Leo Tolstoy

He stepped down, avoiding any long look at her as one avoids long looks at the sun, but seeing her as one sees the sun, without looking.

Only people who are capable of loving strongly can also suffer great sorrow, but this same necessity of loving serves to counteract their grief and heals them.

Here I am alive, and it’s not my fault, so I have to try and get by as best I can without hurting anybody until death takes over.

A man is like a fraction whose numerator is what he is and whose denominator is what he thinks of himself. The larger the denominator, the smaller the fraction.

True life is lived when tiny changes occur.

It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness.

I think… if it is true that there are as many minds as there are heads, then there are as many kinds of love as there are hearts.

We need to make love great again because black lives do matter, because all lives do matter.

Love is the absence of judgment.

It’s hard to love a woman and do anything.

Give the love that you pray for; someone’s been praying to have it.

Love conquers all things except poverty and toothache!

Loving him is like trying to hold onto an armful of balloons. Maybe I need someone to come along and pop them.

Unconditional love really exists in each of us. It is part of our deep inner being. It is not so much an active emotion as a state of being. It’s not ‘I love you’ for this or that reason, not ‘I love you if you love me.’ It’s love for no reason, love without an object.

Love is real, love is pure, you only take what you give and give what you take. At its purest it is real. No pretending.

To love another person is to see the face of God.

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

To the people who love you, you are beautiful already. This is not because they’re blind to your shortcomings but because they so clearly see your soul. Your shortcomings then dim by comparison. The people who care about you are willing to let you be imperfect and beautiful, too.

She doesn’t let me have control anymore. I must’ve crossed a line, I must’ve lost my mind.

Barack and I were both raised by families who didn’t have much in the way of money or material possessions but who had given us something far more valuable – their unconditional love, their unflinching sacrifice, and the chance to go places they had never imagined for themselves.

Falling out of love is like losing weight. It’s a lot easier putting it on than taking it off.