It is not enough to love passionately; you must also love well

My children, it is not enough to love passionately; you must also love well. A passionate love is good doubtless, but a beautiful love is better. May you have as much strength as gentleness; may it lack nothing, not even forbearance, and let even a little compassion be mingled with it. You are young, fair and good; but you are human, and because of this capable of much suffering. If then something of compassion does not enter into the feelings you have one for the other, these feelings will not always befit all the circumstances of your life together; they will be like festive robes that will not shield you from wind and rain. We love truly only those we love even in their weakness and their poverty. To forbear, to forgive, to console, that alone is the science of love.
Anatole France, Honey-Bee

The best thing is not to hate anyone, only to love

The sage said, "The best thing is not to hate anyone, only to love. That is the only way out of it. As soon as you have forgiven those whom you hate, you have gotten rid of them. Then you have no reason to hate them; you just forget".
Hazrat Inayat Khan

Three passions have governed my life

Three passions have governed my life:
The longings for love, the search for knowledge,
And unbearable pity for the suffering of [humankind].

Love brings ecstasy and relieves loneliness.
In the union of love I have seen
In a mystic miniature the prefiguring vision
Of the heavens that saints and poets have imagined.

With equal passion I have sought knowledge.
I have wished to understand the hearts of [people].
I have wished to know why the stars shine.

Love and knowledge led upwards to the heavens,
But always pity brought me back to earth;
Cries of pain reverberated in my heart
Of children in famine, of victims tortured
And of old people left helpless.
I long to alleviate the evil, but I cannot,
And I too suffer.

This has been my life; I found it worth living.
Bertrand Russell

The good life is inspired by love and guided by knowledge

The good life is inspired by love and guided by knowledge.
Bertrand Russell

Love and kindness are never wasted

Love and kindness are never wasted. They always make a difference. They bless the one who receives them, and they bless you, the giver.
Barbara De Angelis

Love at first sight is easy to understand

Love at first sight is easy to understand; it's when two people have been looking at each other for a lifetime that it becomes a miracle.
Amy Bloom

Can science explain first love?

How on earth are you ever going to explain in terms of chemistry and physics so important a biological phenomenon as first love?
Albert Einstein

In love relationships there is a fine line between pleasure and pain

In love relationships there is a fine line between pleasure and pain. In fact it is a common belief that a relationship without pain is a relationship not worth having. To some pain implies growth. But how do we know when the growing pains stop and the pain pains begin? Are we masochists or optimists if we continue to walk that fine line?
-Carrie Bradshaw

Nothing can cure the soul but the senses

Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul.
Oscar Wilde

Love is all, it gives all, and it takes all

Love is all, it gives all, and it takes all.
Soren Kierkegaard

Love does not alter the beloved, it alters itself

Love does not alter the beloved, it alters itself.
Soren Kierkegaard

Πιστεύω πως χωρίς έρωτα ο άνθρωπος μπορεί να ζήσει μια χαρά

Πιστεύω πως χωρίς έρωτα ο άνθρωπος μπορεί να ζήσει μια χαρά. Ιδίως αν έχει δοκιμάσει την απάτη, μπορεί να μην αισθάνεται καθόλου την έλλειψή του. Αλλά χωρίς στοργή τα πράγματα είναι δύσκολα και ο κόσμος άδειος. Όταν υπάρχει στοργή, μπορεί να μην υπάρχει έρωτας - σου φαίνεται πως τίποτα δεν λείπει. Αν μάλιστα απ' αυτό κινδυνεύει η στοργή επιβάλλεται έρωτας να μην υπάρχει. Πάντως το ίδιο πρόσωπο για να χαρίζει και τα δυο, μάλλον αποκλείεται. Γι' αυτό συνήθως η στοργή αναπτύσσεται ανάμεσα σε πρόσωπα του ίδιου φύλου ή συγγενικά, όπου δεν ξεφυτρώνει κάθε τόσο το ερωτικό εμπόδιο. Εξάλλου, ούτε και συ ο ίδιος μπορείς να χαρίζεις και στοργή και έρωτα στο ίδιο πρόσωπο. Αν συμβαίνει να το νομίζεις αυτό, απλώς τυφλώνεσαι απ' την επιθυμία και ξεγελάς τον εαυτό σου. Ίσως όμως να μην μπορούν να συνυπάρξουν μέσα σου, ούτε και στην περίπτωση που προέρχονται από διαφορετικά πρόσωπα. Ο έρωτας είναι ή μάλλον έχει καταντήσει καθαρή ιδιοτέλεια, ενώ η στοργή δεν αποβλέπει σε τίποτε τέτοιο.

Γιώργος Ιωάννου, Ώρα για το κουκούλι
Από τη συλλογή πεζογραφημάτων, Για ένα φιλότιμο (1964)

Cause you never really know what you got, until it's gone

Hold the person that you love closely if they're next to you
The one you love, not the person that'll simply have sex with you
Appreciate them to the fullest extent, and then beyond
'Cause you never really know what you got, until it's gone.
Immortal Technique, You Never Know

We are each of us angels with only one wing

We are each of us angels with only one wing. And we can only fly embracing each other.
Luciano De Crescenzo

Nunc scio, quid sit Amor (Now I know what love is)

Nunc scio, quid sit Amor
(Now I know what love is)
Vergil, Eclogues, poem 8, line 43

Love expects nothing

Well, what does work then? The only thing that works (if we really practice) is a desire not to have something for myself but to support all life, including individual relationships. Now you may say, "Well, that sounds nice, I'll do that!" But nobody really wants to do that. We don't want to support others. To truly support somebody means that you give them everything and expect nothing. You might give them your time, your work, your money, anything. "If you need it, I'll give it to you."Love expects nothing. Instead of that we have these games: "I am going to communicate so our relationship will be better," which really means, "I'm going to communicate so you'll see what I want." The underlying expectation we bring to those games insures that relationships won't work. If we really see that, then a few of us will begin to understand the next step, of seeing another way of being. We may get a glimpse of it now and then: "Yes, I can do this for you, I can support your life and I expect nothing. Nothing."

Relationships Don't Work - from Everyday Zen: Love & Work by Charlotte Joko Beck from Amazon com

Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace

Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.
Saint Francis of Assisi

I have spread my dreams under your feet

Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

W.B. Yeats

To a person in love, the value of the individual is intuitively known

To a person in love, the value of the individual is intuitively known.
Love needs no logic for its mission.
Charles A. Lindbergh

Long after moments of closeness have passed

Long after moments of closeness have passed
A part of you remains with me
And warms the places your hands have touched
And hastens my heart for your return.
Robert Sexton

The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved

The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved.
Victor Hugo

There is no remedy for love but to love more

There is no remedy for love but to love more.
Henry David Thoreau

Vous qui souffrez parce que vous aimez, aimez plus encore

Vous qui souffrez parce que vous aimez, aimez plus encore. Mourir d’amour, c’est en vivre…
Victor Hugo

Lovers don't finally meet somewhere

Lovers don't finally meet somewhere,
they're in each other all along.
Rumi

We must love one another or die

There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.
W. H. Auden

Life is pain and the enjoyment of love is an anesthetic.

Perché il veramente innamorato chiede la continuità, la vitalità dei rapporti? Perché la vita è dolore e l'amore goduto è un anestetico, e chi vorrebbe svegliarsi a metà operazione?
Cesare Pavese

Why does the person who is truly in love seeks the continuity, the lifelong duration of relationships? Because life is pain and the enjoyment of love is an anesthetic, and who wants to wake up in the middle of an operation?
Cesare Pavese
[English translation by Spiros Doikas]

Γιατί ο αληθινά ερωτευμένος ζητά τη συνέχεια, το ισόβιο των σχέσεων; Διότι η ζωή είναι οδύνη και η απόλαυση του έρωτα είναι αναισθητικό, και ποιος θέλει να ξυπνήσει στη μέση μιας εγχείρησης;
Τσέζαρε Παβάζε
[Μετάφραση: Σπύρος Δόικας]

Cras amet qui numquam amavit quique amavit cras amet

Cras amet qui numquam amavit quique amavit cras amet

Various translations:

Let those love now, who've never loved,
Let those who've loved, love yet again.

Ας αγαπήσουν τώρα εκείνοι που δεν αγάπησαν ποτέ
Και εκείνοι που αγάπησαν, ας αγαπήσουν ξανά.

Tomorrow may he love who has never loved, whoever has loved, may he love tomorrow

From PervigiliumVeneris

Cras amet qui nunquam amavit quique amavit cras amet.
Ver novum, ver iam canorum, vere natus orbis est,
Vere concordant amores, vere nubunt alites,
Cras amorum copulatrix inter umbras arborum
Implicat casas virentes de flagello myrteo
Cras Dione iura dicit fulta sublimi throno.

Cras amet qui numquam amavit quique amavit cras amet.

Tunc cruore de superno spumeo pontus globo
Caerulas inter catervas, inter et bipedes equos
Fecit undantem Dionem de maritis imbribus.

Cras amet qui numquam amavit quique amavit cras amet.

Ipsa gemmis purpurantem pingit annum floridis,
Ipsa surgentes papillas de Favoni spiritu
Urget in toros tepentes, ipsa roris lucidi,
Noctis aura quem relinquit, spargit umentis aquas.
En micant lacrimae trementes de caduco pondere:
Gutta praeceps orbe parvo sustinet casus suos.

En pudorem florulentae prodiderunt purpurae:
Umor ille, quem serena astra rorant noctibus.
Mane virgineas papillas solvit umenti peplo.
Ipsa jussit mane ut udae virgines nubant rosae:
Facta Cypridis de cruore deque Amoris osculis
Deque gemmis deque flabris deque solis purpuris
Cras ruborem, qui latebat veste tectus ignea,
Unico marita voto non pudebit solvere.

Cras amet qui numquam amavit, quique amavit cras amet

Ipsa nymphas diva luco jussit ire myrteo:
It puer comes puellis: nec tamen credi potest
Esse Amorem feriatum si sagittas vexerit.
Ite, nymphae; posuit arma, feriatus est Amor

Cras amet qui numquam amavit, quique amavit cras amet

Iussus est inermis ire, nudus ire iussus est,
Neu quid arcu, neu sagitta, neu quid igne laederet.
Sed tamen, nymphae, cavete, quod Cupido pulcher est:
Totus est in armis idem, quando nudus est Amor.

Cras amet qui numquam amavit, quique amavit cras amet

Conpari Venus pudore mittit ad te virgines.
Una res est quam rogamus: cede, virgo DeIia
Ut nemus sit incruentum de ferinis stragibus.
Ipsa vellet te rogare, si pudicam flecteret,
Ipsa vellet ut venires, si deceret virginem.
Iam tribus choros videres feriantis noctibus
Congreges inter catervas ire per saltus tuos,
Floreas inter coronas, myrteas inter casas.
Nec Ceres, nec Bacchus absunt, nec poetarum deus.
Detinenter tota nox est perviglanda canticis:
Regnet in silvis Dione: tu recede, Delia.

Cras amet qui numquam amavit quique amavit cras amet.

Iussit Hyblaeis tribunal stare diva floribus;
Praeses ipsa iura dicet, adsidebunt Gratiae.
Hybla, totus funde flores, quidquid annus adtulit
Hybla, florum sume vestem, quantus Aetnae campus est
Ruris hic erunt puellae vel puellae fontium
Quaeque sllvas, quaeque lucos, quaeque montes incolunt
Iussit omnes adsidere pueri mater alitis,
Iussit et nudo puellas nil Amori credere

Cras amet qui numqnam amavit quique amavit cras amet.

Et recentibus virentes ducat umbras floribus.
Cras erit quom primus Aether copulavit nuptias,
Et pater totis crearet vernis annum nubibus:
In sinum maritus imber fluxit almae coniugis,
Unde fetus mixtus omnis aleret magno corpore.
Ipsa venas atque mentem permeanti spiritu
Intus occultis gubernat procreatrix viribus,
Perque caelum perque terras perque pontum subditum
Pervium sui tenorem seminali tramite
Inbuit iussitque mundumque nosse nascendi vias.

Cras amet qui numquam amavit quique amavit cras amet

Ipsa Troianos nepotes in Latinos transtulit:
Ipsa Laurentem puellam coniugem nato dedit,
Unde Ramnes et Quirites proque prole posterum
Romuli matrem crearet et nepotem Caesarem;
Moxque Marti de sacello dat pudicam virginem
Romuleas ipsa fecit cum Sabinis nuptias

Cras amet qui numquam amavit quique amavit cras amet.

Rura fecundat voluptas, rura Venerem sentiunt;
Ipse Amor, puer Dionae, rure natus dicitur.
Hunc, ager cum parturiret, ipsa suscepit sinu:
Ipsa florum delicatis educavit osculis.

Cras amet qui numquam amavit quique amavit cras [amet.

Ecce iam subter genestas explicant agni latus,
Quisque tutus quo tenetur coniugali foedere.
Subter umbras cum maritis ecce balantum greges:
Et canoras non tacere diva iussit alites.
Iam loquaces ore rauco stagna cygni perstrepunt:
Adsonat Terei puella subter umbram populi,
Ut putes motus amoris ore dici musico,
Et neges queri sororem de marito barbaro.

Illa cantat, nos tacemus. Quando ver venit meum,
Quando fiam uti chelidon, ut tacere desinam?
Perdidi Musam tacendo, nec me Phoebus respicit.
Sic Amyclas, cum tacerent, perdidit silentium.
Cras amet qui numquam amavit quique amavit cras amet.