The Best and The Beast

O powerful Love!
That, in some respects, makes a beast a man,
In some other, a man a beast.

–Merry Wives of Windsor,
Act V, Scene v

Don’t Chase

Love sought is good, but given unsought is better.

–Twelfth Night,
Act III, Scene i

Unshakable

Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken.

—Sonnet CXVI (116)

Fire

Love is a spirit all compact of fire.

–Venus and Adonis

Beware

They love thee not that use thee.

–Timon of Athens,
Act IV, Scene iii

Fresh Spirit

O spirit of love! How quick and fresh art thou.

–Twelfth Night,
Act I, Scene i

Reason and Love

And yet, to say the truth, reason and
Love keep little company together now-a-days.

—A Midsummer Night’s Dream,
Act III, Scene i

Be Expressive

They do not love that do not show their love.

–Two Gentlemen of Verona,
Act I, Scene ii

Madness Most Discreet

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.

–Romeo and Juliet,
Act I, Scene i

Love and Reason

For though Love use reason for his physician,
He admits him not for his counsellor.

–Merry Wives of Windsor,
Act II, Scene i

Love Lessons

O, learn to love; the lesson is but plain,
And once made perfect, never lost again.

–Venus and Adonis

Love’s Arms

Love’s arms are peace, ‘gainst rule, ‘gainst sense, ‘gainst shame,
And sweetens, in the suffering pangs it bears,
The aloes of all forces, shocks, and fears.

–A Lover’s Complaint

Childish

For love is like a child,
That longs for every thing that he can come by.

–Two Gentlemen of Verona,
Act III, Scene i

The Course of True Love

Ay me! for aught that I could ever read,
Could ever hear by tale or history,
The course of true love never did run smooth.

–A Midsummer Night’s Dream,
Act I, Scene i

Soothing Tongue

O, love’s best habit is a soothing tongue.

–The Passionate Pilgrim

Uncalculated

There’s beggary in the love that can be reckon’d.

–Antony and Cleopatra,
Act I, Scene i

Tarnish or Patina?

I know love is begun by time,
And that I see, in passages of proof,
Time qualifies the spark and fire of it.

—Hamlet,
Act IV, Scene vii

Language of Love

All hearts in love use their own tongues.

–Much Ado About Nothing,
Act II, Scene i

Love Comforteth

Love comforteth like sunshine after rain,

–Venus and Adonis

Love Is a Familiar

And how can that be true love which is falsely attempted?
Love is a familiar; love is a devil: there is no evil angel but love.

–Love’s Labour’s Lost,
Act I, Scene ii

Love Breaks Through

What though the rose have prickles, yet ’tis pluck’d:
Were beauty under twenty locks kept fast,
Yet love breaks through and picks them all at last.

–Venus and Adonis

Lovers and Madmen

Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,
Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend
More than cool reason ever comprehends.

–A Midsummer Night’s Dream,
Act V, Scene i

A Lover’s Ear

A lover’s eyes will gaze an eagle blind;
A lover’s ear will hear the lowest sound.

–Love’s Labour’s Lost,
Act IV, Scene iii

He Loves You Well

He loves you well that holds his life of you.

–Pericles,
Act II, Scene ii

Not Time’s Fool

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.

–Sonnet CXVI

When Love Speaks

And when love speaks, the voice of all the gods
Makes heaven drowsy with the harmony.

–Love’s Labour’s Lost,
Act IV, Scene iii

Love Is Rough

Is love a tender thing? it is too rough,
Too rude, too boisterous, and it pricks like thorn.

–Romeo and Juliet,
Act I, Scene iv