Love

(Revised)

He who comes to do good knocks at the gate; He who loves finds the gate open.

(Rabindranath Tagore)

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These four letters, L-O-V-E, contain multitudes. The ancient Greeks used three different words in place of our catch-all one:

Agape, the love that people have for God, duty, or family; Philia, which denoted the love we feel for friends;

Eros, love for a lover.

There is no path greater than love. There is no law higher than love. There is no goal beyond love. God and love are identical.

(Meher Baba)

Recent studies in neuroscience have indicated that a consistent number of chemicals are present in the brain when people testify to feeling love.

These chemicals include Testosterone, Oestrogen, Dopamine, Norepinephrine, Serotonin, Oxytocin, and Vasopressin. More specifically, higher levels of Testosterone and Oestrogen are present during the lustful

phase of a relationship. Dopamine, Norepinephrine, and Seretonin are more commonly found during the attraction phase of a relationship. Oxytocin,

and Vasopressin seemed to be more closely linked to long term bonding and relationships characterized by strong attachments.

(www.solarnavigator.net/animal_kingdom/humans/love.htm)

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People who return from near death experiences tell us that in the seeming closing moments of their earthly lives they learned that the most important

thing we can do while we are here is to learn to love. (Raymond A. Moody, Jr.)

When we come to the last moment of this lifetime,

and we look back across it, the only thing that’s going to matter is “What was the quality of our love?”

(Richard Bach)

Love is the free exercise of choice. Two people love each other only when they are quite capable of living without each other

but choose to live with each other. (M. Scott Peck)

If destiny comes to help you, love will come to meet you. A life without love isn’t a life.

(Rumi)

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Love consists in this, that two solitudes protect and touch and greet each other.

(Rainer Maria Rilke)

One of the oldest human needs is having someone to wonder where you are when you don’t come home at night.

(Margaret Mead)

When we feel love and kindness toward others, it not only makes others feel loved and cared for, but it helps us also to develop

inner happiness and peace. (The Dalai Lama)

For love is victorious in attack, and invulnerable in defense. Heaven arms with love those who it would not see destroyed.

(Lao-tzu)

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The moment you have in your heart this extraordinary thing called love and feel the depth, the delight, the ecstasy of it,

you will discover that for you the world is transformed. (J. Krishnamurti)

A loving person lives in a loving world. A hostile person lives in a

hostile world: Everyone you meet is a mirror. (Ken Keyes Jr.)

There is in the human will an innate tendency, an inborn capacity for disinterested love. This power to love another for his own sake

is one of the things that makes us like God. (Thomas Merton)

Love cannot endure indifference. It needs to be wanted.

Like a lamp, it needs to be fed out of the oil of another’s heart, or its flame burns low.

(Henry W. Beecher)

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I have never met a person whose greatest need was anything other than real, unconditional love. You can find it in a simple act of

kindness toward someone who needs help. There is no mistaking love. You feel it in your heart. It is the common fiber of life, the flame that heals our soul, energizes our spirit and supplies

passion to our lives. It is our connection to God and to each other. (Elizabeth Kubler-Ross)

As a mother even at the risk of her own life protects her only son, so let a man cultivate goodwill without measure among all beings.

Let him suffuse the whole world with thoughts of love, unmixed with any sense of difference or opposed interests.

(Buddha)

Love makes burdens lighter, because you divide them. It makes joys more intense, because you share them. It makes you stronger, so that you can reach out

and become involved with life in ways you dared not risk alone.

(Arthur Gordon)

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Love is something like the clouds that were in the sky before the sun came out. You cannot touch the clouds, you know; but you feel the rain and know

how glad the flowers and the thirsty earth are to have it after a hot day. You cannot touch love either; but you feel the sweetness

that it pours into everything. (Annie Sullivan)

Love, and do what you will. (Saint Augustine)

God is love, and he that has learned to live in the spirit of love has learned to live and dwell in God.

(William Law)

We are not made to love only one or two individuals. We have the immense capacity to be in love with everyone.

(Eknath Easwaran)

They do not love who do not show their love. (William Shakespeare)

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Born at the banquet of the gods, love has of necessity been eternally in existence,

for it springs from the intention of the soul towards its best, towards the Good; and as long as the soul has been -

love has been. (Plotinus)

Take away love and our earth is a tomb. (Robert Browning)

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If you were all alone in the universe with no one to talk to, no one with which to share the beauty of the stars, to laugh with, to touch, what would be your purpose in life? It is other life, it is love, which gives your life meaning. This is harmony. We must discover the joy of each other, the joy of challenge,

the joy of growth. (Mitsugi Saotome)

Love is the power of God that binds two souls and makes them one; there is no power on earth that can dissolve that bond.

(The Aquarian Gospel)

Love is the energizing elixir of the universe, the cause and effect of all harmonies.

(Rumi)

To love for the sake of being loved is human, but to love for the sake of loving is angelic.

(Alphonse de Lamartine)

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Love says, “I will, I will take care of you,” to everything that is near.

(Hafiz)

God is love, and our souls are also love, and it is through love alone that we can know God.

(Sant Kirpal Singh)

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How Do I Love Thee? (Elizabeth Barrett Browning)

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight

For the ends of Being and ideal Grace. I love thee to the level of every day's

Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light. I love thee freely, as men strive for right; I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.

I love thee with the passion put to use In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears, of all my life! and, if God choose,

I shall but love thee better after death.

Come on sweetheart let’s adore one another before there is no more of you and me.

(Rumi)

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To the world you may be one person, but to one person you may be the world.

(Heather Cortez)

There is only one happiness in life, to love and be loved. (George Sand)

Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.

(Lao-tzu)

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If I had to choose between loving you and breathing I would use my last breath to say “I love you”.

Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person

is essential to your own. (Robert Heinlein)

For one human being to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other

work is but preparation. (Rainer Maria Rilke)

You come to love not by finding the perfect person,

but by seeing an imperfect person perfectly. (Sam Keen)

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A life without love, without the presence of the beloved, is nothing but a mere magic-lantern show. We draw out slide after slide, swiftly tiring of each, and pushing it back to make haste for the next.

(Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

A mind might ponder its thoughts for ages and not gain so much self-knowledge as the passion of love shall teach in a day.

(Ralph Waldo Emerson)

Love is the great solvent of all difficulties, all problems, all misunderstandings.

(White Eagle)

Love is the expression of an ancient need, that human desire was originally one and whole and the desire

and the pursuit of the whole is called love. (Aristophanes)

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Mutual love, the Crown of all our bliss. (John Milton)

Love means to commit oneself without guarantee,

to give oneself completely in the hope that our love will produce love in the loved person. Love is an act of faith, and whoever is of little faith

is also of little love. (Erich Fromm)

We can perhaps learn to prepare for love. We can welcome its coming, we can learn to treasure and cherish it when it comes, but we cannot make it

happen. We are elected into love. (Irene Claremone de Castillejo)

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Love’s gift cannot be given, it waits to be accepted. (Rabindranath Tagore)

It is possible that a man can be so changed by love as hardly

to be recognized as the same person. (Terence)

We will do many things for those whom we love which we would not ordinarily do, which we would not ordinarily have the strength of mind and power to do. How many habits have we been able to break through love,

which we would never have had the strength to break without love? (Meher Baba)

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. (William Shakespeare)

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There is no salvation for the soul but to fall in Love. It has to creep and crawl among the Lovers first. Only Lovers can escape from these two

worlds. This was written in creation. Only from the Heart can you reach the sky. The rose of Glory can only be raised in the Heart.

(Rumi)

Since love grows within you, so beauty grows. For love is the beauty of the soul.

(Saint Augustine)

The absolute value of love makes life worth while, and so makes Man’s strange and difficult situation acceptable.

Love cannot save life from death; but it can fulfill life’s purpose. (Arnold Toynbee)

If you would be loved, love and be lovable.

(Benjamin Franklin)

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Saint Paul on Love

(Chapter 13 of the First Epistle to the Corinthians, written by Paul the apostle, covers the subject of love, principally the love that Christians should

have for everyone.)

I may be able to speak the language of men and even of angels, but if I have no love, my speech is no more than a noisy gong or a clanging bell. I may have the gift of inspired preaching; I may have all knowledge

and understand all secrets; I may have all the faith needed to move mountains--but if I have no love, I am nothing. I may give away everything I have, and even give up my body to be burned--but if I have no love, this does me no good. Love is patient and kind; it is not jealous or conceited or proud; love is not ill-mannered or selfish or irritable; love does not keep a record of wrongs; love is not happy with evil, but is happy with the truth. Love never gives up; and its faith, hope, and patience never fail. Love is

eternal. There are inspired messages, but they are temporary; there are gifts of speaking in strange tongues, but they will cease; there is knowledge, but it

will pass. For our gifts of knowledge and of inspired messages are only partial; but when what is perfect comes, then what is partial will disappear. When I was a child, my speech, feelings, and thinking were all those of a

child; now that I am a man, I have no more use for childish ways. What we see now is like a dim image in a mirror; then we shall see face-to-face.

What I know now is only partial; then it will be complete--as complete as God's knowledge of me. Meanwhile these three remain: Faith, Hope, and Love; and the greatest of these is Love.

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If I know what love is, it is because of you. (Herman Hesse)

Love has the greatest power, and is the source of all our happiness and

harmony, and makes us friends with the gods who are above us, and with one another.

(Plato)

The conclusion is always the same: Love is the most powerful and still the most unknown energy of the world.

(Teilhard de Chardin)

One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life: that word is love. (Sophocles)

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Love talked about can be easily turned aside, but love demonstrated is irresistible.

(W. Stanley Mooneyham)

A new commandment I give to you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.

(Jesus Christ)

Love is the subtlest force in the world. (Mahatma Gandhi)

Love is a power, like money, or steam, or electricity. It is valueless unless

you can give something else by means of it. (Anne Morrow Lindbergh)

Let God love you through others,

and let God love others through you. (D.M. Street)

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Until you know that all are altars where the name God is installed and all are moved and motivated by the Grace of the self-same God,

you are afflicted by hate and pride; once you know it and experience it, you are full of love and reverence to all.

(Atharva Veda)

Does my behavior in respect of love affect nothing? That is because there is not enough love in me.

(Albert Schweitzer)

Time is a factory where everyone slaves away, earning enough love to break their own chains.

(Hafiz)

When we are not in love too much, we are not in love enough. (Bussy Rabutin)

By accident of fortune a man may rule the world for a time,

but by virtue of love he may rule the world forever. (Lao-tzu)

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We were born to love, we live to love, and we will die to love still more. (Joseph Cafasso)

The soul cannot live without love.

All depends on providing it with a worthy object. (Saint Francis de Sales)

Love for our neighbor consists of three things: to desire the greater good of everyone; to do what good we can

when we can; to bear, excuse, and hide others faults. (John Vianney)

All things work together for good to them that love God.

(Saint Paul)

The only genuine love worthy of the name is unconditional. (John Powell)

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Love doesn’t make the world go ‘round. Love is what makes the ride worthwhile.

(Franklin P. Jones)

Love conquers all things; let us surrender to love. (Virgil)

Love is an act of endless forgiveness. (Peter Ustinov)

To love is the most important thing in life. But what do we mean by love? When you love someone because that person loves you in return surely that

is not love. To love is to have that extraordinary feeling of affection without asking anything in return.

(J. Krishnamurti)

A man or a woman will fall in love with you because of the way they feel about themselves when they are with you.

(Ellen Kreidman)

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Among those who dwell in that world above there is no disagreement; all have one purpose; there is one mind, one feeling in them all;

for the spell which binds them one to another is love. (Hermes)

Someday, after mastering the wind, the waves, and the tides, we shall

harness for God the power of love, and then, for the second time in history, man will have discovered fire.

(Teilhard de Chardin)

To love anyone is nothing else than to wish that person good. (Saint Thomas Aquinas)

People need loving the most when they deserve it the least. (Mary Crowley)

Love is not to be learned from men;

it is one of God’s gifts and comes as a grace. (Ma’ruf Al’Karkhi)

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We are obliged to love one another. We are not strictly bound to “like” one another.

(Thomas Merton)

To love one’s neighbors, to love one’s enemies, to love everything – to love God in all His manifestations. Human love serves to love those dear

to us but to love one’s enemies we need divine love. (Leo Tolstoy)

If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen,

cannot love God whom he has not seen. (Saint John)

The essence of love is kindness.

(Robert Louis Stevenson)

Love is what we were born with. Fear is what we learned here. (Marianne Williamson)

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To be able to say how much you love is to love but little. (Petrarch)

All love is expansion, all selfishness is contraction.

Love is therefore the only law of life. He who loves lives, he who is selfish is dying. Therefore love for love's sake, because it is the law of life, just as you breathe to live.

(Swami Vivekananda)

We are most alive when we’re in love. (John Updike)

You may try a hundred things, but love alone will release you from yourself.

So never flee from love – not even from love in an earthly guise – for it is a preparation for the supreme Truth.

(Jami)

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God does not command that we do great things, only little things with great love.

(Mother Teresa)

Love all of God's creation, the whole of it, every grain of sand. Love every leaf, every ray of God's light! Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will soon perceive the divine mystery in things. Once you perceive it, you will begin to comprehend it better every day. And you will come at last to love the whole world

with an all-embracing love. (Fyodor Dostoevsky)

There is no surprise more magical than the surprise of being loved; it is God's finger on man's shoulder.

(Charles Morgan)

When you love you should not say, "God is in my heart," but rather, "I am in the heart of God."

(Kahlil Gibran)

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If we suffer in the sufferings of others and feel happy in the happiness of others, we are loving God. If we understand and feel that the greatest act of devotion and worship to God is not to harm any of His beings, we are loving God. To love God in the most practical way is to love our fellow beings. If we feel for others in the same way as we feel for our own dear ones,

we love God. (Meher Baba)

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.

All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments. (Jesus Christ, Matthew 22:37-40)

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We can cure physical diseases with medicine, but the only cure for loneliness, despair, and hopelessness is love. There are many in the world who are dying for a piece of bread,

but there are many more dying for a little love. (Mother Teresa)

Put in one ounce of Love in all your affairs, even the mundane affairs; you'll have your happiness. All these strifes are going on for want of Love.

And the main thing is: Love knows giving. Loves knows service. Love knows sacrifice. If we learn that subject, everything comes in.

(Sant Kirpal Singh)

The soul is made of love and must ever strive to return to love. Therefore, it can never find rest nor happiness in other things. It must lose itself in love. By its very nature it must seek God, who is love. (Mechthild of Magdeburg)

The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the

reflection of ourselves we find in them. (Thomas Merton)

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The heart is the thousand-stringed instrument. Our sadness and fear come from being out of tune with love.

(Hafiz)

Absence is to love what wind is to fire; it puts out the little and kindles the great.

(Roger de Busy-Rabutin)

‘Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. (Alfred, Lord Tennyson)

Where love is, no disguise can hide it for long; where it is not, none can simulate it.

(La Rochefoucauld)

The great tragedy of life is not that men perish, but that they cease to love. (W. Somerset Maugham)

Love that has nothing but beauty to keep it in good health is short lived. (Erasmus)

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What is the worst of woes that wait on age? What stamps the wrinkle deeper on the brow? To view each loved one blotted from life's page,

and be alone on earth, as I am now. (Lord Byron)

When you're 50 you start thinking about things you haven't thought about before. I used to think getting old was about vanity -

but actually it's about losing people you love. Getting wrinkles is trivial.

(Joyce Carol Oates)

James had passed through the fire, but he had passed also through the river of years which washes out the fire; he had experienced the saddest experience of all--forgetfulness of what it was like

to be in love. (John Galsworthy)

I am in the night.

There is a being who has gone away and carried the heavens with her. (Victor Hugo)

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Love, the last defense against old age - the last, and for those whose good fortune it is to have some one person to care for, or who have learned the

infinitely difficult art of loving all their neighbors, the best. (Aldous Huxley)

The old couple had come round to that tragic imitation of the dawn of life when husband and wife, having lost or scattered all those who were their intimates, find themselves face to face and alone once more, their work done, and the end nearing fast. Those who have reached that stage in sweetness and love, who can change their winter into a gentle, Indian

summer, have come as victors through the ordeal of life. (Sir Arthur Conon Doyle)

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Safely in each other's arms, to bid the rest of time. Finding Eternal Love so many seek to find.

(Tracey Shierling)

Valdaro, Italy; 5,000 - 6,000 yrs. ago

John the Evangelist lived to a great age and became so feeble that he had to be carried to the meetings of the faithful. There, because of his weakness, he was unable to deliver a long discourse; so at each gathering he simply repeated the words: “Little children, love one another.”

The disciples, weary of hearing the same words over and over, asked him why he never said anything else. In response, John gave this answer, “Do this alone and it is enough.”

May your soul be happy; journey joyfully.

(Rumi)

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