Henry Wadsworth Longfellow on love

The heights by great men reached and kept, were not obtained by sudden flight. But they, while their companions slept, were toiling upward in the night.

I heard the bells on Christmas Day. Their old, familiar carols play. And wild and sweet the words repeat. Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man’s life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.

‘Tis better to have loved and lost / Than never to have loved at all.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson1809–1892In Memoriam A.H.H. (1850)In contextOften credited to Augustine of Hippo

If music be the food of love, play on.

William Shakespeare1564–1616Twelfth Night (1601), Act I, scene i.In context

• Music

Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.

C. S. Lewis1898–1963The Four Loves (1960), Ch. VI: “Charity”