Quotes: Love
This selection treats love as both an inward condition and an outward act. Voices like Yasmin Mogahed, Tom Robbins and Rumi examine how devotion can be spiritual, nourishing, or tangled with fear and dependency, and how perception from the heart reshapes what truly matters.
A persistent question runs through the pieces: do we seek completion in another or bring our own wholeness to the bond? The texts probe proofs of love, self-loss, and the difference between clinging and freely giving.
10 quotes on this theme, each with its source and insight
The quotes
“Try not to confuse attachment with love. Attachment is about fear and dependency, and has more to do with love of self than love of another. Love without attachment is the purest love because it isn’t about what others can give you because you’re empty. It is about what you can give others because you’re already full.”
Source: no specific work is documented · Check the source
Disputed attributionWhat we know
- What is documented
- The wording is widely attributed to Yasmin Mogahed and commonly linked to her book Reclaim Your Heart and a related recorded Q&A.
- What remains uncertain
- Attribution is plausible but weakly verified: the idea matches Mogahed’s teachings, yet the exact phrasing is mostly found on secondary quote sites and may be paraphrased.
The quote distinguishes two motives: attachment comes from fear and need, while pure love comes from being already fulfilled and able to give. It reflects Yasmin Mogahed’s modern spiritual teaching on emotional healing and inner reliance, urging generosity that isn’t driven by emptiness.
“If you don’t find a way to love a flawed person, secretly you’re teaching yourself that you are not lovable because of your flaws.”
Source: no specific work is documented · Check the source
Disputed attributionWhat we know
- What is documented
- The sentence is widely attributed to T. D. Jakes across quote compilations, but no searchable primary book, sermon transcript, or publisher text has been found for this exact wording.
- What remains uncertain
- The attribution is disputed/weakly sourced; the wording may be a paraphrase or variant circulating online rather than a verified line from a specific published or transcribed work.
The line says refusing to love someone’s imperfections teaches you, in secret, that your own flaws make you unlovable. It ties into modern themes of grace and healing and fits T. D. Jakes’s known emphasis on worth beyond perfection. The wording mainly appears in online quote collections and is not firmly sourced to a primary text.
“Anger cannot be overcome by anger. If a person shows anger to you, and you show anger in return, the result is a disaster. In contrast, if you control your anger and show its opposite—love, compassion, tolerance, and patience—then not only will you remain in peace, but the anger of others also will gradually diminish.”
Source: no specific work is documented · Check the source
Disputed attributionWhat we know
- What is documented
- The wording is widely attributed online to the 14th Dalai Lama, but no primary source (speech, book, or dated text) for this exact phrasing has been located.
- What remains uncertain
- Attribution is disputed: the exact passage lacks verifiable sourcing and reads like a modern paraphrase of older Buddhist teachings.
The line points out that meeting anger with anger fuels escalation rather than resolution. Commonly credited to the 14th Dalai Lama, it reflects a lived Buddhist ethic: regulate your response and apply patience and compassion so conflict can cool rather than flare.
“A mother's love for her child is like nothing else in the world. It knows no law, no pity. It dares all things and crushes down remorselessly all that stands in its path.”
Source: The Last Séance, The Hound of Death and Other Stories · Check the source
Verified attributionWhat we know
- What is documented
- The sentence appears in Agatha Christie’s short story “The Last Séance,” and multiple sources link it to that story and the collection The Hound of Death and Other Stories.
Christie describes maternal love as an overwhelming, lawless force that can turn ruthless when a child is threatened. The line comes from her supernatural short story “The Last Séance” and reads more like a warning than a sentimental praise.
“When we’re incomplete, we’re always searching for somebody to complete us. When, after a few years or a few months of a relationship, we find that we’re still unfulfilled, we blame our partners and take up with somebody more promising. This can go on and on—series polygamy—until we admit that while a partner can add sweet dimensions to our lives, we, each of us, are responsible for our own fulfillment.”
Source: Still Life with Woodpecker, 1980 · Check the source
Verified attributionWhat we know
- What is documented
- The wording is associated with Tom Robbins’s novel Still Life with Woodpecker (1980) and appears there as a narrated reflection.
- What remains uncertain
- Quoted versions in collections are sometimes slightly edited, but the passage’s attribution to Robbins and the novel is established.
Robbins argues that searching for someone to “complete” you keeps you stuck in a cycle of blame and partner‑switching. The line, from a 1980 novel, reframes romantic disappointment as a failure of personal responsibility and inner work.
“The most painful thing is losing yourself in the process of loving someone too much, and forgetting that you are special too.”
Source: no specific work is documented · Check the source
MisattributedWhat we know
- What is documented
- Sources show the line is commonly claimed to be from Men Without Women but it does not appear there; no verified primary source has been documented.
- What remains uncertain
- Scholars and reference sites mark the quote as apocryphal or misattributed; it may trace to a 2011 blog post rather than Hemingway.
The line warns that loving someone too much can erase your sense of self and stresses the need to keep your own worth. It is widely attributed to Ernest Hemingway online, but that attribution is disputed and no primary-source match in his works has been found.
“Life without you is like a broken pencil, there's no point.”
Source: no specific work is documented · Check the source
Disputed attributionWhat we know
- What is documented
- The wording is widely reproduced on quotation sites under Tyga’s name, but researchers found no primary source (song, interview, post) confirming he authored it.
- What remains uncertain
- Attribution is disputed: the line resembles a common joke and may have been misattributed online without documentary evidence.
A cheeky romantic line that hinges on the pun of “point”: a broken pencil lacks a tip, and without someone the speaker feels life lacks purpose. It appears mainly on quote sites as a captionable one‑liner rather than in any verified Tyga work.
“I salute the light within your eyes where the whole universe dwells. For when you are at that center within you and I am at that place within me, we shall be one.”
Source: no specific work is documented · Check the source
MisattributedWhat we know
- What is documented
- Evidence indicates the quotation is misattributed to Crazy Horse; commentators trace its wording to modern inspirational literature, notably a link to Paulo Coelho's 1997 work in one analysis.
- What remains uncertain
- No primary nineteenth‑century source supports Crazy Horse saying this. The phrase spread through online collections and memes, making its true literary origin difficult to pin down.
The line pictures two people meeting at the same inner center and becoming a single, shared universe. It expresses intimate spiritual union and mutual presence more than political or historical ideas. Its language reads like modern inspirational prose, which helps explain its popularity.
“There’s no such thing as love; only proof of love.”
Source: Du cinématographe (commentary linked to Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne) · Check the source
Disputed attributionWhat we know
- What is documented
- Evidence records Cocteau reproducing the line as a sentence by Pierre Reverdy and acknowledging the borrowing.
- What remains uncertain
- Attribution is disputed: many modern compilations credit Cocteau, but his own statements point to Reverdy as the origin.
The line insists that love becomes real through what people do, not what they say. It’s spare and decisive—a one-liner that forces relationships to be judged by visible commitment. The saying echoes mid-20th-century French literary tastes for compressed, image-driven phrasing.
“One sees clearly only with the heart. What is essential is invisible to the eye.”
Source: The Little Prince, ch. 21 (1943) · Check the source
Verified attributionWhat we know
- What is documented
- The sentence is spoken by the Fox in chapter 21 of The Little Prince; authorship by Antoine de Saint‑Exupéry is securely attested.
The line names a moral truth: true insight comes through bond and care, not mere sight. In The Little Prince the Fox explains that taming—patience, attention, responsibility—makes the essential visible to the heart.