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Whether you're writing your wedding vows, penning an anniversary card for your partner, searching for a reading for your ceremony, or simply looking for ways to express how you feel about your significant other, literature is a great place to start gathering inspiration. Many of the world's most notable writers—the greats from history and modern day—have written passionately and deeply about love. Through characters in their books, they have tried to put the most complex human emotion into words, and many of their quotes will make you think, smile, weep, and laugh.
Here, we've gathered a selection of our favorite phrases about love from literature; you can quote them directly in your wedding vows or love messages, or you can let them inspire your own words.
Wuthering Heights
“He's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.” - Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights
Pride and Prejudice
“We all know him to be a proud, unpleasant sort of man; but this would be nothing if you really liked him.” - Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
Emma
“'I certainly must,′ said she. ‘This sensation of listlessness, weariness, stupidity, this disinclination to sit down and employ myself, this feeling of everything’s being dull and insipid about the house! I must be in love; I should be the oddest creature in the world if I were not.'” - Jane Austen, Emma
The Great Gatsby
“...and for a moment I thought I loved her. But I am slow-thinking and full of interior rules that act as brakes on my desires, and I knew that first I had to get myself definitely out of that tangle back home.” - F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
Romeo and Juliet
"Parting is such sweet sorrow." - William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
Gone with the Wind
“You should be kissed, and often, and by someone who knows how." - Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind
Great Expectations
“Love her, love her, love her! If she favours you, love her. If she wounds you, love her. If she tears your heart to pieces – and as it gets older and stronger, it will tear deeper – love her, love her, love her!” - Charles Dickens, Great Expectations
Romeo and Juliet
"My only love sprung from my only hate! Too early seen unknown, and known too late! That I must love a loathed enemy." - William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
Madame Bovary
"In her longing she confused the pleasures of luxury with the joys of the heart, elegant customs with refined feelings. Did not love, like Indian plants, require prepared soil and special temperatures? Sighs in the moonlight, long embraces, tears flowing onto yielding hands, all the fevers of the flesh and the languages of love – these things were inseparable from the balcony of a great castle in which life moved at a leisurely pace, from a boudoir with silk curtains, a thick carpet, filled flower stands and a bed mounted on a platform, from the sparkle of precious stones or the aiguillettes of liveried servants." - Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary
Gone With the Wind
“It cannot have escaped your notice that for some time past the friendship I have had in my heart for you has ripened into a deeper feeling, a feeling more beautiful, more pure, more sacred. Dare I name it you? Ah! It is love which makes me so bold!” - Margaret Mitchell, Gone With the Wind
Great Expectations
“I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be. Once for all; I loved her nonetheless because I knew it, and it had no more influence in restraining me, than if I had devoutly believed her to be human perfection.” - Charles Dickens, Great Expectations
Romeo and Juliet
"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, Romeo and Juliet
The Portrait of a Lady
“I’m yours for ever -- for ever and ever. Here I stand; I’m as firm as a rock. If you’ll only trust me, how little you’ll be disappointed. Be mine as I am yours.” - Henry James, Portrait of a Lady
The Alchemist
“'Why do we have to listen to our hearts?' the boy asked. 'Because, wherever your heart is, that is where you will find your treasure.'"- Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist
Much Ado About Nothing
"I love you with so much of my heart that none is left to protest." - William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing
Romeo and Juliet
"You are a lover. Borrow Cupid's wings And soar with them above a common bound," - William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
A Tale of Two Cities
“You have been the last dream of my soul.” - Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
The Notebook
“I am nothing special; just a common man with common thoughts, and I’ve led a common life. There are no monuments dedicated to me and my name will soon be forgotten. But in one respect I have succeeded as gloriously as anyone who’s ever lived: I’ve loved another with all my heart and soul; and to me, this has always been enough." - Nicholas Sparks, The Notebook
Tess of the d’Urbervilles
“Having begun to love you, I love you forever—in all changes, in all disgraces, because you are yourself." ― Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d’Urbervilles
One Hundred Years of Solitude
“He wasn’t only a fierce lover, with endless wisdom and imagination, but he was also, perhaps, the first man in the history of species who had made an emergency landing and had come close to killing himself and his sweetheart simply to make love in a field of violets.” - Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude
Les Misérables
“To love or have loved, that is enough. Ask nothing further. There is no other pearl to be found in the dark folds of life.” - Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
A Midsummer Night's Dream
“The course of true love never did run smooth." - William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream
