What Is True Love Means Quotes & Sayings

My grandchild has taught me what true love means. It means watching Scooby-Doo cartoons while the basketball game is on another channel. — Gene Perret

True love involves virtue, friendship and the pursuit of a common good. Both people are focused on a common goal outside of themselves. In Christian marriage, for example, a husband and wife unite themselves to the common aim of helping each other grow in holiness, deepening their own union and raising children. Most of all, true love involves the selfless pursuit of what is best for the other person, even if it means sacrificing one's own preferences and desires - love in the sense of ti voglio bene. — Edward Sri

What more degrades woman today than that she so often seeks marriage as a support? Why is the holy sacrament of love, the sanctity of the family state, so often prostituted and destroyed, but because marriage is entered upon as a necessity or a convenience? And what can so place marriage on its only true basis of mutual love, mutual fitness, mutual esteem, as for woman to make herself independent of it as a mere means of subsistence? — Mary C. Ames

The other night, you said that we mean different things when we say I love you. That you don't know what it means to have someone love you. This is what it means. It means doing things together and learning what each other needs. I give you what you need. You give me what I need. And they're not the same. And that's fine. It's not too good to be true. It's just good. — Roan Parrish

All the old traditions tell us that there is more than one path to the great Goal ... The shortest and easiest pathway of all is the pathway of Love. It is the one pathway that is open to all, irrespective of what their personal conditions or circumstances may be. For every person, everywhere, true attainment awaits through the yoga of Love, for yoga means union and it is our union with God that makes the attainment possible. — Emmet Fox

Among a rising tide of millions of Christians, how we label ourselves isn't nearly as important as how we actually experience and demonstrate Yeshua's incredible power in and as us, beginning with the power to love our enemies. To us, this is what it means to know God and the One He sent. Words only reflect an intellectual dogma, but the expression of our lives shows our true dogma, which matters far more. — Ted Dekker

And in our Scripture class, Owen said, "IT'S TRUE THAT THE DISCIPLES ARE STUPID - THEY NEVER UNDERSTAND WHAT JESUS MEANS, THEY'RE A BUNCH OF BUNGLERS, THEY DON'T BELIEVE IN GOD AS MUCH AS THEY WANT TO BELIEVE, AND THEY EVEN BETRAY JESUS. THE POINT IS, GOD DOESN'T LOVE US BECAUSE WE'RE SMART OR BECAUSE WE'RE GOOD. WE'RE STUPID AND WE'RE BAD AND GOD LOVES US ANYWAY - JESUS ALREADY TOLD THE DUMB-SHIT DISCIPLES WHAT WAS GOING TO HAPPEN. "THE SON OF MAN WILL BE DELIVERED INTO THE HANDS OF MEN, AND THEY WILL KILL HIM ... " REMEMBER? THAT WAS IN MARK, RIGHT?"
"Yes, but let's not say "dumb-shit disciples" in class, Owen," Mr. Merrill said. — John Irving

She would make a man of me. She puts strength and courage into me as no one else can. She is unlike any girl I ever saw; there's no sentimentality about her; she is wise, and kind, and sweet. She says what she means, looks you straight in the eye, and is as true as steel. — Louisa May Alcott

When the accumulation of wealth is no longer of high social importance, there will be great changes in the code of morals. We shall be able to rid ourselves of many of the pseudo-moral principles which have hag-ridden us for two hundred years, by which we have exalted some of the most distasteful of human qualities into the position of the highest virtues. We shall be able to afford to dare to assess the money-motive at its true value. The love of money as a possession - as distinguished from the love of money as a means to the enjoyments and realities of life - will be recognized for what it is, a somewhat disgusting morbidity, one of those semi-criminal, semi-pathological propensities which one hands over with a shudder to the specialists in mental disease. — John Maynard Keynes

It is easier to understand if you think of it in terms of music. Sometimes a man enjoys a symphony. Elsetimes he finds a jig more suited to his taste.
The same holds true for lovemaking. One type is suited to the deep cushions of a twilight forest glade. Another comes quite naturally tangled in the sheets of narrow beds upstairs in inns. Each woman is like an instrument, waiting to be learned, loved, and finely played, to have at last her own true music made.
Some might take offense at this way of seeing things, not understanding how a trouper views his music. They might think I degrade women. They might consider me callous, or boorish, or crude.
But those people do not understand love, or music, or me. — Patrick Rothfuss

I think, maybe, this is what true love means.

Maybe true love is warming someone up from the cold, or tenderly brushing a hair away, because you care about them with every bone in your body even though you know what's between you won't last. — Taylor Jenkins Reid

Our own happiness, our own peace, can never be complete until we find some way of sharing it with people who the way things are now have no happiness and know no peace. Jesus calls us to show this truth forth, live this truth forth. Be the light of the world, he says. Where there are dark places, be the light especially there. Be the salt of the earth. Bring out the true flavor of what it is to be alive truly. Be truly alive. Be life-givers to others. That is what Jesus tells the disciples to be. That is what Jesus tells his Church, tells us, to be and do. Love each other. Heal the sick, he says. Raise the dead. Cleanse lepers. Cast out demons. That is what loving each other means. If the Church is doing things like that, then it is being what Jesus told it to be. If it is not doing things like that - no matter how many other good and useful things it may be doing instead - then it is not being what Jesus told it to be. It is as simple as that. — Frederick Buechner

I learned that we may meet a true love and that our lives may be transformed by such an encounter even when it does not lead to sexual pleasure, committed bonding, or even sustained contact. The myth of true love-that fairy-tale vision of two souls who meet, join, and live happily ever thereafter-is the stuff of childhood fantasy. Yet many of us, female and male, carry these fantasies into adulthood and are unable to cope with the reality of what it means to either have an intense life-altering connection that will not lead to an ongoing relationship or to be in a relationship. True love does not always lead to happily ever after, and even when it does sustaining love still takes work. — Bell Hooks

Just like God, a woman is not a problem to be solved but a vast wonder to be enjoyed. This is so true of her sexuality. Few women can or even want to "just do it." Foreplay is crucial to her heart, the whispering and loving and exploring of one another that culminates in intercourse. That is a picture of what it means to love her soul. She yearns to be known and that takes time and intimacy. It requires an unveiling. As she is sought after, she reveals more of her beauty. As she unveils her beauty, she draws us to know her more deeply. — John Eldredge

The Lord Jesus himself declares: 'This is my body' (Matt. 26:26). Before the blessing with heavenly words occurs it is a different thing that is referred to, but after the consecration it is called a body. He himself says that it is his blood (cf. Matt. 26:28). Before the consecration it has another name, but after the consecration it is designated blood. And you say: 'Amen,' which means: 'It is true.' What the mouth speaks, let the mind confess within; what the word says, let love acknowledge. — Boniface Ramsey

Today I feel like pleasing you more than before
Today I know what I want to do but I don't know what for
To be living for you is all I want to do
To be loving you it'll all be there when my dreams come true
Today you'll make me say that I somehow have changed
Today you'll look into my eyes, I'm just not the same
To be anymore than all I am would be a lie
I'm so full of love I could burst apart and start to cry
Today everything you want, I swear it all will come true
Today I realize how much I'm in love with you
With you standing here I could tell the world what it means to love
To go on from here I can't use words, they don't say enough
Please, please listen to me
It's taken so long to come true
And it's all for you
all for you.... — Jefferson Airplane

Go to other countries. Not a typical backpacking tour. Planned tour
means you will hang with Americans on bikes and flirt with drunk
Germans and someone will steal your Levi's in the hostel and a guy
from Poland will sock you in the face while bad techno plays
everywhere and you will learn nothing except that your face hurts and
not everyone showers. Get into other cultures and talk politics and
love. Meeting other people is the only way to know if you believe what
you believe cause it's been handed to you, or if it really rings true
in your heart.
Getting lost should be seen as a sweet chance to be found.
Remember, you belong everywhere. — Derrick Brown

The word 'love' is a fucked up word that's been used and abused so much it no longer means shit. The same thing is true about 'beauty.' 'Beauty' doesn't mean anything anymore. Idots use the word, and look at what they use it for. Nothing! Anything! If you ever become educated, and I doubt if that will ever happen, you will have to understand that most of what you will learn is going to be just a lot of shit. — Ronald Everett Capps

If ye love me, keep my commandments. This is the essence of what it means to be a true disciple: those who receive Christ Jesus walk with him. — Dieter F. Uchtdorf

O me, what eyes hath Love put in my head,
Which have no correspondence with true sight!
... Or, if they have, where is my judgment fled,
That censures falsely what they see aright?
If that be fair whereon my false eyes dote,
What means the world to say it is not so?
If it be not, then love doth well denote
Love's eye is not so true as all men's 'No.'
How can it? O, how can Love's eye be true,
That is so vex'd with watching and with tears?
No marvel then, though I mistake my view;
The sun itself sees not till heaven clears.
O cunning Love! with tears thou keep'st me blind,
Lest eyes well-seeing thy foul faults should find.
- Shakespeare's Sonnet 148 — William Shakespeare

Please, please, you have to, I never ask you for anything, please just do it."
"What are you talking about? You always ask me for everything."
"Okay, then, but you always do it, so don't change the rules now."
He knows its true. That's just the way they work. As much as he grouses and sneers and makes a big show of authority, he can't deny the kid a thing. If he wants a vintage Aston Martin so he can play at being James Bond, he gets one. If he wants to go one top, he can. He says he's never been to Africa and Lindsay goes online and books flights that same day to Morocco because he wants to see the smile when he presents Valentine with tickets. When the kid suggests setting a camcorder up in the bedroom so they can watch the tape back later and laugh at their stupid sex-faces, Lindsay goes along with it, wincing all the way, because he always says no and he never really means it in the end.
This is love, he supposes, and it's mental. — Richard Rider

[Robin Stewart] was your man. True for you, you had withdrawn the crutch from his sight, but still it should have been there in your hand, ready for him. For you are a leader-don't you know it? I don't, surely, need to tell you?-And that is what leadership means. It means fortifying the fainthearted and giving them the two sides of your tongue while you are at it. It means suffering weak love and schooling it till it matures. It means giving up you privicies, your follies and your leasure. It means you can love nothing and no one too much, or you are no longer a leader, you are led. — Dorothy Dunnett

It's easier to let fear win. Even though love covers all things, fear is what keeps us silent and keeps words unsaid. Fear keeps us standing in one place. Eventually, when it wins, it means we never got the courage to say what we needed to say. But the words are needed. They won't always fix things or mend things or make things better. They won't bring someone back. They won't stop a good-bye. They won't be perfect. But they'll be true. And maybe that is all we have ever needed from one another: true words written with a love that feels too big to pin down to a page with measly little syllables. — Hannah Brencher

One ought not to fall in love with someone by way of their writing. One must be especially careful if the writing is good, for then one assumes the writer is good, funny, clever, profound, sensitive, smart, wise, loving, and true. It is unfair to the writer and dangerous to the reader to hold the writer to the standards of his writing, for in his writing, the writer is his best self; in person, he is a person, and we all know what that means. — Jane Juska

You do me proud, Captain. But, dear, I want to say one thing and then I'm done; for you don't need much advice of mine after my good man has spoken. I read somewhere that every inch of rope in the British Navy has a strand of red in it, so wherever a bit of it is found it is known. That is the text of my little sermon to you. Virtue, which means honour, honesty, courage, and all that makes character, is the red thread that marks a good man wherever he is. Keep that always and everywhere, so that even if wrecked by misfortune, that sign shall still be found and recognized. Yours is a rough life, and your mates not all we could wish, but you can be a gentleman in the true sense of the word; and no matter what happens to your body, keep your soul clean, your heart true to those who love you, and do your duty to the end. — Louisa May Alcott

Only love for the Supreme Lord is true Bhakti. Love for any other being, however great, is not Bhakti. The "Supreme Lord" here means Ishvara, the concept of which transcends what you in the West mean by the personal God. "He from whom this universe proceeds, in whom it rests, and to whom it returns, He is Ishvara, the Eternal, the Pure, the All-Merciful, the Almighty, the Ever-Free, the All-Knowing, the Teacher of all teachers, the Lord who of His own nature is inexpressible Love." — Swami Vivekananda

It's not about who loves her. It's about how you love her. You have to learn the difference between what she says, and what she means. Don't just make her laugh. Try and understand why she smiles. Plenty have told her she's beautiful, but can you make her feel that way too? There's a difference, see. Compliments might cage her, while empowerment sets her free. My God, what matters to her is not just who flatters her. There's a language to her love you'll need to learn. Speak it true, and I promise you, the best of her, is what you'll earn. — J. Raymond

Your problem is you don't understand what that word means. People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that's what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that's holding you back, the person who brings you to your attention so you can change your life. A true soul mate is probably the most important person you'll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever? Nah. Too painful. Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then they leave. — Elizabeth Gilbert

Tarkovsky was right. The responsibility of the artist is to stir people's hearts and minds toward loving others: to find the light and the true beauty of human nature within this love. Religion can rarely show us what fate means in concrete terms. Yet everyone needs to be understood and this understanding is found within each individual's fate, one's life journey that clarifies the way. I'm not a therapist or a philosopher or a priest. I'm an artist. — Qiu Miaojin

I've never had sex," repeated Artemis. "Never wanted to." It was her turn not to look at him as she spoke. "Not with a man or with a woman, or with an animal, though my family joke about it. And I never will. The thought of it disgusts me. But the others - my family - they think that means I haven't got any feelings. That I could never care about anyone, that I don't know what love is, just because I don't-" she shuddered. "But you know what?" she said, turning to him now. "I really loved my dogs. Everyone laughs at me for it, but it's true. The time I spent with them, running, hunting, those were the happiest times of my life. They understood me. They were animals but they understood me far better than anyone in my family ever will. We shared something, we were the same. And they made me kill them. — Marie Phillips

Is there anyone who has ever written so much as a love letter in which he felt that he had said exactly what he intended? A writer falsifies himself both intentionally and unintentionally. Intentionally, because the accidental qualities of words constantly tempt and frighten him away from his true meaning. He gets an idea, begins trying to express it, and then, in the frightful mess of words that generally results, a pattern begins to form itself more or less accidentally. It is not by any means the pattern he wants, but it is at any rate not vulgar or disagreeable; it is good art. He takes it because good art is a more or less mysterious gift from heaven, and it seems a pity to waste it when it presents itself. — George Orwell

I am not a Pessimist. Indeed I am not sure that I quite know what Pessimism really means. All I do know is that life cannot be understood without much charity, it cannot be lived without much charity. It is love, and not German philosophy, that is the true explanation of this world, whatever may be the explanation of the next. — Oscar Wilde

What you complain of in yourself, comprises the best marks of grace I can offer. A sense of unworthiness and weakness, joined with a hope in the Savior, constitutes the character of a Christian in this world. But you want the witness of the Spirit. What do you mean by this? Is it a whisper or a voice from heaven, to encourage you to believe that you may venture to hope that the promises of God are true, that he means what he says, and is able to make his word good? Your eyes are opened, you are weary of sin, you love the way of salvation yourself, and love to point it out to others, you are devoted to God, to his cause and people. It was not so with you once. Either you have somewhere stolen these blessings, or you have received them from the Holy Spirit. — Tony Reinke

In order to be truly free, you must desire to know the truth more than you want to feel good. Because, if feeling good is your goal, then as soon as you feel better you will lose interest in what is true. This does not mean that feeling good or experiencing love and bliss is a bad thing. Given the choice, anyone would choose to feel bliss rather than sorrow. It simply means that if this desire to feel good is stronger than the yearning to see, know, and experience Truth, then this desire will always be distorting the perception of what is Real, while corrupting one's deepest integrity. — Adyashanti

For several thousand years man has been in contact with animals whose character and habits have been deformed by domestication. He has ended by believing that he understands them. All he means by this is that he is able to rely on certain reflex actions which he himself has implanted in them. He will flatter himself at times on the grasp of animal psychology which has brought him the love of the dog and the purr of the cat; and on the strength of such assumptions he approaches the beasts of the jungle. The old tag about nature being an open book is just not true. What nature offers on a first examination may appear to be simple but it is never as simple as it appears. — Hans Brick