On Love

This Thursday is Valentine’s Day, which means it’ll finally be time for one of my personal favorite things: Thursday 6-10 pm Organic Chemistry lab!

Just kidding.

What I actually meant was sappy love quotes. You know, like the kind you find on goodreads.com with the title “100 Famous Quotes That Come Straight From the Heart” or inside a Hallmark card labeled “Valentine’s Day—For Her.” For exactly 24 hours, it’ll finally be socially acceptable to openly appreciate these saccharine sayings in all their glory. As someone who loves quotes, I can’t wait!

Though quotes about love often have the bad rep of being cheesy, there are a few that have stuck with me over the years because of the unique way they define love. They point to themes of selflessness, of following your head versus your heart, and of appreciating imperfection. It’s hard to capture a topic as profound and universal as love in a single saying, but there are some that I believe give a really strong attempt.

Since I don’t have a S.O. to share these quotes with this Valentine’s Day, I’ve decided instead to share them with all of you, my wonderful readers, by making this week’s post a list of my 5 favorite romantic, Valentine’s Day-themed quotes. Unlike previous posts about song lyrics or quotes, I’m going to try not to analyze these quotes myself, but instead just provide background on where they come from. That way, you all can make your own personal connections and appreciate the sayings for what they are, without too much literary overthinking crowding their eloquence.

 

1)

“You can’t blame gravity for falling in love” – Albert Einstein (sort of)

This quote is actually a misleading paraphrase of an Albert Einstein quote, but in a weird way I like this version more than the original.

As the story goes, Albert Einstein once received a letter from a man who didn’t seem to understand the laws of gravity very well. He believed that, depending on where you stood on Earth, you would sometimes be standing on your feet, other times you’d naturally be standing on your head, and then sometimes you’d be jutting out at a right angle from the Earth (not really sure where that logic came from). He then proceeded to ask Einstein whether it’s when people are standing on their heads that they fall in love and “do other foolish things” (again, don’t really follow his logic, but I think he might have just been trolling Einstein at this point).

Einstein never responded to this guy, but he did write in the margins of the letter, “falling in love is not at all the most stupid thing that people do, but gravitation cannot be held responsible for it.”

Over the years, Einstein’s original rebuke of the man was reworded into the quote above. This paraphrase makes the quote more about falling in love than about defending physics. It also opens up its meaning to greater interpretation by the reader.

 

2)

“When the little picture of a happy father’s face looks up in yours, when you see your own bright beauty springing up anew at your feet, think now and then that there is a man who would give his life, to keep a life you love beside you!” – Sydney Carton from Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities

I’m not gonna lie, I had a really tough time reading A Tale of Two Cities in high school. Charles Dickens is just such a flowery writer that I would get through whole chapters and have no idea what was going on. I would take reading quizzes on the novel and not even understand the questions being asked because the text just confused me so much.

Yet, the one part of the novel that I was able to follow pretty well was the love triangle between Sydney Carton, Charles Darnay, and Lucie Manette. Basically, Sydney Carton is this kind of awkward guy who falls in love with the beautiful Lucie Manette, who herself is in love with Charles Darnay, an attractive and wealthy doctor.

Long story short, through some complicated series of events, Darnay is put on trial and sentenced to death by guillotine. (SPOILER ALERT) He never actually dies, however, because Sydney Carton—who conveniently resembles Darnay—takes his place on the guillotine. The passage quoted above foreshadows Sydney Carton’s selfless act of love for Lucie and Charles Darnay.

 

3)

“I would like to give you everything you’ve never had, but even then you wouldn’t know how wonderful it is to be able to love you” – Frida Kahlo

The Spanish sounds a lot better, I promise: “Quisiera darte todo lo que nunca hubieras tenido, y ni así sabrías la maravilla que es poder quererte.”

This quote comes from Mexican painter Frida Kahlo. When I visited her Casa Azul this past summer, some of her more famous quotes were written on the walls of the exhibits. I really liked the ones that I saw, so I went home that night and looked up more Frida Kahlo quotes. She’s actually got a lot of really thought-provoking quotes on a whole range of topics, but this one stood out to me as a particularly poignant quote about love.

For some time, I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to include this quote because Frida Kahlo herself had a fairly rocky relationship with her husband Diego Rivera (also a famous Mexican painter). At least from my understanding, there was a lot of abuse and cheating in their marriage, and they even got divorced for a short time, only to remarry in the end.

I don’t know if what Frida had with Diego was true love and I’m not really qualified to judge, but I do think the quote, both in English and Spanish, has a beautiful message.

 

4)

“If I asked you about love, you’d probably quote me a sonnet, but you’ve never looked at a woman and been totally vulnerable. Known someone that could level you with her eyes. Feelin’ like God put an angel on Earth just for you, who could rescue you from the depths of hell.” – Sean McGuire in Good Will Hunting

Pshhh, noooooo. I wouldn’t quote a sonnet, I’d quote Albert Einstein, Charles Dickens, and Frida Kahlo! But point taken.

This quote is from the movie Good Will Hunting, which tells the story of an incredibly intelligent man named Will Hunting (played by Matt Damon) who works as a janitor at MIT until, one day, he solves a complex math problem on the board of one of the classrooms, gets discovered, and is offered mentorship by a world-renowned math professor. The only condition, however, is that Will has to go through therapy with psychologist Sean McGuire (Robin Williams) to overcome anger issues that previously landed him in jail for assaulting a police officer (out of loyalty to one of his friends, but still). Will is skeptical of the therapy sessions, until one day, Sean finally makes him listen by giving a speech on the difference between book smarts and lived experiences. The quote above comes from Sean’s monologue in this therapy session.

I like the quote because it pokes holes at the idea that words can ever capture love as well as deep, personal feelings and experiences. At the same time, it itself is a great quote about love that seems to capture the essence of this emotion well.

 

5)

“It would be a privilege to have my heart broken by you” – Augustus Waters in John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars.

Because what love quotes list would be complete without the corniest yet realest romantic novel of our generation, The Fault in Our Stars!? There’s actually so many great love quotes in this novel, but I ultimately went with this one because I think it packs the biggest punch in the fewest words. The story, for those not familiar, is about two teenagers with cancer who fall in love after meeting at a support group. The novel deals with death, love, pain and the passing of time, among many other themes.

—

Want more quotes or ones not about love? Check out my Quote of the Week page, where I jot down quotes and my thoughts about them each time I come across a new one (or rediscover an old one) that I really like.