Love Means Sacrifice Quotes & Sayings

Love is about giving, about caring for the other person's welfare. Love is treating someone, in the Kantian sense, never as a means but as an end in themselves. Love is sacrifice, love is something you work at, something you build like a house or tend like a plant, brick by brick, drop by drop, day by day. Nonsense. Old wives' tales, old husbands' tales. That is affection they are talking about, that is companionship, that is charity, that is tickets for the Cancer Research Ball. You must ask the young if you want to know what love is. Only they are deep enough in it to describe. We older ones have clues and simulacra, we base our judgement, like pathologists do, on the dents and scars and sediments of hearts long kept in formaldehyde. It is the pulsing heart you want to probe: the pulsing, beating, leaping, dipping, fluttering heart of a seventeen-year-old. — A.P.

I know there are epic tales of romance, where love means you're supposed to die. Where it's all about sacrifice. But I don't want to die. I don't want Stephen to die. I'm looking for the scenario where we both get to live. Where we can continue this marvel that is love and discovery and trust. — David Levithan

When you are in love, it means that the person you love is of great personal, selfish importance to you and to your life. If you were selfless, it would have to mean that you derive no personal pleasure or happiness from the company and the existence of the person you love, and that you are motivated only by self-sacrificial pity for that person's need of you. I don't have to point out to you that no one would be flattered by, nor would accept, a concept of that kind. Love is not self-sacrifice, but the most profound assertion of your own needs and values. It is for your own happiness that you need the person you love, and that is the greatest compliment, the greatest tribute you can pay to that person. — Ayn Rand

You're right about serious relationships not being all hearts and flowers and orgasms, Jaime. That's falling in love. Over time, it's not that anymore. It takes work. It takes trust and sacrifice and faith in something you can't see. It means sticking the fuck around when you're scared or tempted or angry. It's knowing that someone has your back and will be there at the end of your best days and your worst. It's understanding that you're part of something bigger than yourself, and fighting for it. I know it's rare." I — Melanie Harlow

Love means giving yourself to the person you love,being willing to sacrifice everything,even your pride — Elaine Barbieri

Authority love your neighbor.no matter what the condition is. even if it means to sacrifice your plan to do what he or she wants. — Skyla

The fatal effects of sin can be removed only by the provision that God has made. The Israelites saved their lives by looking upon the uplifted serpent. That look implied faith. They lived because they believed God's word, and trusted in the means provided for their recover. So to sinner may look to Christ, and live. He receives pardon through faith in the atoning sacrifice. Unlike the inert and lifeless symbol, Christ has power and virtue in Himself to heal the repenting sinner. — Ellen G. White

But there is a beauty even in loving without response because that kind of love is truly selfless. When we love with no expectation or promise of reciprocity, we know what it means to sacrifice and deny ourselves in ways we wouldn't otherwise. — Matt Chandler

In the English language, we have one word for love, which translates into our sexual drive. The ancient Greeks had more than one word for it, including the word agape. It means to compromise or sacrifice, and it's a kind of love I've seen in all couples who have gotten married and stayed married. It is my opinion that this kind of love determines the entire success of your married life, and to an extent, it's a good part of your financial life too. Reaching a financial goal always takes a little bit of sacrifice, and would be impossible to do on your own. Once you and your spouse realize that mutual sacrifice is a healthy part of your marriage, you are well on your way to achieving harmony in planning for your finances together. — Celso Cukierkorn

She came quickly over to me and held out her hand. I looked at her full of distrust. Was she doing this freely, with a light heart? Or was she doing it just to get rid of me? She put her arm around my neck, tears in her eyes. I just stood and looked at her. She offered me her mouth but I couldn't believe her, it was bound to be a sacrifice on her part, a means of getting it over with.
She said something, it sounded to me like "I love you anyway!" She said it very softly and indistinctly, I may not have heard it correctly, perhaps she didn't say exactly those words. But she threw herself passionately on my neck, held both arms around my neck a little while, even raised herself on tiptoe to reach well up, and stood thus.
Afraid that she was forcing herself to show me this tenderness, I merely said "How beautiful you are now!"
That was all I said. I stepped back, bumped against the door and walked out backward. She was left standing inside. — Knut Hamsun

And self-sacrifice is what the Bible means by 'love.' While sin is possessive, love is expansive. Sin's characteristic is the desire to get; love's characteristic is the desire to give. — John R.W. Stott

Real love, well, it means sacrifice. It means thinking of the other person's needs before your own. — Gemma Malley

Real fatherhood means love and commitment and sacrifice and a willingness to share responsibility and not walking away from one's children. — William Bennett

Now I want you to remember something because I don't think we shall meet again very soon. It is this; however fashionable despair about the world and about people may be at present, and however powerful despair may become in the future, not everybody, or even most people, think and live fashionably; virtue and honour will not be banished from the world, however many popular moralists and panicky journalists say so. Sacrifice will not cease to be because psychiatrists have popularized the idea that there is often some concealed, self-serving element in it; theologians always knew that. Nor do I think love as a high condition of honour will be lost; it is a pattern in the spirit, and people long to make the pattern a reality in their own lives, whatever means they take to do so. In short, Davey, God is not dead. And I can assure you God is not mocked. — Robertson Davies

All of us are infected today with an extraordinary egoism. And that is not freedom; freedom means learning to demand only of oneself, not of life and others, and knowing how to give: sacrifice in the name of love. — Andrei Tarkovsky

He turns to leave, stops, looks back at me. "Just so you know: What you did for Victor means a lot to us. You could have left him to die."
"No, Richard, I couldn't."
I see in his eyes that he understands. I didn't save Victor because I knew that his being alive was best for Denver. I gave him my blood because I didn't want to live in a world without him in it. — J.A. London

Expressing your talent of power means to do what you truly love and allowing it to become your work. In this way work does not involve any sacrifice, duty, effort or compromise. It becomes a sheer expression of your love, as everything you do and are. Whatever you need in life, including money and material goods, come to you abundantly as a response to this love. — Franco Santoro

When I hear other people's stories, I like to believe that they contribute to my 'Encyclopedia of Human Experience.' The stories I hear help me expand my definition of what love is, what pain feels like, what sacrifice means, what laughter can do. — Sarah Kay

From an early age, you've learned never to trust anyone but yourself. You let almost no one help you, but the ones you do allow into your life have special significance to you: you love them, even when sometimes you wish that you didn't. Because when you love someone, Kricket, it means you're completely loyal to that person, you'll sacrifice anything for him - even your life. How am I doing so far? — Amy A. Bartol

In a world without God, who's to say whose values are right and whose are wrong? There can be no objective right and wrong, only our culturally and personally relative, subjective judgments. Think of what that means! It means it's impossible to condemn war, oppression, or crime as evil. Nor can you praise generosity, self-sacrifice, and love as good. To kill someone or to love someone is morally equivalent. For in a universe without God, good and evil do not exist - there is only the bare, valueless fact of existence, and there is no one to say you are right and I am wrong. — William Lane Craig

Other possible means were not lacking on God's part." One drop of blood - from Christ's circumcision at the age of eight days - would have been sufficient to purchase all mankind's salvation. Why then did He give us twelve quarts instead of one drop? The simple and stunning answer, from Monica Miller's book on the movie "The Passion of the Christ", is: Because He had twelve quarts to give. The strategy of war and of games is to win with the minimum possible expense and sacrifice. Love does not seek the minimum but the maximum. — Peter Kreeft

Love doesn't necessarily mean bless or agree with, it means sacrifice for and suffer with. — Ann Voskamp

I love you and sometimes that means you have to sacrifice your own happiness to be selfless. — Joanne McClean

Faith is the power, obedience the sacrifice, love the means, Christ the reason. — Boyd K. Packer

That is your greatest mistake. The love you felt for him wasn't love at all - it was obsession. Real love means sacrifice, not selfishness. — Morgan Rhodes

You know you love something if you're willing to die for it, and you know it means nothing if you walk away from that which is dying. — Anthony Liccione

Because love was not the answer to every question. Because real love meant sacrifice. Sometimes love means letting go. — Melissa De La Cruz

Love is a many-sided sacrifice; it means thoughtfulness for others; it means putting their good before self-gratification. Love is impulse, no doubt, but true love is impulse wisely directed. — Hugh Reginald Haweis

To stand on stage means to have arrogance. Faith! You must believe in it."
"In what?"
"In the audience. If you succeed, they will love you like never before. If you fail, the audience will hate you at first. But," he lifted his index finger, "they will still love you because you had the courage to sacrifice yourself for art. Respect, you see. If you play from fear," he shrugged, "you have lost them before you have even begun. — Emma Raveling

To start anew from Christ means being close to him, being close to Jesus. Jesus stresses the importance of this with the disciples at the Last Supper, as he prepares to give us his own greatest gift of love, his sacrifice on the cross. Jesus uses the image of the vine and the branches and says, Abide in my love, remain attached to me, as the branch is attached to the vine. If we are joined to him, then we are able to bear fruit. — Pope Francis

Principles are what people have instead of God.
To be a Christian means among other things to be willing if necessary to sacrifice even your highest principles for God's or your neighbour's sake the way a Christian pacifist must be willing to pick up a baseball bat if there's no other way to stop a man from savagely beating a child.
Jesus didn't forgive his executioners on principle but because in some unimaginable way he was able to love them.
'Principle' is an even duller word than 'Religion'. — Frederick Buechner

God exhibits a natural benevolence toward all his creatures, and it is called "love" in this restricted sense. The purpose is to preserve them for his use, including the display of his wrath when he punishes them for their sins. But to the chosen ones, God's love also means self-sacrifice (in redeeming them through Christ) and self-disclosure (in providing them theological knowledge). — Vincent Cheung

And for the first time, I pity her, because when she says love, I think she really means it. For her, this is love. This is what she does to someone she loves. And I wonder if I am any better, because this is what I did to Zan all those rotations ago. I seduced her until she loved me with all her heart, and when it came time to do what needed to be done, I was willing to sacrifice that love, but she was not. — Kameron Hurley

I've learned difference between a friend and an acquaintance. Acquaintances provide a warm body in the room. They provide entertainment. They can keep you from feeling lonely. And acquaintances don't involve sacrifice. If they don't fit your schedule, it's no big loss. You can know someone for decades, get together with them on countless occasions, and never become their friend. Friendship means cutting away a small piece of your heart and allowing another person to fill that gap. Friendship is anchored in love. When we put love into action, it communicates value. — John Herrick