Sourced and curated.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder.

Sextus Propertius

24 BC

★ 9.0

Love conquers all things; let us too surrender to love.

Virgil

37 BC

★ 8.6

Speech · Political speech

I have also decided to stick with love...hate is too great a burden to bear.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Where Do We Go From Here? · 1967

★ 8.5

Novel

Love is or it ain't. Thin love ain't love at all.

Toni Morrison

Beloved · 1987

★ 7.8

Tragedy (play)

My bounty is as boundless as the sea, My love as deep. The more I give to thee, The more I have, for both are infinite.

I love you. You...complete me.

1597

★ 7.8

Film · Romantic comedy (film) · Comedy drama (film) · Romantic comedy · Comedy drama

Jerry Maguire

Jerry Maguire · 1996

★ 7.4

Philosophical literature

O happy race of mortals, if your hearts are ruled, as is the universe, by Love!

Boethius

The Consolation of Philosophy · 523

★ 7.1

Sonnet · Poem

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun; Coral is far more red than her lips' red... I love to hear her speak, yet well I know That music hath a far more pleasing sound.

Love means never having to say you're sorry.

Shakespeare's Sonnets · 1609

★ 7.1

Film · Romantic drama (film) · Drama (film) · Romantic drama · Drama

Jenny

Love Story · 1970

★ 7.1

For hate is not conquered by hate: hate is conquered by love. This is a law eternal.

Pali Tipitaka

100 BC

★ 7.0

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.

Apostle Paul

1st Corinthians 13:4-8 · 55

★ 7.0

Tis better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all.

Alfred Tennyson

1850

★ 7.0

Autobiography and memoir

Love may be a sleepy, creeping thing with some others, but it is a mighty wakening thing with me.

Zora Neale Hurston

Dust Tracks on a Road · 1942

★ 7.0

These eyes of mine would look on only thee In that last hour when light shall fail. Embrace me, dear, in death! Let thy hand be In my cold fingers pale!

Tibullus

26 BC

★ 6.9

Film · Fantasy drama (film) · Drama (film) · Fantasy drama · Drama

If everything is imperfect in this world, love is perfect in its imperfection.

Jons

The Seventh Seal · 1957

★ 6.9

Autobiography and memoir

Experience shows us that love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking together in the same direction.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery

1939

★ 6.9

Philosophical literature

Love you will find only where you may show yourself weak without provoking strength.

Theodor Adorno

Minima Moralia · 1951

★ 6.9

Song

All you need is love.

The Beatles

All You Need Is Love · 1967

★ 6.4

Poem · Narrative poem

Love comforteth like sunshine after rain.

Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps.

Venus and Adonis · 1593

★ 6.3

Play · Comedy (play)

Nobody dies from lack of sex. It's lack of love we die from.

Much Ado About Nothing · 1600

★ 5.7

Novel · Dystopian fiction

Margaret Atwood

The Handmaid's Tale · 1985

★ 5.6

Play · Comedy (play) · Romantic comedy (play)

If music be the food of love, play on. Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting, The appetite may sicken and so die.

Twelfth Night · 1602

★ 5.5

Love seeketh not itself to please, Nor for itself hath any care, But for another gives its ease, And builds a Heaven in Hell's despair.

William Blake

Songs of Experience · 1794

★ 5.5

Film · Romantic drama (film) · Romantic drama

I wish I knew how to quit you.

Jack Twist

Brokeback Mountain · 2005

★ 5.5

Play · Tragedy (play)

Pains of love be sweeter far Than all other pleasures are.

John Dryden

Tyrannick Love, or The Royal Martyr · 1669

★ 5.4

Love to faults is always blind, Always is to joy inclin'd, Lawless, wing'd, and unconfin'd, And breaks all chains from every mind.

William Blake

1792

★ 5.4

Novel · Satire

What is Love?... It is the morning and the evening star.

Sinclair Lewis

1927

★ 5.4

By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth.

Song of Solomon 3:1

965 BC

★ 5.3

Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?

Christopher Marlowe

Hero and Leander · 1593

★ 5.3

Play · Comedy (play)

But miserable most, to love unloved? This you should pity rather than despise.

A Midsummer Night's Dream · 1599

★ 5.3

What did I know of love's austere and lonely offices?

Robert Hayden

1962

★ 5.3

My beloved is mine, and I am his.

Song of Solomon 2:16

965 BC

★ 5.2

Short story

"Nothing-so it seems to me," said the stranger, "is more beautiful than the love that has weathered the storms of life... The love of the young for the young, that is the beginning of life. But the love of the old for the old, that is the beginning of—of things longer."

Jerome K. Jerome

1908

★ 5.0

Novel

When you love someone you leave every possibility open to them, and in spite of all the memories of the past you are ready to be surprised, again and again-surprised, at how different they are, how various, not a finished image.

Max Frisch

I'm Not Stiller · 1954

★ 5.0

Play · Tragedy (play)

Doubt thou the stars are fire, Doubt that the sun doth move, Doubt truth to be a liar, But never doubt I love.