Fall in Love with Shakespeare through Romeo and Juliet. Embrace the thrill of young love, longing, and a story of passion that transcends time. In this collection of Shakespeare love quotes, each line is accompanied by a brief heading to provide insight.
Shakespeare’s love quotes from the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet are familiar to many. Standing as an icon of unbridled passion, this ultimately tragic story of two young lovers has endured through centuries.
Some of the love quotes on this list are so well known that they are easily recognized. Other quotations are more rarely used, with a much darker tone. There is passion here, but there is warning, too.
Browse the list, share a line with someone you love, or just take a quiet moment of personal reflection.
Find your own perspective on love with Shakespeare’s oft-told story of two star-crossed lovers.
Love Is a Tyrant
Alas, that love, so gentle in his view,
Should be so tyrannous and rough in proof!–Romeo and Juliet,
Act I, Scene i
A 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 Can Rise Above
You are a lover; borrow Cupid’s wings,
And soar with them above a common bound.–Romeo and Juliet,
Act I, Scene iv
Love’s Heavy Burden
Under love’s heavy burden do I sink.
–Romeo and Juliet,
Act I, Scene iv
Thorns of Love
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
Now I Know What Love Is
Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight!
For I ne’er saw true beauty till this night.–Romeo and Juliet,
Act I, Scene v
Shock of Recognition
My only love sprung from my only hate!
Too early seen unknown, and known too late!
Prodigious birth of love it is to me,
That I must love a loathed enemy.–Romeo and Juliet,
Act I, Scene v
Love and Light
But soft! what light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun!—
Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,
Who is already sick and pale with grief,
That thou her maid art far more fair than she.–Romeo and Juliet,
Act II, Scene ii
Bloom
This bud of love, by summer’s ripening breath,
May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet.–Romeo and Juliet,
Act II, Scene ii
Boundless Love
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.–Romeo and Juliet,
Act II, Scene ii
Call Me Your Love
Call me but love, and I’ll be new baptized.
–Romeo and Juliet,
Act II, Scene ii
Nothing Can Hold Me Back
For stony limits cannot hold love out,
And what love can do that dares love attempt.–Romeo and Juliet,
Act II, Scene ii
Your Love is Worth My Life
My life were better ended by their hate,
Than death prorogued, wanting of thy love.–Romeo and Juliet,
Act II, Scene ii
Swear Your Love
Dost thou love me? I know thou wilt say ‘Ay,’
And I will take thy word: yet if thou swear’st,
Thou mayst prove false…
If thou dost love, pronounce it faithfully.–Romeo and Juliet,
Act II, Scene ii
Swear
O, swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon,
That monthly changes in her circled orb,
Lest that thy love prove likewise variable.–Romeo and Juliet,
Act II, Scene ii
Swift to Embrace, Slow to Leave
Love goes toward love, as schoolboys from their books,
But love from love, toward school with heavy looks.–Romeo and Juliet,
Act II, Scene ii
Silver Tongues
How silver-sweet sound lovers’ tongues by night,
Like softest music to attending ears!–Romeo and Juliet,
Act II, Scene ii
Love, Requited
She whom I love now
Doth grace for grace and love for love allow;
The other did not so.–Romeo and Juliet,
Act II, Scene iii
Shallow Love
O, she knew well
Thy love did read by rote and could not spell.–Romeo and Juliet,
Act II, Scene iii
Love Lights Like the Dawn
Love’s heralds should be thoughts,
Which ten times faster glide than the sun’s beams,
Driving back shadows over louring hills:–Romeo and Juliet,
Act II, Scene v
Risking It All
Then love-devouring death do what he dare;
It is enough I may but call her mine.–Romeo and Juliet,
Act II, Scene vi
Too Fast, Too Furious
These violent delights have violent ends
And in their triumph die, like fire and powder,
Which as they kiss consume: the sweetest honey
Is loathsome in his own deliciousness
And in the taste confounds the appetite:
Therefore love moderately; long love doth so;
Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow.–Romeo and Juliet,
Act II, Scene vi
Incalculable Wealth of Love
But my true love is grown to such excess
I cannot sum up sum of half my wealth.–Romeo and Juliet,
Act II, Scene vi
Glow
Lovers can see to do their amorous rites
By their own beauties.–Romeo and Juliet,
Act III, Scene ii
Longing
O, I have bought the mansion of a love,
But not possess’d it.–Romeo and Juliet,
Act III, Scene ii
Passionate and New
Thou canst not speak of that thou dost not feel:
Wert thou as young as I…
Then mightst thou speak.–Romeo and Juliet,
Act III, Scene iii
Poor Paris
And therefore have I little talk’d of love;
For Venus smiles not in a house of tears.–Romeo and Juliet,
Act IV, Scene i
Consummation
Ah me! how sweet is love itself possess’d,
When but love’s shadows are so rich in joy!–Romeo and Juliet,
Act V, Scene i
More than Myself
By heaven, I love thee better than myself.
–Romeo and Juliet,
Act V, Scene iii
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