Woe Love Quotes & Sayings

Woe, alas, to the one who shall have loved bodies, forms, appearances only. Death will take everything from him. Try to love souls, you shall find them again — Victor Hugo

Love is the vital essence that pervades and permeates, from the center to the circumference, the graduating circles of all thought and action. Love is the talisman of human weal and woe
the open sesame to every soul. — Elizabeth Cady Stanton

She marking them begins a wailing note And sings extemporally a woeful ditty How love makes young men thrall and old men dote How love is wise in folly, foolish-witty Her heavy anthem still concludes in woe, And still the choir of echoes answer so. — William Shakespeare

O hard-believing love, how strange it seems!
Not to believe, and yet too credulous:
Thy weal and woe are both of them extremes;
Despair and hope make thee ridiculous:
The one doth flatter thee in thoughts unlikely,
In likely thoughts the other kills thee quickly. — William Shakespeare

Silence in love betrays more woe - Than words though ne'er so witty; A beggar that is dumb, you know, may challenge double pity. — Walter Raleigh

The love of Christ reaches to the very depths of earthly misery and woe, or it would not meet the case of the veriest sinner. It also reaches to the throne of the eternal, or man could not he lifted from his degraded condition, and our necessities would not be met, our desires would be unsatisfied. — Ellen G. White

Should God create another Eve, and I
Another Rib afford, yet loss of thee
Would never from my heart; no no, I feel
The Link of Nature draw me: Flesh of Flesh,
Bone of my Bone thou art, and from thy State
Mine never shall be parted, bliss or woe. — John Milton

For life, with all its yields of joy and woe Is just a chance o' the prize of learning love. — Robert Browning

Four little chests all in a row,
Dim with dust, and worn by time,
Four women, taught by weal and woe
To love and labor in their prime. "
"Four sisters, parted for an hour,
None lost, one only gone before,
Made by love's immortal power,
Nearest and dearest evermore. — Louisa May Alcott

Out of damp and gloomy days, out of solitude, out of loveless words directed at us, conclusions grow up in us like fungus: one morning they are there, we know not how, and they gaze upon us, morose and gray. Woe to the thinker who is not the gardener but only the soil of the plants that grow in him. — Friedrich Nietzsche

ODE TO STEPHEN DOWLING BOTS, DEC'D And did young Stephen sicken, And did young Stephen die? And did the sad hearts thicken, And did the mourners cry? No; such was not the fate of Young Stephen Dowling Bots; Though sad hearts round him thickened, 'Twas not from sickness' shots. No whooping-cough did rack his frame, Nor measles drear with spots; Not these impaired the sacred name Of Stephen Dowling Bots. Despised love struck not with woe That head of curly knots, Nor stomach troubles laid him low, Young Stephen Dowling Bots. O no. Then list with tearful eye, Whilst I his fate do tell. His soul did from this cold world fly By falling down a well. They got him out and emptied him; Alas it was too late; His spirit was gone for to sport aloft In the realms of the good and great. If — Mark Twain

All you who are in love
Aye and can not remove it
I pity the pain that you endure.
For experience lets me know
That your hearts are filled with woe
It's a woe that no mortal can cure.
-the Curragh of Kildare — Maggie Stiefvater

Sin is dark and loves the dark, still hides from itself in gloom, and in the darkest hell is still itself the darkest hell and the severest woe. — Robert Pollok

My mother smokes me out. We'll get these long periods of me thinking I'm too busy to call her up or e-mail her, and she'll send me something. My mom's a real whiner. I love her to death, but she always sends me these 'woe is me' things. I think she might be Jewish. I'm not sure. She's Baptist-Jewish, which is a double whammy. — Ronnie Dunn

There are three kinds of love;
unselfish, mutual, and selfish.
The unselfish love is of the highest kind;
The lover only minds the welfare of the beloved and does not care for his own sufferings.
In mutual love the lover not only wants the happiness of his beloved;
but has an eye towards his own happiness also. It is middling.
The selfish love is the lowest. It only looks towards its own happiness,
no matter whether the beloved suffers weal or woe. — Ramakrishna

The wave came again and carried them out onto the sea of pain, where he wondered again why life ever came into the world...The tide that drew them out into the troubled waters once again spent itself, and they floated slowly back, resting for a minute or so, only to be dragged out again. He held her up while she contracted and pushed inside herself, trying to open the petals of her flowering body...He lifted her, trying to free the load she was struggling with, but she was straining against the traces, getting nowhere, her eyes like those of a draft horse...Who would choose this, thought Laski, this work, this woe? Life enslaves us, makes us want children, gives us a thousand illusions about love, and all so that it can go forward. — William Kotzwinkle

I love the people because I believe in God. For, if I did not believe in God, what would the people be to me? I should enjoy at ease that lucky throw of the dice, which chance had turned up for me, the day of my birth; and, with a secret, savage joy, I should say, So much the worse for the losers!
the world is a lottery. Woe to the conquered! — Alphonse De Lamartine

Through me you pass into the city of woe:
Through me you pass into eternal pain:
Through me among the people lost for aye.
Justice the founder of my fabric moved:
To rear me was the task of power divine,
Supremest wisdom, and primeval love.
Before me things create were none, save things
Eternal, and eternal I shall endure.
All hope abandon, ye who enter here. — Dante Alighieri

30 When to the sessions of sweet silent thought I summon up remembrance of things past, I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought, And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste; Then can I drown an eye (unus'd to flow) For precious friends hid in death's dateless night, And weep afresh love's long since cancell'd woe, And moan th' expense of many a vanish'd sight; Then can I grieve at grievances foregone, And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan, Which I new pay as if not paid before: But if the while I think on thee, dear friend, All losses are restor'd, and sorrows end. — William Shakespeare

You are going, Jane?"
"I am going, sir."
"You are leaving me?"
"Yes."
"You will not come? You will not be my comforter, my rescuer? My deep love, my wild woe, my frantic prayer, are all nothing to you?"
What unutterable pathos was in his voice! How hard was it to reiterate firmly, "I am going!"
"Jane!"
"Mr. Rochester."
"Withdraw then, I consent; but remember, you leave me here in anguish. Go up to your own room, think over all I have said, and, Jane, cast a glance on my sufferings; think of me."
He turned away, he threw himself on his face on the sofa. "Oh, Jane! my hope, my love, my life!" broke in anguish from his lips. Then came a deep, strong sob. — Charlotte Bronte

Satan represents God's law of love as a law of selfishness. He declares that it is impossible for us to obey its precepts. The fall of our first parents, with all the woe that has resulted, he charges upon the Creator, leading men to look upon God as the author of sin, and suffering, and death. Jesus was to unveil this deception. As one of us He was to give an example of obedience. For this He took upon Himself our nature, and passed through our experiences. "In all things it behooved Him to be made like unto His brethren." Hebrews 2:17. If we had to bear anything which Jesus did not endure, then upon this point Satan would represent the power of God as insufficient for us. Therefore Jesus was "in all points tempted like as we are." Hebrews 4:15. — Ellen G. White

Through me is the way to the city of woe.
Through me is the way to sorrow eternal.
Through me is the way to the lost below. Justice moved my architect supernal.
I was constructed by divine power,
supreme wisdom, and love primordial.
Before me no created things were.
Save those eternal, and eternal I abide.
Abandon all hope, you who enter. — Dante Alighieri

Love is not only pure joy, and delight, but also great and deep heaviness of heart and sorrow. But love too is full of joy and sweetness even in bitter sorrow, because it regards the misery and injury of others as its own. So also Christ was glowing with burning love in His last and greatest agony. According to St. Hilary, it was Christ's greatest joy that He endured the greatest woe. Thus God "giveth strength and power unto His people" (Ps. 68:15). While they experience the greatest sorrow, their hearts overflow with joy. — Martin Luther

The Gospel is not an old, old story, freshly told. It is a fire in the Spirit, fed by the flame of Immortal Love; and woe unto us, if, through our negligence to stir up the Gift of God which is within us, that fire burns low. — Leonard Ravenhill

I love the writers of my thousand books. It pleases me to think how astonished old Homer, whoever he was, would be to find his epics on the shelf of such an unimaginable being as myself, in the middle of an unrumored continent. I love the large minority of the writers on my shelves who have struggled with words and thoughts and, by my lights, have lost the struggle. All together they are my community, the creators of the very idea of books, poetry, and extended narratives, and of the amazing human conversation that has taken place across the millennia, through weal and woe, over the heads of interest and utility. — Marilynne Robinson

I cannot love as I have loved, And yet I know not why; It is the one great woe of life To feel all feeling die. — Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton

Perhaps scorpions were the only ones who could save each other.
Whatever lay ahead, it would always be the two of us above the rest of the universe, and woe to any who dared step in out path. — S.J. Kincaid

Woe to the heart that has not loved in youth! — Ivan Turgenev

This is a tale of woe. This is a tale of sorrow. A love denied, a love restored, to live beyond tomorrow. Lest we think silence is the place to hide a heavy heart, remember, to love and be loved is life itself without which we are nought. — Abi Morgan

We all know exactly what we love, and woe is you if you're on the other side. — Jen Lancaster

Woe to the man whose heart has not learned while young to hope, to love - and to put it's trust in life! — Joseph Conrad

I am the way into the city of woe,
I am the way into eternal pain,
I am the way to go among the lost.
Justice caused my high architect to move,
Divine omnipotence created me,
The highest wisdom, and the primal love.
Before me there were no created things
But those that last forever - as do I.
Abandon all hope you who enter here. — Dante Alighieri

Sky-Blue
The azure blue, the heavenly hue,
The first created realm of blue;
And over its radiance divine
My soul does pour its love sublime.

My heart that once with joy did glow
Is plunged in sorrow and in woe,
But yet it thrills and loves anew
To view again the sapphire blue.

I love to gaze on lovely eyes
That swim in azure from the skies;
The heavens lend this color fair,
Arid leave a dream of gladness there.

Enamored of the limpid sky,
My thoughts take wing to regions high,
And in that blue of liquid fire
In raptured ecstasy expire.

When I am dead no tears will flow
Upon my lonely grave below,
But from above the aerial blue
Will scatter over me tears of dew.

The mists about my tomb will wind
A veil of pearl with shadows twined;
But lured by sunbeams from on high
Twill melt into the azure sky. — Nikoloz Baratashvili

Ah woe is me, through all my daysWisdom and wealth I both have got,And fame and name and great men's praise;But Love, ah! Love I have it not. — Henry Cuyler Bunner

Alas, where in the world have there been greater follies than with the compassionate?
And what in the world has caused more suffering than the follies of the compassionate?
Woe to all lovers who cannot surmount pity!
Thus spoke the Devil to me once: Even God has his Hell: it is his love for man.
And I lately heard him say these words: God is dead; God has died of his pity for man. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Woes cluster. Rare are solitary woes; They love a train, they tread each other's heel. — Edward Young

Have you ever said Yes to a single joy? O my friends, then you have said Yes too to all woe. All things are entangled, ensnared, enamored; if ever you wanted one thing twice, if ever you said, "You please me, happiness! Abide, moment!" then you wanted all back. All anew, all eternally, all entangled, ensnared, enamored
oh then you loved the world. Eternal ones, love it eternally and evermore; and to woe too, you say: go, but return! For all joy wants
eternity. — Friedrich Nietzsche

HATE FOR HATE - AND RUTH FOR RUTH,
EYE FOR EYE - AND TOOTH FOR TOOTH,
SCORN FOR SCORN - AND SMILE FOR SMILE,
LOVE FOR LOVE - AND GUILE FOR GUILE,
WAR FOR WAR, - AND WOE FOR WOE,
BLOOD FOR BLOOD - AND BLOW FOR BLOW. — Ragnar Redbeard

Mario'd fallen in love with the first Madam Psychosis programs because he felt like he was listening to someone sad read out loud from yellow letters she'd taken out of a shoebox on a rainy P.M, stuff about heartbreak and people you loved dying and U.S. woe, stuff that was real. It is increasingly hard to find valid art that is about stuff that is real in this way. The older Mario gets, the more confused he gets about the fact that everyone at E.T.A. over the age of about Kent Blott finds stuff that's really real uncomfortable and they get embarrassed. It's like there's some rule that real stuff can only get mentioned if everybody rolls their eyes or laughs in a way that isn't happy. — David Foster Wallace

Mission is a duty about which one must say 'Woe to me if I do not evangelize' (1 Corinthians 9:16) ... redemption and mission are acts of love [because] those who proclaim the Gospel participate in the charity of Christ. — Pope Benedict XVI

The sweetest joy, the wildest woe is love. — Pearl Bailey

A Rose in Winter
A crimson bloom in winter's snow,
Born out of time, like a maiden's woe,
Spawned in a season when the chill winds blow.
'Twas found in a sheltered spot,
Bright sterling gules and blemished not,
Red as a drop o' blood from the broken heart,
Of the maid who waits and weeps atop the tor,
Left behind by yon argent knight sworn to war,
'Til ajousting and aquesting he goes no more.
Fear not, Sweet Jo, amoulderin' on the moor.
The winter's rose doth promise in the fading runes of yore,
That true love once found will again be restored. — Kathleen E. Woodiwiss

Whatever be the depth of woe Along the path that I must go, I'll sing my song - My song of joy for all the love That's lavished on us from above, And count no loss of treasure-trove When things go wrong. I'll sing the sunlight, and the bright Soft smiling stars that gem the night; For gifts of good That God hath spread along my way, The lilt of birds in tuneful play, The harvests full and flowers gay, The whole day long I'll sing my song Of gratitude! — John Kendrick Bangs

Life with all it yields of joy and woe,
And hope and fear,
Is just our chance o' the prize of learning love,
How love might be, hath been indeed, and is. — Robert Browning

Thou hadst: whom hast thou then or what to accuse, But Heav'ns free Love dealt equally to all? Be then his Love accurst, since love or hate, To me alike, it deals eternal woe. Nay — John Milton

The kiss, dear maid ! thy lip has left

Shall never part from mine,

Till happier hours restore the gift

Untainted back to thine.


Thy parting glance, which fondly beams,

An equal love may see:

The tear that from thine eyelid streams

Can weep no change in me.


I ask no pledge to make me blest

In gazing when alone;

Nor one memorial for a breast,

Whose thoughts are all thine own.


Nor need I write --- to tell the tale

My pen were doubly weak:

Oh ! what can idle words avail,

Unless the heart could speak ?


By day or night, in weal or woe,

That heart, no longer free,

Must bear the love it cannot show,

And silent ache for thee. — George Gordon Byron

Lament invoked love.
Woe invoked wonder.
Grief invoked grace.
Cry invoked celebration.
(Page 80) — Neena Verma

Amid the awful darkness, apparently forsaken of God, Christ had drained the last dregs in the cup of human woe. In those dreadful hours He had relied upon the evidence of His Father's acceptance heretofore given Him. He was acquainted with the character of His Father; He understood His justice, His mercy, and His great love. By faith He rested in Him whom it had ever been His joy to obey. And as in submission He committed Himself to God, the sense of the loss of His Father's favor was withdrawn. By faith, Christ was victor. — Ellen G. White

Love
what a volume in a word, an ocean in a tear, A seventh heaven in a glance, a whirlwind in a sigh, The lightning in a touch, a millennium in a moment, What concentrated joy or woe in blest or blighted love! For it is that native poetry springing up indigenous to Mind, The heart's own-country music thrilling all its chords, The story without an end that angels throng to hear, The word, the king of words, carved on Jehovah's heart! — Martin Farquhar Tupper

Woe, alas, to those who have loved only bodies, forms, appearances! Death will rob them of everything. Try to love souls, you will find them again. — Victor Hugo

The yearning sadness of a farewell stole plaintively across her heart as she recalled those sweet sessions when she stood with him in the shadowy upper reaches of the street listening to his murmured tale of woe. She felt that happiness being furtively withdrawn, stolen by sly hands which she could not resist. No longer would he feed the deep longing in her heart; no more could she escape, through him, those bleak lonelinesses which sometimes stole upon her. — Walter Greenwood

Ah, where in the world have there been greater follies than with the pitiful? And what in the world hath caused more suffering than the follies of the pitiful?
Woe unto all loving ones who have not an elevation which is above their pity!
Thus spake the devil unto me, once on a time: "Even God hath his hell: it is his love for man." And lately, did I hear him say these words: "God is dead: of his pity for man hath God died. — Friedrich Nietzsche

What various scenes, and O! what scenes of Woe,
Are witness'd by that red and struggling beam!
The fever'd patient, from his pallet low,
Through crowded hospitals beholds it stream;
The ruined maiden trembles at its gleam,
The debtor wakes to thought of gyve and jail,
The love-lorn wretch starts from tormenting dream;
The wakeful mother, by the glimmering pale,
Trims her sick infant's couch, and soothes his feeble wail. — Walter Scott

There is no treasure the which may be compared unto a faithful friend; Gold some decayeth, and worldly wealth consumeth, and wasteth in the winde; But love once planted in a perfect and pure minde indureth weale and woe; The frownes of fortune, come they never so unkinde, cannot the same overthrowe. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

If love be good, from whence cometh my woe? — Geoffrey Chaucer

Where I say that He abideth sorrowfully and moaning, it meaneth all the true feeling that we have in our self, in contrition and compassion, and all sorrowing and moaning that we are not oned with our Lord. And all such that is speedful, it is Christ in us. And though some of us feel it seldom, it passeth never from Christ till what time He hath brought us out of all our woe. For love suffereth never to be without pity. — Julian Of Norwich

O holy God! The sinless seraphs covered their faces in Your presence. How much more should we who are but sinful creatures bow in reverence before Your throne. You alone are holy. You alone are the transcendent, majestic God. You alone are morally pure. You are perfect light; in You there is no darkness at all. And yet, through Your Son You came to us as our Savior. You came not to pronounce woe but blessing to those who trust in Jesus. Fill our hearts with awe because of Your holiness, and with amazement because of Your love. Through Jesus Christ our Lord we praise You. Amen. — Jerry Bridges

Through me the way into the city of woe: Through me the way into eternal pain: Through me the way among the lost. Justice moved my maker on high Divine power made me, Wisdom supreme, and primeval Love. Before me nothing was but things eternal And eternal I endure. Abandon all hope, ye who enter here. — Kenan Malik

And he has tried to swim that stream,
And he swam on both strong and steady,
But the river was wide and strength did fail,
And never more he'll see his Annie.

And woe betide the willow wan,
And woe betide the bush and briar,
For they broke beneath her true love's hand,
When strength did fail and limbs did tire. — Kate Thompson

I sometimes used to ask myself, what on earth did I love her for? Maybe fore the warm hazel iris of her fluffy eyes, or for the natural side-wave of her brown hair, done anyhow, or again for that movement of her plump shoulders. But, probably the truth was that I loved her because she loved me. To her I was the ideal man: brains, pluck. And there was none dressed better. I remember once, when I first put on that new dinner jacket, with the vast trousers, she clapsed her hands, sank down on a chair and murmured: 'Oh, Hermann ... It was ravishment bordering upon something like heavenly woe. — Vladimir Nabokov

All love's pleasure shall not match its woe. — William Shakespeare

Raindrops fall from clouds of gray.
The fragile flowers grow.
Teardrops seem all I can say.
They speak of endless woe.
Your fingers wipe my grief away.
A seed of love you sow.
A hardened heart reverts to clay.
You mold my love just so. — Richelle E. Goodrich

Love can blind you, but woe if you also become deaf. — Matshona Dhliwayo

A Soul-Furlurn
Let none bewail the bitterness of orphancy,
Nor weep if destitute of friend or kin is he,
But pity him whose soul's bereaved by ruthless fate;
Once lost-'tis hard to find again a worthy mate.

Deprived of kin and friend the heart seems lone and dead
Yet soon it finds another one to love instead;
But if the soul does lose its mate, then it must bear
The curse of yielding all its hopes to black despair.

His faith is lost, he trusts no more this world of woe;
Distraught and wild, he shuns mankind, and does not know
To whom to trust the secrets of his troubled breast,
Afraid to feel again the faith it once possessed.

'Tis hard to bear the anguish of a soul forlorn,
To shun all worldly joys and smiles or pleasures scorn;
The lonely soul forever mourns its friend and mate,
And heavy sighs bring calm to him thus doomed by fate. — Nikoloz Baratashvili

Give me yourself, O my God, give yourself back to me. Lo, I love you, but if my love is too mean, let me love more passionately. I cannot gauge my love, nor know how far it fails, how much more love I need for my life to set its course straight into your arms, never swerving until hidden in the covert of your face. This alone I know, that without you all to me is misery, woe outside myself and woe within, and all wealth but penury, if it is not my God. — Augustine Of Hippo

Who would have listened to his tales of woe when his love was the flickering lamp over his own decaying tomb? — Faraaz Kazi

Sonnet to Liberty
NOT that I love thy children, whose dull eyes
See nothing save their own unlovely woe,
Whose minds know nothing, nothing care to know, -
But that the roar of thy Democracies,
Thy reigns of Terror, thy great Anarchies, 5
Mirror my wildest passions like the sea, -
And give my rage a brother - ! Liberty!
For this sake only do thy dissonant cries
Delight my discreet soul, else might all kings
By bloody knout or treacherous cannonades 10
Rob nations of their rights inviolate
And I remain unmoved - and yet, and yet,
These Christs that die upon the barricades,
God knows it I am with them, in some things. — Oscar Wilde

Everything on earth has happened before,
nothing is new,
but woe to the lovers
who fail to discover a fresh blossom
in every future kiss. — Jaroslav Seifert

We are kept all as securely in Love in woe as in weal, by the Goodness of God. — Julian Of Norwich

No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon" (Luke 16:13). He speaks frequently and unambiguously to economic issues. He says, "Blessed are you poor, for yours is the kingdom of God" and "Woe to you that are rich, for you have received your consolation" (Luke 6:20, 24). — Richard J. Foster

Thus not the tenderness of friendship, nor the beauty of earth, nor of heaven, could redeem my soul from woe; the very accents of love were ineffectual. I was encompassed by a cloud which no beneficial influence could penetrate. The wounded deer dragging its fainting limbs to some untrodden brake, there to gaze upon the arrow which had — Mary Shelley

We placed the wreaths upon the splendid granite sarcophagus, and at its feet, and felt that only the earthly robe we loved so much was there. The pure, tender, loving spirit which loved us so tenderly, is above us - loving us, praying for us, and free from all suffering and woe - yes, that is a comfort, and that first birthday in another world must have been a far brighter one than any in this poor world below! — Queen Victoria

She looked down again and I was stymied. I sat. Oh, this was enough to make me love her, because I was right with her, understanding every second and longing to step in. I didn't even need to know the specific that was troubling her, because to me her halting voice easily stood for the general woe that hangs in the air, even on life's happiest days. — Steve Martin

Not that I love thy children, whose dull eyes see nothing save their own unlovely woe, Whose minds know nothing, nothing care to know ... — Oscar Wilde

Love can blind you, but woe to one who becomes both blind and deaf. — Matshona Dhliwayo

For never was a truer story of love conquering woe than this of Molly Juliet and her Romeo. — Tillie Cole

Woe is me!
The winged words on which my soul would pierce
Into the heights of love's rare universe,
Are chains of lead around its flight of fire
I pant, I sink, I tremble, I expire. — Percy Bysshe Shelley

But woe is me! too early I attended
A youthful suit- it was to gain my grace-
O, one by nature's outwards so commended
That maidens' eyes stuck over all his face.
Love lacked a dwelling and made him her place;
And when in his fair parts she did abide,
She was new lodged and newly deified — William Shakespeare

Grace transforms our failings full of dread into abundant, endless comfort ... our failings full of shame into a noble, glorious rising ... our dying full of sorrow into holy, blissful life. ... . Just as our contrariness here on earth brings us pain, shame and sorrow, so grace brings us surpassing comfort, glory, and bliss in heaven ... And that shall be a property of blessed love, that we shall know in God, which we might never have known without first experiencing woe. — Julian Of Norwich

Woe to the man who in the first moments of a love-affair does not believe that it will last forever! Woe to him who even in the arms of some mistress who has just yielded to him maintains an awareness of trouble to come and foresees that he may later tear himself away! — Benjamin Constant