Sign in with your pod

Famous quotes

Quotes by famous people, credited to who said them. Your own quotes must not match any of these. More are added all the time. 1,158,808 quotes Who coined it · How we decide

EnglishItalianoPolskiעבריתFrançaisPortuguêsفارسیEspañol中文РусскийDeutschالعربيةहिन्दी日本語ΕλληνικάLatina

Love

LoveFriendshipHappinessHopeFearCourageDeathLifeTimeWarPeaceFreedomTruthWisdomKnowledgeScienceArtMusicNatureMoneyWorkPowerGodBeautyLaughterFamilySuccess and failureChangeDreamsBooks and reading

• “The lover who kills himself for a girl has an experience which is more complete and much more profound than the hero who overturns the world.”

  Emil Cioran (1911–1995) said by 1995 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “His friends beheld, and pity’d him in vain, For what advice can ease a lover’s pain? Absence, the best expedient they could find, Might save the fortune, if not cure the mind.”

  John Dryden (1631–1700) said by 1700 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “... who cares for a general compliment more than a general lover.”

  Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) said by 1838 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Mother: Children and sorrow come together. First Are sleepless nights, and cradle watchings — next Your age is vexed with maiden fantasies, And your girl's lover costeth you more care Than ever did your own. It is not well !”

  Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) first seen 1835 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: The London Literary Gazette (7th February 1835)

• “But ’neath yon crimson tree Lover to listening maid might breathe his flame, Nor mark, within its roseate canopy, Her blush of maiden shame.”

  William Cullen Bryant (1794–1878) said by 1878 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Humility is the hall-mark of wisdom. Socrates, whom the oracle, that is, the united opinion of the world in which he moved, pronounced to be the wisest man, was content with the title of a lover, rather than a professor, of wisdom.”

  Jeremy Collier (1650–1726) said by 1726 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “The death then of a beautiful woman is unquestionably the most poetical topic in the world, and equally is it beyond doubt that the lips best suited for such topic are those of a bereaved lover.”

  Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849) said by 1849 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Your lover who just walked out the door, has taken all his blankets from your floor.”

  Bob Dylan (born 1941) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “At night too, she puzzled the mystery of her desperate need of kindness. As other girls prayed for handsomeness in a lover, or for wealth, or for power, or for poetry, she had prayed fervently: let him be kind.”

  Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) said by 1977 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “The true beloveds of this world are in their lover's eyes lilacs opening, ship lights, school bells, a landscape, remembered conversations, friends, a child's Sunday, lost voices, one's favorite suit, autumn and all seasons, memory, yes, it being the earth and water of existence, memory.”

  Truman Capote (1924–1984) said by 1984 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “And will he who is a true lover of wisdom, and is persuaded in like manner that only in the world below can he worthily enjoy her, still repine at death? Will he not depart with joy? Surely he will, my friend, if he be a true philosopher. ...And if this be true, he would be very absurd, ...if he were to fear death.”

  Socrates (470–399 BC) said by 399 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Forgive our faults; the true lover seeks God's presence itself, not paradise.”

  Rumi (1207–1273) said by 1273 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Why to mute fish should'st thou thyself discover And not to me, thy no less silent lover?”

  Abraham Cowley (1618–1667) said by 1667 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “I asked this heroic pet lover how it felt to have died for a schnauzer named Teddy. Salvador Biagiani was philosophical. He said it sure beat dying for absolutely nothing in the Viet Nam War.”

  Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “The month of May was come, when every lusty heart beginneth to blossom, and to bring forth fruit; for like as herbs and trees bring forth fruit and flourish in May, in likewise every lusty heart that is in any manner a lover, springeth and flourisheth in lusty deeds. For it giveth unto all lovers courage, that lusty month of May.”

  Thomas Malory (1405–1471) said by 1471 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “All ye that be lovers call unto your remembrance the month of May, like as did Queen Guenever, for whom I make here a little mention, that while she lived she was a true lover, and therefore she had a good end.”

  Thomas Malory (1405–1471) said by 1471 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Beauty comes in often to drink. A spaceman, he claims himself, but as to this I can’t be certain. I have often declared myself a great lover. All of us lie, as much or more than necessary. ‘What is truth?’ asks Pons Pilatus, in the fable, and I answer: ‘A commodity as cheap as air which we hide as if it were as precious as yewl stone.’”

  Jack Vance (1916–2013) said by 2013 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “I met my old lover on the street last night, She seemed so glad to see me, I just smiled, And we talked about some old times, and we drank ourselves some beers, Still crazy after all these years, Oh, still crazy after all these years.”

  Paul Simon (born 1941) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “The problem is all inside your head, she said to me The answer is easy if you take it logically I'd like to help you in your struggle to be free There must be fifty ways to leave your lover.”

  Paul Simon (born 1941) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Money is shy and elusive. It must be wooed and won by methods not unlike those used by a determined lover, in pursuit of the girl of his choice.”

  Napoleon Hill (1883–1970) first seen 1963 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Think & Grow Rich, January 1963, p. 152.

• “Call up, ring once, hang up the phone, To let me know you made it home, Don't want nothing to be wrong, With part-time lover.”

  Stevie Wonder (born 1950) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “: What flowers are these? : The pansy this. : Oh, that's for lover's thoughts.”

  George Chapman (1559–1634) said by 1634 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “When the bride is one with her lover, who cares about the wedding party?”

  Kabir (1398–1518) said by 1518 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Dotty: Archie says the Church is a monument to irrationality. George: … The National Gallery is a monument to irrationality! Every concert hall is a monument to irrationality! — and so is a nicely kept garden, or a lover's favour, or a home for stray dogs! You stupid woman, if rationality were the criterion for things being allowed to exist, the world would be one gigantic field of soya beans!”

  Tom Stoppard (1937–2025) said by 2025 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “I will go back to the great sweet mother, Mother and lover of men, the sea. I will go down to her, I and no other, Close with her, kiss her and mix her with me.”

  Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) said by 1909 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Sir, money, money, the most charming of all things; money, which will say more in one moment than the most elegant lover can in years. Perhaps you will say a man is not young; I answer he is rich. He is not genteel, handsome, witty, brave, good-humoured, but he is rich, rich, rich, rich, rich — that one word contradicts everything you can say against him.”

  Henry Fielding (1707–1754) said by 1754 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “I never found anyone else and I don’t want anyone else. I don’t care whether you’re ninety years old or thirty. If I can’t be your lover, I’ll be your nurse.”

  Joe Haldeman (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “I am a lover of liberty. I will not and I cannot serve a party.”

  Erasmus (1466–1536) first seen 1523 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Spongia adversus aspergines Hutteni (1523), § 176, As quoted in Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam (1900) by Ephraim Emerton, p. 377

• “For of course it was impossible that she was doing it all without cause. That was the nature of power; when you had it no one was ever again simply a friend, simply a lover. Inevitably they all wanted things you could give them—if nothing else, the prestige of friendship with the powerful.”

  Kim Stanley Robinson (born 1952) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “A thought is as vivid as an act, to a lover.”

  Kalidasa (active around 400) first seen 1912 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Act 1 (tr. Arthur W. Ryder, 1912)

• “To her British lover about to climb in bed with 80-something Mae: She said that she hoped soon to be able to say what Paul Revere said — 'The British are coming'. This was the last one-liner Mae ever uttered on film.”

  Mae West (1893–1980) first seen 1978 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Sextette (1978)

• “The Conqueror is always a lover of peace: he would prefer to take over our country unopposed.”

  Carl von Clausewitz (1780–1831) said by 1831 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “And you kissed me shy as though I'd never been your lover”

  Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) first seen 1961 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Song", The Spice-Box of Earth (1961)

• “I don't want to be your friend, I just want to be your lover.”

  Thom Yorke (born 1968) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “No less incommensurable with the working-world than the philosophical question is the sound of true poetry. […] The lover, too, stands outside the tight chain of efficiency of this working world, and [so does] whoever else approaches the margin of existence through some deep existential disturbance (which always brings a "shattering" of one's environment), or through, say, the proximity of death.”

  Josef Pieper (1904–1997) said by 1997 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Women throughout history before the advent of birth control were at the continual mercy of their biology - menstruation, menopause, and "female ills," constant painful childbirth, wetnursing and care of infants, all of which made them dependent on males (whether brother, father, husband, lover, or clan, government, community-at-large) for physical survival.”

  Shulamith Firestone (1945–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Polyamory — that's where you're freely confessed that you have more than one lover at a time. And actually I'm less that way than I used to be, but I was trying to make people understand, that at least for some folks, this was a fairly natural state. And instead of skulking around about it that we'd all do better to avoid the deceit and be honest.”

  John Perry Barlow (1947–2018) said by 2018 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Something in the way she moves attracts me like no other lover.”

  George Harrison (1943–2001) first seen 1969 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Something (1969)

• “You see, dream-lover of a lady, what shakes me to the core Is the thought as you caress me, you've done this all before I think about the future with me out and others in Will I, too, have disappeared like I've never ever been?”

  Harry Chapin (1942–1981) said by 1981 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Literary imagination is an aesthetic object offered by a writer to a lover of books.”

  Gaston Bachelard (1884–1962) said by 1962 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “There's a cat in the window, of the house of my lover. Well she sleeps there alone now, or perhaps with another. Oh I try no to think about that, I try not to think at all!”

  Conor Oberst (born 1980) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “I want to be your lover But your friend is all I've stayed. I'm only halfway to paradise, So near, yet so far away.”

  Carole King (born 1942) first seen 1961 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Halfway to Paradise (1961), co-written with Gerry Goffin, first recorded by Tony Orlando, later by Billy Fury

• “Distant lover, ooo, sugar How can you treat my heart so mean and cruel? Didn't you know, sugar, that I dream Of what I spent with you? I treasure it like it was a precious jewel, oh baby. Lord have mercy!”

  Marvin Gaye (1939–1984) said by 1984 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “I could have been a sailor, could have been a cook, A real live lover, could have been a book, I could have been a signpost, could have been a clock, As simple as a kettle, steady as a rock. I could be here and now, I would be, I should be, but how? I could have been one of these things first.”

  Nick Drake (1948–1974) said by 1974 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “This is the soldier brave enough to tell The glory-dazzled world that "war is hell": Lover of peace, he looks beyond the strife, And rides through hell to save his country's life.”

  Henry van Dyke (1852–1933) first seen 1904 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: The Statue of Sherman by St. Gaudens (1904).

• “Joshua was the most dynamic lover she had ever known. Gentle and domineering; it was a lethal combination. If only he wasn't quite so ruthlessly mechanical about it. A little too much of his pleasure had come from seeing her lose all control. But then that was Joshua; unwilling to share… Joshua didn't trust people.”

  Peter F. Hamilton (born 1960) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Drink, my jolly lads, drink with discerning, Wedlock's a lane where there is no turning; Never was owl more blind than a lover, Drink and be merry, lads, half seas over.”

  Dinah Craik (1826–1887) said by 1887 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “I doubt whether any girl would be satisfied with her lover's mind if she knew the whole of it.”

  Anthony Trollope (1815–1882) said by 1882 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Man is by instinct a lover, a hunter, a fighter, and none of those instincts are given much play at the warehouse!”

  Tennessee Williams (1911–1983) said by 1983 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “But let me be a lover in the Savage Garden with you, and the light that went out of life would come back in a great burst of glory. Out of mortal flesh I would pass into eternity. I would be one of you.”

  Anne Rice (1941–2021) said by 2021 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

More