a place, and burns itself out with the attainment of its goal, the possession (in bed or otherwise) of the loved one. — Alain De Botton

But what have we now? We have a quiet conscience through the precious blood of Jesus. We have the love of God set upon us beyond all change. We have power with God in prayer in all time of need. We have the providence of God to watch over us, the angels of God to minister to us, and, above all, the Spirit of God to dwell in us. In fact, all things are ours. "Whether things present or things to come: all are yours." Jesus is ours. Yea, the divine Trinity in Unity is ours. Hallelujah. Let us not pine and whine, and stint and slave, since we have good things in possession. Let us live on our God and rejoice in him all the day. Help us, O Holy Ghost! — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

A man reduced to despair by a series of misfortunes feels wearied of life, but is still so far in possession of his reason that he can ask himself whether it would not be contrary to his duty to himself to take his own life. Now he inquires whether the maxim of his action could become a universal law of nature. His maxim is: From self-love I adopt it as a principle to shorten my life when its longer duration is likely to bring more evil than satisfaction. It is asked then simply whether this principle founded on self-love can become a universal law of nature. Now we see at once that a system of nature of which it should be a law to destroy life by means of the very feeling whose special nature it is to impel to the improvement of life would contradict itself, and therefore could not exist as a system of nature; hence that maxim cannot possibly exist as a universal law of nature, and consequently would be wholly inconsistent with the supreme principle of all duty. — Immanuel Kant

It always does seem to me that I am doing more work than I should do. It is not that I object to the work, mind you; I like work: it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours. I love to keep it by me: the idea of getting rid of it nearly breaks my heart.
You cannot give me too much work; to accumulate work has almost become a passion with me: my study is so full of it now, that there is hardly an inch of room for any more. I shall have to throw out a wing soon.
And I am careful of my work, too. Why, some of the work that I have by me now has been in my possession for years and years, and there isn't a finger-mark on it. I take a great pride in my work; I take it down now and then and dust it. No man keeps his work in a better state of preservation than I do.
But, though I crave for work, I still like to be fair. I do not ask for more than my proper share. — Jerome K. Jerome

The wish to gain complete possession of somebody is expressed most plainly by jealousy. Jealousy is never a sign of love. It only indicates fear of not being able to hold another person. — Rudolf Dreikurs

It is also possible to say precisely why. Truth seduces us very easily into a kind of joy of possession: I have comprehended this and that, learned it, understood it. Knowledge is power. I am therefore more than the other man who does not know this and that. I have greater possibilities and also greater temptations. Anyone who deals with truth - as we theologians certainly do - succumbs all too easily to the psychology of the possessor. But love is the opposite of the will to possess. It is self-giving. It boasteth not itself, but humbleth itself. — Helmut Thielicke

Love is not a possession to hoard. You give it away. It's a blessing and a balm. — Winston Graham

Each one, then, should love his life, even though it be not very attractive, for it is the only life. It is a boon that will never return and that each person should tend and enjoy with care; it is one's capital, large or small, and can not be treated as an investment like those whose dividends are payable through eternity. Life is an annuity; nothing is more certain than that. So that all efforts are to be respected that tend to ameliorate the tenure of this perishable possession which, at the end of every day, has already lost a little of its value. Eternity, the bait by which simple folk are still lured, is not situated beyond life, but in life itself, and is divided among all men, all creatures. Each of us holds but a small portion of it, but that share is so precious that it suffices to enrich the poorest. Let us then take the bitter and the sweet in confidence, and when the fall of the days seems to whirl about us, let us remember that dusk is also dawn. — Remy De Gourmont

If anyone thinks he has faith and yet is indifferent towards this possession, is neither cold nor hot, he can be certain that he does not have faith. If anyone thinks he is Christian and yet is indifferent towards his being a Christian, then he really is not one at all. What would we think of a man who affirmed that he was in love and also that it was a matter of indifference to him? — Soren Kierkegaard

Hear me, people: We have now to deal with another race- small and feeble when our fathers first met them, but now great and overbearing. Strangely enough they have a mind to till the soil and the love of possession is a disease with them. These people have made many rules that the rich may break but the poor may not. They take their tithes from the poor and weak to support the rich and those who rule. — Sitting Bull

Love is in the pleasure of possession, but in the Love of Allah there is no pleasure of possession, because the stations of the Reality are wonderment, the cancelling of the debt which is owed, and the blinding of vision. The Love of the human being for God is a reverence which penetrates the very depths of his being, and which is not permitted to be given except to Allah alone. The Love of Allah for the human being is that He Himself gives proof of Himself, not revealing Himself to anything that is not He. — Mansur Al-Hallaj

I believed that one person owes a duty to another with no payment for it in return. I believed that it was my duty to love a woman who gave me nothing, who betrayed everything I lived for, who demanded her happiness at the price of mine. I believed that love is some static gift which, once granted, need no longer be deserved - just as they believe that wealth is a static possession which can be seized and held without further effort. I believed that love is a gratuity, not a reward to be earned just as they believe it is their right to demand an unearned wealth. And just as they believe that their need is a claim on my energy, so I believed that her unhappiness was a claim on my life. For the sake of pity, not justice, I — Ayn Rand