“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.”

“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》

“If one should dream that such a world began In some slow devil's heart, that hated man, Who should deny him?--God, as thou art clean, Suffer not this, oh, suffer not this sin To be, that e'er I look on such a day!”

— Sophocles《Oedipus King of Thebes: Translated into English Rhyming Verse with Explanatory Notes》

“Alas howe my soule and bodye were lothe to leaue one an another, the sorrowe whereof made me vnwilling to intertaine so cruel an enemy as death: whereupon I plucking vp a good heart, thought thus.”

— Francesco Colonna《Hypnerotomachia Poliphili》

“Robert Bruce, on his death-bed, bequeathed his heart to his friend, the good Lord James, to be borne in war against the Saracens.”

— Walter Scott《The Lady of the Lake》

“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》

“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》

“The life we lead is all love: The love we hold is all death, Nor ought I crave to feed life, Nor ought I seek to shun death, But only that my goddess, My life my death do count hers.”

— Philip Sidney《The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia》

“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》

“The poets have sung in every key this being who came all beauty from the hands of her Creator; but what is all this physical beauty compared to the spiritual beauty of a noble and high-souled woman?”

— Philippe-Joseph Aubert de Gaspé《Les Anciens Canadiens》

“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》

“There was an end of faith, for he was faithless; there was an end of love, for love had betrayed her; there was an end of beauty, for beauty had been her bane.”

— Benjamin Disraeli《Henrietta Temple》