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Quotations on love
 
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The following are some Shakepeare quotations on love with links to the plays full text.
 
Sonnet 18
 
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
   So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
   So long lives this and this gives life to thee.   (18.1-14)
 
 
Sonnet 29
 
For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.   (29.13-14)
 
 
Sonnet 43
 
All days are nights to see till I see thee, And nights bright days when dreams do show thee me.   (43.13-14)
 
 
Sonnet 75
 
So are you to my thoughts as food to life,
Or as sweet-season'd showers are to the ground;
And for the peace of you I hold such strife
As 'twixt a miser and his wealth is found;
Now proud as an enjoyer and anon
Doubting the filching age will steal his treasure,
Now counting best to be with you alone,
Then better'd that the world may see my pleasure;
Sometime all full with feasting on your sight
And by and by clean starved for a look;
Possessing or pursuing no delight,
Save what is had or must from you be took.
   Thus do I pine and surfeit day by day,
   Or gluttoning on all, or all away.
Sonnet 86
 
the prize of all too precious you,   (86.2)
 
 
Sonnet 88
 
Such is my love, to thee I so belong,
That for thy right myself will bear all wrong.   (88.13-13)
 
 
Sonnet 116
 
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
   If this be error and upon me proved,
   I never writ, nor no man ever loved.   (116.1-14)
 
 
Venus and Adonis
 
Love is a spirit all compact of fire,
Not gross to sink, but light, and will aspire.   (1.149-150)
 
 
All's Well That Ends Well
 
Who then recover: say thou art mine, and ever
My love as it begins shall so persever.   (4.2.43-44)
 
I'll love her dearly, ever, ever dearly.   (5.3.354)
 
 
Antony and Cleopatra
 
There's beggary in the love that can be reckon'd.   (1.1.16)
 
her passions are made of nothing but
the finest part of pure love: we cannot call her
winds and waters sighs and tears; they are greater
storms and tempests than almanacs can report: this
cannot be cunning in her; if it be, she makes a
shower of rain as well as Jove.   (1.2.153-158)
 
Eternity was in our lips and eyes,
Bliss in our brows' bent; none our parts so poor,
But was a race of heaven:   (1.3.43-45)
 
The stroke of death is as a lover's pinch,
Which hurts, and is desired.   (5.2.343-344)
 
 
As You Like It
 
Herein I see thou lovest me not with the full weight
that I love thee. If my uncle, thy banished father,
had banished thy uncle, the duke my father, so thou
hadst been still with me, I could have taught my
love to take thy father for mine: so wouldst thou,
if the truth of thy love to me were so righteously
tempered as mine is to thee.   1.2.6-12)
 
Hereafter, in a better world than this,
I shall desire more love and knowledge of you.   1.2.263-264)
 
then the love
Which teacheth thee that thou and I am one:   1.3.95-96)
 
If thou remember'st not the slightest folly
That ever love did make thee run into,
Thou hast not loved:   2.4.31-33)
 
The sight of lovers feedeth those in love.   3.4.55)
 
I pray you, do not fall in love with me,
For I am falser than vows made in wine:   3.5.73-74)
 
men have died from time to
time and worms have eaten them, but not for love.   (4.1.94-95)
 
Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?   (3.5.83)
 
 
Hamlet
 
This is the very ecstasy of love   (2.1.112)
 
More grief to hide than hate to utter love.   (2.1.131)
 
Doubt that the sun doth move;
Doubt truth to be a liar;
But never doubt I love.   (2.2.123-125)
 
the power of beauty will sooner
transform honesty from what it is to a bawd than the
force of honesty can translate beauty into his
likeness: this was sometime a paradox, but now the
time gives it proof. I did love you once.   (3.1.121-125)
 
Now, what my love is, proof hath made you know;
And as my love is sized, my fear is so:
Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear;
Where little fears grow great, great love grows there.   (3.2.164-166)
 
Grief joys, joy grieves, on slender accident.
This world is not for aye, nor 'tis not strange
That even our loves should with our fortunes change;
For 'tis a question left us yet to prove,
Whether love lead fortune, or else fortune love.   ( 3.2.195-199)
 
Nature is fine in love, and where 'tis fine,
It sends some precious instance of itself
After the thing it loves.   (4.5.175-177)
 
 
Henry V

I know no ways to mince it in love, but
directly to say 'I love you:'   (5.2.126-127)
 
Yet they do wink and yield, as love is blind and enforces.   (5.2.302)
 
 
Julius Caesar
 
Though last, not last in love,   (3.1.204)
 
 
King Lear
 
I love you more than words can wield the matter;
Dearer than eye-sight, space, and liberty;
Beyond what can be valued, rich or rare;   (1.1.55-57)
 
Love's not love When it is mingled with regards that stand
Aloof from the entire point.   (1.1.259-261)
 
 
Love's Labour's Lost
 
Love is a familiar; Love is a devil:
there is no evil angel but Love.   (1.2.156-157)
 
But love, first learned in a lady's eyes,
Lives not alone immured in the brain;
But, with the motion of all elements,
Courses as swift as thought in every power,
And gives to every power a double power,
Above their functions and their offices.   (4.3.339-344)
 
A lover's eyes will gaze an eagle blind;
A lover's ear will hear the lowest sound,
When the suspicious head of theft is stopp'd:
Love's feeling is more soft and sensible
Than are the tender horns of cockl'd snails;   (4.3.346-350)
 
And when Love speaks, the voice of all the gods
Makes heaven drowsy with the harmony.   (4.3.356-357)
 
 
Macbeth
 
The love that follows us sometime is our trouble,
Which still we thank as love.   (1.6.13-14)
 
who could refrain,
That had a heart to love, and in that heart
Courage to make 's love known?   (2.3.142-144)
 
He loves us not;
He wants the natural touch: for the poor wren,
The most diminutive of birds, will fight,
Her young ones in her nest, against the owl.
All is the fear and nothing is the love;   (4.2.10-14)
 
Those he commands move only in command,
Nothing in love: now does he feel his title
Hang loose about him, like a giant's robe
Upon a dwarfish thief.   (5.2.22-25)
 
 
Measure for Measure
 
What, do I love her,
That I desire to hear her speak again,
And feast upon her eyes?   (2.2.212-14)
 
O injurious love,
That respites me a life, whose very comfort
Is still a dying horror!   (2.3.44-46)
 
Love talks with better knowledge, and knowledge with
dearer love.   (3.2.144-145)
 
 
The Merchant of Venice
 
I love thee, and it is my love that speaks--   (1.1.90)
 
But love is blind and lovers cannot see
The pretty follies that themselves commit;   (2.6.37-38)
 
One half of me is yours, the other half yours,
Mine own, I would say; but if mine, then yours,
And so all yours.   3.2.16-18)
 
 
The Merry Wives of Windsor
 
Ask me no reason why I love you; for though
Love use Reason for his physician, he admits him
not for his counsellor.   (2.1.4-6)
 
I have pursued
her as love hath pursued me; which hath been on the
wing of all occasions.   (2.2.188-190)
 
'Love like a shadow flies when substance love pursues;
Pursuing that that flies, and flying what pursues.'   (2.2.195-196)
 
What made me love thee? let that persuade thee
there's something extraordinary in thee.   (3.3.58-59)
 
Have I caught thee, my heavenly jewel? Why, now let
me die, for I have lived long enough: (3.3.35-36)
 
I love thee; none
but thee; and thou deservest it.   (3.3.63-64)
 
Well, heaven knows how I love you; and you shall one
day find it.   (3.3.69-70)
 
 
 
A Midsummer Night's Dream
 
The course of true love never did run smooth   (1.1.136)
 
Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind
And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind   (1.1.238-239)
 
And therefore is Love said to be a child,
Because in choice he is so oft beguiled.
As waggish boys in game themselves forswear,
So the boy Love is perjured every where:   (1.1.242-245)
 
We cannot fight for love, as men may do;
We should be wood and were not made to woo.   (2.1.245-246)
 
So far be distant; and, good night, sweet friend:
Thy love ne'er alter till thy sweet life end!   (2.2.60-61)
 
 
Much Ado About Nothing
 
My love is thine to teach: teach it but how,
And thou shalt see how apt it is to learn
Any hard lesson that may do thee good.   (1.1.256-258)
 
I do love nothing in the world so well as you: is
not that strange?   (4.1.274-275)
 
I love you with so much of my heart that none is
left to protest.   (4.1.292-293)
 
And, I pray thee now, tell me for
which of my bad parts didst thou first fall in love with me?   (5.2.50-51)
 
Suffer love! a good epithet! I do suffer love
indeed, for I love thee against my will.   (5.2.56-57)
 
 
Othello
 
She loved me for the dangers I had pass'd,
And I loved her that she did pity them.   (1.3.181-182)
 
If it were now to die,
'Twere now to be most happy; for, I fear,
My soul hath her content so absolute
That not another comfort like to this
Succeeds in unknown fate.   (2.1.203-207)
 
 
Richard III
 
By heaven, my heart is purged from grudging hate:
And with my hand I seal my true heart's love.   (2.1.9-10)
 
 
Romeo and Juliet
 
Love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs;
Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes;
Being vex'd a sea nourish'd with lovers' tears:
What is it else? a madness most discreet,
A choking gall and a preserving sweet.   (1.1.187-191)
 
Alas, that love, whose view is muffled still,
Should, without eyes, see pathways to his will!   (1.1.165-166)
 
Is love a tender thing? it is too rough,
Too rude, too boisterous, and it pricks like thorn.   (1.4.25-26)
 
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.   (2.2.139-141)
 
This bud of love, by summer's ripening breath,
May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet.   (2.2.127-128)
 
With love's light wings did I o'er-perch these walls;
For stony limits cannot hold love out,   (2.2.70-71)
 
Good night, good night! parting is such
sweet sorrow,
That I shall say good night till it be morrow.   (2.2.198-200)
 
By heaven, I love thee better than myself;   (5.3.64)
 
 
Taming of the Shrew
 
I pray, sir, tell me, is it possible
That love should of a sudden take such hold?   (1.1.146-147)
 
Kindness in women, not their beauteous looks,
Shall win my love:   (4.2.41-42)
 
 
The Tempest
 
Hear my soul speak:
The very instant that I saw you, did
My heart fly to your service;   (3.1.74-76)
 
 
Timon of Athens
 
Thou ever young, fresh, loved and delicate wooer,
Whose blush doth thaw the consecrated snow   (4.3.414-415)
 
I love thee better now than e'er I did.   (4.3.252)
 
That which I show, heaven knows, is merely love,   (4.3.553)
 
 
Titus Andronicus
 
And, if you love me, as I think you do,
Let's kiss and part, for we have much to do.   (3.1.288)
 
 
Troilus and Cressida
 
Women are angels, wooing:
Things won are done; joy's soul lies in the doing.
That she beloved knows nought that knows not this:
Men prize the thing ungain'd more than it is:
That she was never yet that ever knew
Love got so sweet as when desire did sue.
Therefore this maxim out of love I teach:
Achievement is command; ungain'd, beseech:
Then though my heart's content firm love doth bear,
Nothing of that shall from mine eyes appear.   (1.2.274-283)
 
love, love, nothing but love.   (3.1.103)
 
But, though I loved you well, I woo'd you not;   (3.2.121)
 
 
Twelfth Night
 
If music be the food of love, play on;   (1.1.1)
 
O spirit of love! how quick and fresh art thou,   (1.1.9)
 
There is no woman's sides
Can bide the beating of so strong a passion
As love doth give my heart; no woman's heart
So big, to hold so much; they lack retention
Alas, their love may be call'd appetite,
No motion of the liver, but the palate,
That suffer surfeit, cloyment and revolt;
But mine is all as hungry as the sea,
And can digest as much: make no compare
Between that love a woman can bear me   (2.4.97-106)
 
She never told her love,
But let concealment, like a worm i' the bud,
Feed on her damask cheek: she pined in thought,
And with a green and yellow melancholy
She sat like patience on a monument,
Smiling at grief. Was not this love indeed?   (2.4.116-121)
 
I love thee so, that, maugre all thy pride,
Nor wit nor reason can my passion hide.
Do not extort thy reasons from this clause,
For that I woo, thou therefore hast no cause,
But rather reason thus with reason fetter,
Love sought is good, but given unsought better.   (3.1.150-156)
 
 
The Winter's Tale
 
He says he loves my daughter:
I think so too; for never gazed the moon
Upon the water as he'll stand and read
As 'twere my daughter's eyes: and, to be plain.
I think there is not half a kiss to choose
Who loves another best.   (4.4.200-204)
 
That, were I crown'd the most imperial monarch,
Thereof most worthy, were I the fairest youth
That ever made eye swerve, had force and knowledge
More than was ever man's, I would not prize them
Without her love; for her employ them all;
Commend them and condemn them to her service
Or to their own perdition.   (4.4.403-409)
 
 
Two Gentlemen of Verona
 
To be in love, where scorn is bought with groans;
Coy looks with heart-sore sighs; one fading moment's mirth   (1.1.30-31)
 
Sweet love! sweet lines! sweet life!
Here is her hand, the agent of her heart;
Here is her oath for love, her honour's pawn   (1.3.46-48)
 
I have loved her ever since I saw her; and still I
see her beautiful.   (2.1.62-63)
 
For love, thou know'st, is full of jealousy.   (2.4.177)
 
for now my love is thaw'd;
Which, like a waxen image, 'gainst a fire,
Bears no impression of the thing it was.   (2.4.201)
 
Love bade me swear and Love bids me forswear.
O sweet-suggesting Love, if thou hast sinned,
Teach me, thy tempted subject, to excuse it!
At first I did adore a twinkling star,
But now I worship a celestial sun.   (2.6.6-9)
 
 
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