Love is the most elemental emotion. It is the bedrock of a good story and human existence, and has been a consistent muse to writers throughout history.
From Dante we’ve learned that physical love—shall we say lust—will land you the dark land of damnation. Dante reserved the second circle of hell for “carnal sinners who subordinate reason to desire.”
Keats, on the other hand, rejoiced in lust and love. Keats warms the heart and tickles reader’s imagination temptingly with lines like, “You are always new, the last of your kisses was ever the sweetest.” Oh, Keats. To be tuberculosis-free and walk a flowery spring meadow with you in the early 1800’s would be the definition of bliss itself.
From Jane Austen, we’ve learned that love serves both a social and cultural function. That it is the transference of property as much as the transference of kisses and embraces that motivate young lovers to steal away together in dark corners.
Reading the classics helps offer clarity to the chaos of love—it helps us put in words the complex and nuanced desires and emotions that swirl together under this one title.
Here are some quotes about love that have fueled our love affairs, secret crushes, and jaded breakups over the years…
(These are from the Knickerbocker Classics collection)
Love is a smoke rais’d with the fume of sighs;
Being purg’d, a fire sparkling in lovers’ eyes;
Being vex’d, a sea nourish’d with loving tears.
What is it else? A madness most discreet,
A choking gall, and a preserving sweet…
I have lost myself; I am not here:
This is not Romeo, he’s some other where.
— Romeo, from Romeo & Juliet by William Shakespeare
“If I cannot inspire love, I will cause fear!” — Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
“I had not intended to love him; the reader knows I had wrought hard to extirpate from my soul the germs of love there detected; and now, at the first renewed view of him, they spontaneously revived, great and strong! He made me love him without looking at me.” ― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre
“When one is in love, one always begins by deceiving one’s self, and one always ends by deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance.” ― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray
And lastly, for love lost, we will always have Oscar Wilde to make us smirk and cough out a dry, wry chuckle.
“There is always something ridiculous about the emotions of people whom one has ceased to love.” ― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray
So. With that, here’s a toast to love on this Friday evening, all you ridiculous fools, bleeding hearts, and beautiful babies.
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