Literary notes about love (AI summary)
In literature, the word “love” wears many hats, functioning as both a delicate sentiment and a potent force that shapes human destiny. It is often portrayed as a magical elixir capable of creating bonds and fostering deep connections, as when it is invoked to charm hearts and rally friendships ([1]). At other times, love is depicted as a consuming passion that imperils its bearers, leading to both profound devotion and inevitable sacrifice ([2], [3]). Its nuances are further expanded to include the innocent fervor of first affection ([4]), the bittersweet pangs of unreciprocated feelings ([5]), and even a divine principle urging compassion and unity ([6], [7]). Through such varied incarnations across narrative and poetic forms, “love” remains a central, multifaceted theme that both elevates and complicates the human experience ([8], [9]).
- Magical collyriums for winning love and friendship.
— from The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana by Vatsyayana - There is only one thing I shall never submit to, and that is, the loss of your love.
— from Juliette Drouet's Love-Letters to Victor Hugo by Juliette Drouet and Louis Guimbaud - And therefore my true love has been my death.
— from Idylls of the King by Baron Alfred Tennyson Tennyson - She was the first woman with whom I was in love.
— from Boswell's Life of Johnson by James Boswell - Surely I have not fallen in love with her in real earnest?...
— from A Hero of Our Time by Mikhail Iurevich Lermontov - These things I command you, that you love one another.
— from The Bible, Douay-Rheims, Complete - Dearest comrades, all is over and long gone, But love is not over—and what love, O comrades!
— from Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman - Swann began to tell Odette how he had fallen in love with that little phrase.
— from Swann's Way by Marcel Proust - No institution ever has been nor ever will be built upon an idiosyncrasy; as I say, marriage cannot be based upon "love."
— from The Twilight of the Idols; or, How to Philosophize with the Hammer. The Antichrist by Nietzsche