“A metal man he is by trade, and a mettled man by nature; moreover, he doth sing a lovely ballad.”

“A woman with so passionate a nature as hers, married against her will to a man she could never love, and meeting once more the man whom she loved, the man who really loved her, must find such friendship a dangerous pitfall.”

— Grant Allen《Linnet》

“Women can resist a man’s love, a man’s fame, a man’s personal appearance, and a man’s money, but they cannot resist a man’s tongue when he knows how to talk to them.”

— Wilkie Collins《The Woman in White》

“Say thou dost love me, love me, love me—toll The silver iterance!—only minding, Dear, To love me also in silence with thy soul.”

— Elizabeth Barrett Browning《Sonnets from the Portuguese》

“You wish me to love you: this is the man whom I love, and whom I have sworn to love during my whole life: make the comparison yourself.”

— Antoine François Prévost《Manon Lescaut》

“To a woman indifferent to love, every man is the same, and all are men; but to her whose heart is truly susceptible of that refined passion, there is no other man in the world but her lover.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau《Eloisa: or, A series of original letters》

“She is a good and pure woman, and I love her as a man might love an angel.”

— Arnold Bennett《The Grand Babylon Hotel》

“Herein doth consist happiness of life, for a man to know thoroughly the true nature of everything; what is the matter, and what is the form of it: with all his heart and soul, ever to do that which is just, and to speak the truth.”

— Marcus Aurelius《Meditations》

“Human love, the love of mother, husband, and friend rank above it, and first of all stands the love of God.”

— Clotilde Graves《That Which Hath Wings: A Novel of the Day》

“She was in love, but the man she was in love with has not heard of her either.”

— Jacques Futrelle《The Problem of Cell 13》

“I, unhappy that I am, these eight years have I loved thee more than my life, and thou, as I have felt, art all afire and all consumed with love of a strange woman, wicked and perverse man that thou art!”

— Giovanni Boccaccio《The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio》

“Sometimes love, for a woman, means only shelter; often, for a man, love means the blending of all knowledge, of all beauty, all ambition, of all that he has learned from books and from life.”

— E. Phillips Oppenheim《The Zeppelin's Passenger》

“The old man had loved Undine with exceeding tenderness, and it was doubtful to his mind that the mere disappearance of his beloved child could be properly viewed as her death.”

— Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué《Undine》