Relationships
60 Quotes About Love To Use In Your Instagram Captions
That won't make your followers roll their eyes.
If you've been to a wedding or been on Instagram before, you probably have heard or seen one or two quotes about love that made you roll your eyes. You've probably heard the trite, overused quotes that are almost always attributed to "anonymous" ("Love me when I least deserve it, because that's when I really need it.") and the slightly more literary, also overused quotes that are usually attributed to someone like Goethe ("We are shaped and fashioned by those we love.") I'm a hopeless romantic, and I'm not above dropping a good quote about love into everyday conversation, but I think we could all do a little better when it comes to which quotes we choose to use in that love letter, Instagram caption, or wedding vow.
Below are 60 of the best quotes about love — some are happy, some are sad, some are about love lost, and some are about true love found at long last. Some are about self-love, which is just as important as love for others. Some are about emotional bravery. Some are about insecurity. Some are about mistakes. Because love isn't just one emotion — it's a mosaic of feelings, good and bad, and these quotes certainly reflect that.
Quotes About Love From Books
"Love is the feeling we have for those we care deeply about and hold in high regard. It can be light as the hug we give a friend or heavy as the sacrifices we make for our children." — Cheryl Strayed, Tiny Beautiful Things
"True love does have the power to redeem but only if we are ready for redemption. Love saves us only if we want to be saved." — bell hooks, All About Love
"Actually, when it came to love, I had somewhat contradictory desires. I wanted to be loved unconditionally, simply because I was, but I also wanted to be loved for my qualities: because I was x, because I was y. I wanted to be loved because I deserved it." — Leslie Jamison, The Recovering
"Love is the enemy of sound judgment, and occasionally this is in service of the good." — Tayari Jones, An American Marriage
"I could connect all those dots and make this easier for you, but all I really want to say is that you will find your way. You’ll meet people that you love who f*ck up constantly." — Gabby Rivera, Juliet Takes A Breath
“I want you to know, if you ever read this, there was a time when I would rather have had you by my side than any one of these words; I would rather have had you by my side than all the blue in the world." — Maggie Nelson, Bluets
"I know you and adore you in all your ways, your quirks, your imperious demands, your extraordinary gift of yourself." — Henry Miller to Brenda Venus, Dear, Dear Brenda: The Love Letters of Henry Miller to Brenda Venus
"Yes, I need you, my fairy-tale. Because you are the only person I can talk with about the shade of a cloud, about the song of a thought — and about how, when I went out to work today and looked a tall sunflower in the face, it smiled at me with all of its seeds." — Vladimir Nabokov to Vera Nabokov, Letters To Vera
“Once upon a time there was a boy who loved a girl, and her laughter was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering.” — Nicole Krauss, The History of Love
"I knew, before I was close to you, that your cotton-blue hoodie smelled like smoke, and I could put my entire body beneath it. I knew that your skin wasn't rough. I knew that I was not going to be the same person for loving you." — Terese Marie Mailhot, Heart Berries
"'But love is... ' She paused. 'Well, love might be something beyond words. It's funny, in all my years of doing this job, I still don't really have the words for it.' 'Right,' I said. 'I think the place for you to start, the question that you might want to ask yourself, isn't so much what is love,' she said. 'But is it really love I'm looking for?'" — Melissa Broder, The Pisces
"I'd never felt more myself. Or more in tune to what I was and what I was capable of. A moment of authenticity when fate and blueprint collide and everything is not only possible, but within arm's reach. And I fell in love. Madly, intoxicatingly so. I think he may have, too. Just for a moment. But I never really knew." — Sarah Winman, Tin Man
"I keep thinking about this river somewhere, with the water moving really fast. And these two people in the water, trying to hold onto each other, holding on as hard as they can, but in the end it's just too much. The current's too strong. They've got to let go, drift apart. That's how it is with us. It's a shame, Kath, because we've loved each other all our lives. But in the end, we can't stay together forever.” — Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go
"When you fall in love, the natural thing to do is give yourself to it. That's what I think. It's just a form of sincerity." — Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood
Quotes About Love From Poems
"If thou must love me, let it be for nought/ Except for love’s sake only." — Elizabeth Barrett Browning, "XIV" from Sonnets for the Portuguese
"& isn’t the heart/ an ampersand,/ magnet between the seconds of days/ & dusks, the peonies/ & the fig tree & the squirrels?" — Aracelis Girmay, "&"
"I’d train my breath and learn to read sonar until/ I retrieved every lost blood vessel of you. I swear/ this love is ungodly, not an ounce of suffering in it./ Like salmon and its upstream itch, I’ll dodge grizzlies/ for you. Like hawks and skyscraper rooftops,/ I’ll keep coming back. Maddened. A little hopeless./ Embarrassingly in love." — Traci Brimhall, "Love Poem Without a Drop of Hyperbole In It"
"You do not have to be good./ You do not have to walk on your knees/ For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.' You only have to let the soft animal of your body/ love what it loves." — Mary Oliver, "Wild Geese"
“Aren’t all great/ love stories, at their core,/ great mistakes?" — Chen Chen, "To the Guancos at the Syracuse Zoo" from When I Grow Up I Want To Be a List of Further Possibilities
“There is a silk ladder unrolled across the ivy/ There is/ That leaning over the precipice/ Of the hopeless fusion of your presence and absence/ I have found the secret/ Of loving you/ Always for the first time.” —André Breton from "Always For The First Time"
“Love is like the wild rose-briar/ Friendship like the holly-tree—/ The holly is dark when the rose-briar blooms/ But which will bloom most constantly?” —Emily Jane Brontë from “Love and Friendship”
“To be in love/ Is to touch with a lighter hand. In yourself you stretch, you are well. You look at things/ Through his eyes. A cardinal is red. A sky is blue. Suddenly you know he knows too.” —Gwendolyn Brooks from “To Be In Love”
“Late at night, I call my long distance lover,/ proudly say I only used fifty-nine today. I saved the rest for you.” —Jeffrey McDaniel from “The Quiet World”
“...there was a single twenty-ounce bottle of Mountain Dew,/ which you paid for with your last damn dime/ because you once overheard me say that I liked it.” —Matthew Olzmann from “Mountain Dew Commerical Disguised As A Love Poem”
“(i do not know what it is about you that closes/ and opens; only something in me understands/ the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)” —e.e. cummings, from “somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond”
“I look/ at you and I would rather look at you than all the portraits/ in the world.” —Frank O’Hara from “Having a Coke with You”
“I don’t know how you are so familiar to me—or why it feels less like I am getting to know you and more as though I am remembering who you are. How every smile, every whisper brings me closer to the impossible conclusion that I have known you before, I have loved you before—in another time, a different place, some other existence.” —Lang Leav from “Soul Mates”
“I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,/ or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off./ I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,/ in secret, between the shadow and the soul.” —Pablo Neruda from “XVII” of One Hundred Love Sonnets
Quotes About Love From Songs
"Heaven is not fit to house a love like you and I" —Hozier from “Francesca”
"Wise men say, only fools rush in. But I can't help falling in love with you" —Elvis Presley from “I Can't Help Falling In Love With You”
“I once believed love would be burning red, but it’s golden, like daylight.” —Taylor Swift from “Daylight”
“I may not always love you/ But long as there are stars above you/ You never need to doubt it/ I’ll make you so sure about it.” —The Beach Boys by “God Only Knows”
“Love of mine, someday you will die,/ But I'll be close behind, I'll follow you into the dark./ No blinding light or tunnels to gates of white,/ Just our hands clasped so tight, waiting for the hint of a spark.” —Death Cab For Cutie by “I Will Follow You Into the Dark”
“At last/ My love has come along/ My lonely days are over/ And life is like a song.” —Etta James from “At Last”
“When the rain is blowing in your face/ And the whole world is on your case/ I could offer you a warm embrace/ To make you feel my love.” —Bob Dylan from “Make You Feel My Love”
“I don't mind spending every day/ Out on your corner in the pouring rain/ Look for the girl with the broken smile/ Ask her if she wants to stay a while/ And she will be loved.” —Maroon 5 from “She Will Be Loved”
“If I should stay/I would only be in your way/ So I'll go, but I know/ I'll think of you every step of the way/ And I will always love you/ I will always love you.” —Whitney Houston from “I Will Always Love You”
“My love/ There's only you in my life/ The only thing that's right/ My first love/ You're every breath that I take/ You're every step I make/ And I/ I want to share/ All my love with you.” —Lionel Richie & Diana Ross from “Endless Love”
Quotes About Love From Movies
"Don't forget: I'm also just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her." —Notting Hill
"You have bewitched me, body and soul, and I love, I love, I love you. I never wish to be parted from you from this day on." —Pride and Prejudice
“The only way to beat my crazy was by doing something crazy yourself. Thank you. I love you. I knew it the minute I met you. I'm sorry it took so long for me to catch up. I just got stuck." —Silver Linings Playbook
"In my opinion, the best thing you can do is find someone who loves you for exactly what you are. Good mood, bad mood, ugly, pretty, handsome, what have you." —Juno
"People do fall in love. People do belong to each other because that's the only chance that anyone's got for true happiness." —Breakfast at Tiffany's
"Our love is like the wind. I can't see it, but I can feel it." —A Walk to Remember
“I fell in love with him the way you fall asleep. Slowly, and then all at once.” —The Fault in Our Stars
“I hope it’s okay if I love you forever.” —A Star Is Born
“The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return." —Moulin Rouge!
"Death cannot stop true love. All it can do is delay it for a while." —The Princess Bride
"They say when you meet the love of your life, time stops, and that’s true." —Big Fish
Quotes About Love From Celebrities
“I do believe in love. I will always believe in love, but my idea has changed from what I've always thought." —Kim Kardashian
“Your imperfections make you beautiful, they make you who you are. So just be yourself, love yourself for who you are and just keep going.” —Demi Lovato
"We are all a little weird and life's a little weird, and when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall in mutual weirdness and call it love." —Dr. Seuss
"Love never claims, it ever gives. Love never suffers, never resents, never revenges itself." —Mahatma Gandhi
“Love is something sent from heaven to worry the hell out of you.” —Dolly Parton
“Love is a fire. But whether it is going to warm your hearth or burn down your house, you can never tell.” —Joan Crawford
"I love you not only for what you are, but for what I am when I am with you. I love you not only for what you have made of yourself, but for what you are making of me.” —Sarah Michelle Gellar
“To be brave is to love someone unconditionally, without expecting anything in return.” —Madonna
"I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love." —Mother Teresa
"The regret of my life is that I have not said 'I love you' often enough." — Yoko Ono
"If you can’t love yourself, how in the hell are you gonna love somebody else?" —RuPaul
