Shakespeare Love Quotes

The most famous playwright in the English language, William Shakespeare straddled a mind-boggling range of genres – tragedies, comedies, tragic-comedies and histories apart from narrative poems and sonnets . However most popular are his romantic plays which express the myriad moods and hues of love. Lines from these plays are among the most-quoted expressions on love not only because the words distill the innermost feelings of a lover’s heart but because they reflect love as a heady mix of passion, aggression, despair, and determination. So no matter what your feelings and emotions in love, here are some of Shakespeare’s quotes which are sure to strike a chord.

“Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind;
And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.”

This line from A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act I, Sc I is one of the most expressive answers to the niggling problem of why we fall in love with one person and not with someone else or even someone similar. Love has nothing to do with externals, when you love someone that it doesn’t matter what they look like but what is on the inside. This is why Cupid is painted blind to show that he doesn’t love with his eyes but with his mind

“There's beggary in the love that can be reckoned.”

Here is another quote that explains the nature of love –  just like it does not care for appearances, true love cannot be calculated and measured in material terms. In the play, Antony and Cleopatra, Act I, Sc. I Cleopatra's first words to Antony are teasing. She wants to know how much Antony loves her, and he boasts that if any love can be measured, then it is poor love indeed.

“No sooner met but they looked; no sooner looked but they loved; no sooner loved but they sighed; no sooner sighed but they asked one another the reason; no sooner knew the reason but they sought the remedy.”

The quote is from "As You Like It," Act V, Scene II. Throughout Shakespeare's comedies one finds delightful accounts of the immediacy of passion; when faced with sexual desire, all talk of modesty and chastity fly away and couples respond with the way nature has intended for them. In the play Rosalind telling Orlando how his brother and her sister met, fell in love and immediately consummated the relationship. While this has direct relevance to the plot of the play, the words are also a tender comment on the urgency and corporality of human love and desire.

“Doubt thou the stars are fire;
Doubt that the sun doth move;
Doubt truth to be a liar;
But never doubt I love.”

These words from Hamlet, Act II, Sc. II are a powerful expression of the conviction of love. Just like there is no doubt about certain universal facts, there should not be any doubt about the faithfulness and passion in the lover’s heart. Interestingly here, the sun moving around the earth is taken as an incontrovertble fact whereas in Shakespeare’s own time, the movement of the sun was being hotly debated as Copernicans came into conflict  with Ptolemists. A contemporary of Shakespeare, watching Hamlet, could well have doubted the movement of the sun. But of course the poem lies within the play, and the play is set in an earlier time – too long ago presumably, for such doubts to have arisen. Again the unshakeable conviction of a lover is being expressed by the very man who has been hesitant to take a strong stand throughout the play – even being unable to avenge his father’s murder. Shakespeare seems to be using dramatic irony, where the audience sees a meaning not available to the characters on stage. While in the words here, there is no doubt the sincerity of Hamlet’s addresses to Ophelia,  the very possibility of a doubt prepares the audience for Hamlet’s later rejection of Ophelia, as well of reinforcing the sense of doubt that runs through Hamlet’s character, and through the play as a whole.

“O, how this spring of love resembleth ,The uncertain glory of an April day! , Which now shows all beauty of the Sun, And by and by a cloud takes all away.”

These lines from The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act I, Sc. III are playful expression of the erratic nature of love. One moment it brings feelings as joyous as a radiant summer day but at the very next, it can be clouded with doubt and anxiety.

“But, O, what damned minutes tells he o'er
Who dotes, yet doubts, suspects, yet strongly loves!”

These words from Othello, Act III, Sc. III once again echo a less pleasant emotion in love which leaves the lover vulnerable to negative emotions like suspicion and jealousy. Once again while the lines are highly relevant to the context – as Othello suffers the torturous ups and down in love – they are also an implication of the universal conflict at the heart of love – the object of love is both a cause of pain and pleasure, trust and doubt. It is also an indication of the fragility of happiness in love that is seen everywhere, from the man on the street to kings in palaces.

“Is this the generation of love? Hot blood, hot thoughts and hot deeds? Why, they are vipers. Is love a generation of
vipers.”

One of the most unflattering images of love comes from the play, Troilus & Cressida – Act 3, Scene 1. Here love is seen as a generation or product of passionate but unthinking thoughts, words and deeds which in turn are symbolized as vipers. In this sense, love is thus the outcome of unthinking and hasty impulses. At a deeper level in the plot, Shakespeare shows the kind of horrors that human beings are capable of in the name of love –  in the play, the pain and violence of the Trojan war is a direct outcome the unlawful love of Paris who brought away Helen from the Greeks.

“My only love sprung from my only hate!
Too early seen unknown, and known too late!”

The co-existence of pain and pleasure, ecstasy and sorrow is what underlines the complex nature of love. In these lines from Romeo and Juliet, Act I, Sc. V, Romeo and Juliet too discover this conflict at the heart of love as they find themselves attracted to the very people they are supposed to hate.  

“My bounty is as boundless as the sea, my love as deep; the more I give to thee, the more I have, for both are infinite.”

Despite all the contradictions at the heart of love, what abides is the profound desire to give. These lines from Romeo and Juliet, Act II, Scene I are a testimony to the sensation of touching the infinite and the timeless that being deeply in love can bring.

“Love sought is good, but given unsought is better.”

If the previous quote on love expressed the deep joy in giving when in love, this one from Twelfth Night, Act III, Sc. I is a tender acknowledgment of the ecstasy of mutual love. The phrase means that when love comes as an answer to your devotion and efforts, it brings happiness but when it is lavished on you without your asking, it brings even greater pleasure. This quote celebrates the joy that lies in spontaneous expressions of romance and surprise gestures of passion from a lover.

“I know no ways to mince it in love, but directly to say ‘I love you’ ”

Finally one of the most lucid quotes comes from a historical, Henry V – Act 5, Scene 2. The best approach is the direct one – thus while flowery quotes and evocative sonnets are all very well, these three simple sincere words are all that a beloved wants to hear in love.