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Quotable Quotes

Page 5

by Editors of Reader's Digest


  Do not commit the error, common among the young, of assuming that if you cannot save the whole of mankind you have failed.

  —JAN DE HARTOG

  The Lamb’s War

  If you can’t feed a hundred people, then feed just one.

  —MOTHER TERESA OF CALCUTTA

  From what we get, we can make a living; what we give, however, makes a life.

  —ARTHUR ASHE

  Days of Grace

  No person was ever honored for what he received. Honor has been the reward for what he gave.

  —CALVIN COOLIDGE

  The dead take to the grave, clutched in their hands, only what they have given away.

  —DEWITT WALLACE

  The only things we ever keep are what we give away.

  —LOUIS GINSBERG

  The Everlasting Minute and Other Lyrics

  The fragrance always stays in the hand that gives the rose.

  —HADA BEJAR

  LOVE DOESN’T JUST SIT THERE . . .

  Love doesn’t just sit there, like a stone; it has to be made, like bread, remade all the time, made new.

  —URSULA K. LEGUIN

  The Lathe of Heaven

  In our life there is a single color, as on an artist’s palette, which provides the meaning of life and art. It is the color of love.

  —MARC CHAGALL

  Chagall

  True love begins when nothing is looked for in return.

  —ANTOINE DE SAINT-EXUPÉRY

  The Wisdom of the Sands

  At the touch of love, everyone becomes a poet.

  —PLATO

  This is the true measure of love: when we believe that we alone can love, that no one could ever have loved so before us, and that no one will ever love in the same way after us.

  —JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE

  Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction.

  —ANTOINE DE SAINT-EXUPÉRY

  In the coldest February, as in every other month in every other year, the best thing to hold on to in this world is each other.

  —LINDA ELLERBEE

  Move On: Adventures in the Real World

  Only discretion allows intimacy, which depends on shared reticence, on what is not said—unsolvable things that would leave the other person ill at ease.

  —HECTOR BIANCIOTTI

  Sans La Misericorde Du Christ

  We don’t believe in rheumatism and true love until after the first attack.

  —MARIE VON EBNER-ESCHENBACH

  As soon go kindle fire with snow, as seek to quench the fire of love with words.

  —WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

  I kissed my first woman and smoked my first cigarette on the same day. I have never had time for tobacco since.

  —ARTURO TOSCANINI

  All our loves are first loves.

  —SUSAN FROMBERG

  Schaeffer, Mainland

  Two things only a man cannot hide: that he is drunk and that he is in love.

  —ANTIPHANES

  Is it not strange that love, so fickle, is ranked above friendship, almost always so worthy?

  —GABRIELLE ROY

  La Detresse et L’enchantement

  Love is a game that two can play and both win.

  —EVA GABOR

  The giving of love is an education in itself.

  —ELEANOR ROOSEVELT

  We English have sex on the brain, which is not the most satisfactory place for it.

  —MALCOLM MUGGERIDGE

  in The Observer (London)

  So many catastrophes in love are only accidents of egotism.

  —HECTOR BIANCIOTTI

  Sans La Misericorde Du Christ

  Sometimes I wonder if men and women really suit each other. Perhaps they should live next door and just visit now and then.

  —KATHARINE HEPBURN

  You can’t put a price tag on love, but you can on all its accessories.

  —MELANIE CLARK

  It is possible that blondes also prefer gentlemen.

  —MAMIE VAN DOREN

  Love is like quicksilver in the hand. Leave the fingers open, and it stays. Clutch it, and it darts away.

  —DOROTHY PARKER

  In true love the smallest distance is too great, and the greatest distance can be bridged.

  —HANS NOUWENS

  Love letters are the campaign promises of the heart.

  —ROBERT FRIEDMAN

  Only love can be divided endlessly and still not diminish.

  —ANNE MORROW LINDBERGH

  Love and time—those are the only two things in all the world and all of life that cannot be bought, but only spent.

  —GARY JENNINGS

  Aztec

  It’s easy to halve the potato where there’s love.

  —IRISH PROVERB

  So long as we love we serve; so long as we are loved by others, I would almost say that we are indispensable.

  —ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

  The best proof of love is trust.

  —JOYCE BROTHERS

  Love is proud of itself. It leaks out of us even with the tightest security.

  —MERRIT MALLOY

  Things I Meant to Say to You When We Were Old

  Let there be spaces in your togetherness / And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.

  —KAHLIL GIBRAN

  Familiarity, truly cultivated, can breed love.

  —JOYCE BROTHERS

  Love is what you’ve been through with somebody.

  —Quoted by JAMES THURBER in Life

  Love is a fruit in season at all times, and within the reach of every hand.

  —MOTHER TERESA OF CALCUTTA

  Love is an image of God, and not a lifeless image, but the living essence of the all divine nature which beams full of all goodness.

  —MARTIN LUTHER

  Where there is great love, there are always miracles.

  —WILLA CATHER

  Death Comes for the Archbishop

  The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because they are generally the same people.

  —G. K. CHESTERTON

  No disguise can long conceal love where it is, nor feign it where it is not.

  —FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD

  We are shaped and fashioned by what we love.

  —JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE

  Him that I love, I wish to be free—even from me.

  —ANNE MORROW LINDBERGH

  No one worth possessing can be quite possessed.

  —SARA TEASDALE

  The ultimate test of a relationship is to disagree but to hold hands.

  —Quoted by ALEXANDRA PENNEY in Self

  The love of our neighbor in all its fullness simply means being able to say to him: “What are you going through?”

  —SIMONE WEIL

  Waiting for God

  The worst prison would be a closed heart.

  —POPE JOHN PAUL II

  I love you, not only for what you are, but for what I am when I am with you.

  —ROY CROFT

  Tell me whom you love, and I’ll tell you who you are.

  —CREOLE PROVERB

  Love at first sight is easy to understand. It’s when two people have been looking at each other for years that it becomes a miracle.

  —SAM LEVENSON

  Love is not measured by how many times you touch each other but by how many times you reach each other.

  —CATHY MORANCY

/>   Nobody has ever measured, even the poets, how much a heart can hold.

  —ZELDA FITZGERALD

  Love is a great beautifier.

  —LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

  The purest affection the heart can hold is the honest love of a nine-year-old.

  —HOLMAN F. DAY

  Up in Maine

  If only one could tell true love from false love as one can tell mushrooms from toadstools.

  —KATHERINE MANSFIELD

  Four be the things I’d have been better without: love, curiosity, freckles and doubt.

  —DOROTHY PARKER

  It is often hard to bear the tears that we ourselves have caused.

  —The Maxims of Marcel Proust

  Never close your lips to those to whom you have opened your heart.

  —CHARLES DICKENS

  To love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides.

  —DAVID VISCOTT, MD

  How to Live With Another Person

  Seek not every quality in one individual.

  —CONFUCIUS

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

  —FRANKLIN P. JONES

  When one loves somebody, everything is clear—where to go, what to do—it all takes care of itself and one doesn’t have to ask anybody about anything.

  —MAXIM GORKY

  The Zykovs

  Love is like a violin. The music may stop now and then, but the strings remain forever.

  —JUNE MASTERS BACHER

  Diary of a Loving Heart

  Love is an act of faith, and whoever is of little faith is also of little love.

  —ERICH FROMM

  Love endures only when the lovers love many things together and not merely each other.

  —WALTER LIPPMANN

  When a woman says, “Ah, I could love you if . . .”—fear not, she already loves you.

  —WALTER PULITZER

  A woman can say more in a sigh than a man can say in a sermon.

  —ARNOLD HAULTAIN

  Colombo’s Canadian Quotations

  We love because it’s the only true adventure.

  —NIKKI GIOVANNI

  Love can achieve unexpected majesty in the rocky soil of misfortune.

  —TONY SNOW

  in Detroit News

  Love is the magician that pulls man out of his own hat.

  —BEN HECHT

  There is no surprise more magical than the surprise of being loved. It is God’s finger on man’s shoulder.

  —CHARLES MORGAN

  The Fountain

  To love is to admire with the heart; to admire is to love with the mind.

  —THÉOPHILE GAUTIER

  What the world really needs is more love and less paper work.

  —PEARL BAILEY

  Never look for a worm in the apple of your eye.

  —LANGSTON HUGHES

  Anything will give up its secrets if you love it enough.

  —GEORGE WASHINGTON CARVER

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

  —W. STANLEY MOONEYHAM

  Come Walk the World

  The whole worth of a kind deed lies in the love that inspires it.

  —THE TALMUD

  A baby is born with a need to be loved—and never outgrows it.

  —FRANK A. CLARK

  I have enjoyed the happiness of the world; I have loved.

  —SCHILLER

  A MARRIED COUPLE . . .

  A married couple that plays cards together is just a fight that hasn’t started yet.

  —GEORGE BURNS

  Gracie: A Love Story

  Marriage resembles a pair of shears, so joined that they cannot be separated; often moving in opposite directions, yet always punishing anyone who comes between them.

  —SYDNEY SMITH

  It isn’t tying himself to one woman that a man dreads when he thinks of marrying; it’s separating himself from all the others.

  —HELEN ROWLAND

  Violets and Vinegar

  Marriage should be a duet—when one sings, the other claps.

  —JOE MURRAY

  The value of marriage is not that adults produce children, but that children produce adults.

  —PETER DE VRIES

  The Tunnel of Love

  Whoever thinks marriage is a 50–50 proposition doesn’t know the half of it.

  —FRANKLIN P. JONES

  in Quote Magazine

  A marriage without conflicts is almost as inconceivable as a nation without crises.

  —ANDRÉ MAUROIS

  The Art of Living

  A happy home is one in which each spouse grants the possibility that the other may be right, though neither believes it.

  —DON FRASER

  More marriages might survive if the partners realized that sometimes the better comes after the worse.

  —DOUG LARSON

  One advantage of marriage is that, when you fall out of love with him or he falls out of love with you, it keeps you together until you fall in again.

  —JUDITH VIORST

  in Redbook

  Marriage is a covered dish.

  —SWISS PROVERB

  Love, honor and negotiate.

  —ALAN LOY MCGINNIS

  The Romance Factor

  Almost no one is foolish enough to imagine that he automatically deserves great success in any field of activity; yet almost everyone believes that he automatically deserves success in marriage.

  —SYDNEY J. HARRIS

  Marriage has teeth, and him bite very hot.

  —JAMAICAN PROVERB

  Getting married is easy. Staying married is more difficult. Staying happily married for a lifetime should rank among the fine arts.

  —ROBERTA FLACK

  Marriage is like vitamins: we supplement each other’s minimum daily requirements.

  —KATHY MOHNKE

  Never marry for money. Ye’ll borrow it cheaper.

  —SCOTTISH PROVERB

  A wedding anniversary is the celebration of love, trust, partnership, tolerance and tenacity. The order varies for any given year.

  —PAUL SWEENEY

  A good marriage is like an incredible retirement fund. You put everything you have into it during your productive life, and over the years it turns from silver to gold to platinum.

  —WILLARD SCOTT

  The Joy of Living

  In every marriage more than a week old, there are grounds for divorce. The trick is to find, and continue to find, grounds for marriage.

  —ROBERT ANDERSON

  Solitaire & Double Solitaire

  If you made a list of reasons why any couple got married, and another list of the reasons for their divorce, you’d have a lot of overlapping.

  —MIGNON MCLAUGHLIN

  The concept of two people living together for 25 years without a serious dispute suggests a lack of spirit only to be admired in sheep.

  —A. P. HERBERT

  Story writers say that love is concerned only with young people, and the excitement and glamour of romance end at the altar. How blind they are. The best romance is inside marriage; the finest love stories come after the wedding, not before.

  —IRVING STONE

  It takes a loose rein to keep a marriage tight.

  —JOHN STEVENSON

  The great thing about marriage is that it enables one to be alone without feeling loneliness.

  —GERALD BRENAN

  Thoughts in a Dry Season

&nb
sp; A happy marriage is the world’s best bargain.

  —O. A. BATTISTA

  Marrying for love may be a bit risky, but it is so honest that God can’t help but smile on it.

  —JOSH BILLINGS

  The particular charm of marriage is the duologue, the permanent conversation between two people who talk over everything and everyone.

  —CYRIL CONNOLLY

  The Unquiet Grave

  In marriage, being the right person is as important as finding the right person.

  —WILBERT DONALD GOUGH

  In a successful marriage, there is no such thing as one’s way. There is only the way of both, only the bumpy, dusty, difficult, but always mutual path.

  —PHYLLIS MCGINLEY

  The Province of the Heart

  Chains do not hold a marriage together. It is threads, hundreds of tiny threads, which sew people together through the years.

  —SIMONE SIGNORET

  All that a husband or wife really wants is to be pitied a little, praised a little, appreciated a little.

 

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