“This man had robbed him at once of the love of his people and of Valentina, and thereby had set in his heart the burning desire to outdo him and to prove wrong in their preference both his people and Valentina.”

“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》

“If any of you has set his heart on seeing his friends again, let him remember to prove himself a man; there is no other way to achieve his heart's wish.”

— Xenophon《Anabasis》

“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》

“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》

“To her, my thoughts I daily dedicate; To her, my heart I nightly martyrise; To her, my love I lowly do prostrate; To her, my life I wholly sacrifice: My thought, my heart, my life, my love, is she! &c.”

— Anna Brownell Jameson《The Romance of Biography (Vol 1 of 2): or Memoirs of Women Loved and Celebrated by Poets, from the Days of the Troubadours to the Present Age. 3rd ed. 2 Vols.》

“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》

“A great desire to love and be friends, to love everybody, to be friends with everybody, seemed to be invading Lotty—a desire for sheer goodness.”

— Elizabeth von Arnim《The Enchanted April》

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

— Arnold Bennett《The Grand Babylon Hotel》

“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》