dots-menu
×

Robert Christy, comp. Proverbs, Maxims and Phrases of All Ages. 1887.

Love

A boy’s love is water in a sieve.Spanish.

A fence between makes love more keen.German.

A man has choice to begin love but not to end it.

A sweet and innocent compliance is the cement of love.

All’s fair in love and war.

Always in love, never married.French.

An oyster may be crossed in love.Sheridan.

As the best wine makes the sharpest vinegar, so the deepest love turns to the deadliest hatred.

At love’s perjuries Jove laughs.

Be loving and you’ll never want for love.Muloch.

Better a dinner of herbs where love is than a stalled ox and hatred therewith.Solomon.

Better to have loved amiss than nothing to have loved.Crabbe.

Blue eyes say, “Love me or I die;” black eyes say, “Love me or I kill thee.”Spanish.

But Love is blind and lovers cannot see
The pretty follies that themselves commit.Shakespeare.

By beating love decays.French.

Can a mouse fall in love with a cat?

Cauld cools the love that kindles o’er hot.

Cold broth hot again, that loved I never;
Old love renewed again, that loved I ever.

Congruity is the mother of love.

Dry bread is better with love than a fat capon with fear.

Esteem and love were never to be sold.Pope.

Fanned fire and forced love never did well yet.

Follow love and it will flee, flee love and it will follow thee.

For the love of the ox the wolf licks the yoke.Catalan.

For love the wolf eats the sheep.German.

For love of the nurse many kiss the bairn.

Forced love does not last.Dutch.

Fortune and love are blind.

Generally we love ourselves more than we hate others.

Hot love and hasty vengeance.

He loves mutton well who eats the wool.

He loves roast meat well who licks the spit.

He loves thee well who makes thee weep.Don Quixote.

He loves well who chastises well.

He loves well who never forgets.Italian, Spanish, Portuguese.

He that does not love a woman sucked a sow.

He that falls in love with himself will find no rival.Franklin.

He that hath love in his breast hath spurs in his heels.

He that is in love bids adieu to prudence.La Fontaine.

He that loves glass without a “g” take away “l” and that is he.

He who forces love where none is found,
Remains a fool the whole year round.Spanish.

He who loves himself best is the honestest man.

He who loves well is slow to forget.Spanish.

He who loves well obeys well.

He who would not be indolent let him fall in love.Ovid.

Honor in love is silence.Massinger.

I cannot hate and I am forced to love.Ovid.

I love my friends well but myself better.French.

I love thee well but don’t touch my pocket.

I think his face is made of a fiddle; every one that looks on him loves him.

If Jack’s in love he’s no judge of Gill’s beauty.

If you are in love fly to the mountain.Turkish.

If you love me, John, your acts will tell me so.Spanish.

If you love yourself over much, nobody else will love you at all.

In hunting and in love you begin when you like and leave off when you can.Spanish.

In love’s wars, he who flieth is conqueror.

It is all one whether you die of sickness or love.Italian.

It is loving too much to die of love.French.

It is only the blind who ask why they are loved who are fair.Danish.

Likeness is the mother of love.

Love abounds in honey and poison.Plautus.

Love, a cough, smoke, and money cannot long be hid.French, Italian, German.

Love accomplishes all things.Petrarch.

Love all, trust a few, be false to none.Shakespeare.

Love and faith are seen in works.German, Portuguese.

Love and light cannot be hid.

Love and lordship like no fellowship.French, Italian, Portuguese.

Love and poverty are hard to conceal.Danish.

Love and pride stock bedlam.

Love and religion are both stronger than friendship.Benjamin Disraeli.

Love alone begets love.La Bruyère.

Love asks faith and faith asks firmness.

Love begets love—confidence begets confidence.New York World.

Love begins at home.German.

Love, being jealous, makes a good eye look asquint.

Love Bertram, love his dog.French.

Love can make any place agreeable.Arabian.

Love can neither be bought nor sold; its only price is love.

Love comes in at the window and goes out at the door.

Love conquers all things, let us yield to love.Virgil.

Love deceives the best of womankind.Homer.

Love delights in praise.

Love despises gold.

Love does much, but money does more.

Love does much, money everything.French, German, Spanish.

Love does wonders but money makes marriage.French.

Love expels jealousy.French.

Love fears no danger.German.

Love gives for guerdon, jealousy, and broken faith.Italian.

Love, grief and money cannot be kept secret.Spanish.

Love grows with obstacles.German.

Love has no law.Portuguese.

Love heats the brain and anger makes a poet.Juvenal.

Love him who tells thee thy faults in private.Hebrew.

Love in a hut with water and a crust,
Is love, forgive us, cinders, ashes, dust.

Love is a credulous thing.Ovid.

Love is a leveller.Aaron Hill.

Love is a sweet tyrant because the lover endureth his torments willingly.Niphas.

Love is a thing full of anxious fears.Ovid.

Love is an excuse for its own faults.Italian.

Love is as strong as death, many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it.Bible.

Love is as warm among cottagers as courtiers.

Love is better than fame.Bayard Taylor.

Love is blind but sees afar.Italian.

Love is cold without good eating and drinking.Publius Syrus.

Love is incompatible with fear.Publius Syrus.

Love is master of all arts.Italian.

Love is never without jealousy.

Love is not to be found in the market.

Love is potent but money is omnipotent.French.

Love is strong as death, jealousy as cruel as the grave.Bible.

Love is the loadstone of love.

Love is the touchstone of virtue.

Love is the true price at which love is bought.Italian.

Love is without prudence and anger without counsels.Italian.

Love, knavery, and necessity make men good orators.

Love knows hidden paths.German.

Love knows no love.Portuguese.

Love knows no measure.

Love knows not labor.Italian.

Love laughs at locksmiths.

Love levels all inequalities.Italian.

Love lieth deep, love dwells not in lip depths.Tennyson.

Love, like death,
Levels all ranks and lays the shepherd’s crook
Beside the sceptre.Lytton.

Love lives in cottages as well as in courts.

Love makes labor light.Dutch.

Love makes time pass away, and time makes love pass away.French.

Love me little and love me long.French, Italian, Danish.

Love me, love my dog.Italian.

Love must be attracted by beauty of mind and body.Ovid.

Love of gain turns wise men into fools.Chinese.

Love of lads and fire of chats is soon in and soon out.Derbyshire.

Love one that does not love you, answer one that does not call you, and you will run a fruitless race.Spanish.

Love others well but love thyself the most,
Give good for good but not to thine own cost.Dutch.

Love rules his kingdom without a sword.Italian.

Love rules without law.Italian.

Love sees no faults.

Love sought is good, but given unsought is better.Shakespeare.

Love subdues everything, except the felon heart.French.

Love teaches asses to dance.French.

Love, thieves and fear make ghosts.German.

Love thy friend with his foibles.Modern Greek.

Love thy neighbor but pull not down thy hedge.German.

Love understands love; it needs no talk.

Love warms more than a thousand fires.

Love well, whip well.

Love will creep where it cannot go.

Love will find out the way.

Love without return is like a question without an answer.

Love yields to employment.

Love’s humility is love’s pride.Bayard Taylor.

Love’s anger is fuel to love.German.

Love’s merchandise is broken faith.Italian.

Love’s plant must be watered with tears and tended with care.Danish.

Love’s the noblest frailty of the mind.Dryden.

Loving and singing are not to be forced.German.

Luve your friend an’ look to yoursel’.

Mad love! I for you and you for another.Spanish, Portuguese.

Man loves but once.German.

Man’s love is of man’s life a thing apart,
’Tis woman’s whole existence.Byron.

Next to love quietness.

New loves drive out the old.Spanish.

No jealousy, no love.German.

No love without bread and wine.French.

No rose without a thorn, nor love without a rival.Turkish.

Of all the paths that lead to a woman’s love pity’s the straightest.Beaumont and Fletcher.

Of soup and love the first is the best.

Old love and old brands kindle at all seasons.French.

Old love does not rust.German.

One always returns to one’s first love.French.

One grows used to love and to fire.French.

One love drives out another.Spanish.

People in love think other people’s eyes are out.Spanish.

Perfect love never settled in a light head.

Reason was never admitted into the court of love.Agricola.

Regretting those you love is happiness compared with living with those you hate.La Bruyère.

Royal favor, April weather, woman’s love, rose leaves, dice, and card-luck change every moment.German.

See for your love and buy for your money.

Seek love and it will shun you,
Haste away and ’twill outrun you.

She who loves an ugly man thinks him handsome.

Spectacles and gray hair are bad wares in love’s market.German.

Sweet is true love tho’ given in vain,
And sweet is death that puts an end to pain.Tennyson.

The approaches of love must be resisted at the first assault lest they undermine at the second.Pythagoras.

The course of true love never did run smooth.

The English love, the French make love.

The love of country is more powerful than reason itself.Ovid.

The love of fame usually spurs the mind.Ovid.

The love of father and mother is the foundation of all the virtues.

The love of gaming is the worst of ills.Young.

The love of heaven makes one heavenly.Sidney.

The love of liberty is the parent of all vagabondom.

The love of money grows as money grows.Juvenal.

The love of pelf increases with the pelf.Juvenal.

The love of popularity holds you in a vice.Juvenal.

The love of power is an instinct of the human heart.Tacitus.

The love of power is natural, insatiable and never cloyed by possession.Bolingbroke.

The love of the wicked is more dangerous than their hatred.

The man who loves is easy of belief.Ovid.

The only victory over love is flight.French.

The remedy for love is—land between.Spanish.

The revolution that turns us all topsy-turvy,—the revolution of love.Bulwer.

The reward of love is jealousy.

The sweetest joy, the wildest woe, is love.Bailey.

The truth of truths is love.Bailey.

Their (women’s) love is always with the lover past.Homer.

There are more calamities in the world arising from love than hatred.Spectator.

There are no reasons that explain love, but a thousand that explain marriage.Punch.

There is beggary in the love that can be reckoned.Shakespeare.

There is more true happiness in the folly of love than in all the wisdom of philosophy.Fielding.

There is no love without jealousy.French, Italian.

They love least that let men know their love.Shakespeare.

They love me for little that hate me for naught.

They love most who are least valued.

They love too much that die for love.

They that lie down for love should rise for hunger.

Though love is blind yet ’tis not for want of eyes.

’Tis better to have loved and lost,
Than never to have loved at all.Tennyson.

To be loved, be lovable.Ovid.

To be wise and love
Exceeds man’s might, that dwells with gods alone.Shakespeare.

To love and to be wise are two different things (or impossible).French, Spanish, Portuguese.

To love it as a dog does a whip.

To love it as a cat does mustard.

To love it as the devil does holy water.

To raise esteem we must benefit others; to procure love we must please them.Dr. Johnson.

Too much is not enough.Beaumarchais speaking of love.

True love can fear no one.Seneca.

True love falters not.Helen Molony.

True love never grows hoary.Italian.

True love suffers no concealment.Spanish.

We never know how much we loved till what we loved is lost.

What is life when wanting love?Burns.

When all else fails, love saves.Anna K. Green.

When love fails we espy all faults.

When love is in the case the doctor’s an ass.

When mistrust enters, love departs.Danish.

When poverty comes in at the door, love flies out at the window.German.

When pride begins love ceases.Lavater.

Where love is there is no labor, and if there be labor, the labor is loved.St. Austin.

Where love is, there the eye is.Italian.

Where there is great love there is great pain.Italian.

Where there is much love there is much mistake.

Where there is no love all faults are seen.German.

Where there is no jealousy there is no love.German.

Where there is not equality there can be no perfect love.Italian.

Where we do not respect we soon cease to love.Benjamin Disraeli.

Who ever lov’d that lov’d not at first sight?

Who feels love in his breast feels a spur in his limbs.Italian.

Who has no children does not know what love is.Italian.

Who love too much hate in like extreme.Homer.

Who loves believes, who loves fears.Italian.

Who loves not women, wine and song,
Remains a fool his whole life long.German.

Who loves the tree, loves the branch.Italian.

Who loves well chastises well.French, Italian.

Who loves well is slow to forget.French.

Who would be loved must love.Italian.

Whom we love best to them we can say least.

With lightning and with love, the clothes sound the heart burned.Spanish.

With nothing left to love there’s naught to dread.Byron.

Without bread and wine, even love will pine.French.

Works and not words are the proof of love.Spanish.

You will not be loved if you think of no one but yourself.Spanish, Italian.