Lovingkindness

“ I believe thee, so far as it is in me to believe that which does not depend on ourselves. See what it is to love people for themselves or their virtues. For myself, I am well assured that I shall love thee always, whatever may happen, because before I loved thee, I desired for thee all thy good qualities.... My beloved, when I think that nothing stands in the way of our happiness, my heart thrills with pleasure ”

“ No mortal eye hath ever seen that love within the known sphere, yet all insensibly feel its reign. What keeps the world together but affection? What makes the earth bring forth its fruits, but the kindness which beams in the sunlight and descends in the dews? ”

“ We desire affection in order to escape from the feeling of loneliness, in order to be, as we say, "understood." This is a matter of sympathy, not merely of benevolence; the person whose affection is satisfactory to us must not merely wish us well, but must know in what our happiness consists. But this belongs to the other element of the good life, namely knowledge.
In a perfect world, every sentient being would be to every other the object of the fullest love, compounded of delight, benevolence, and understanding inextricably blended. ”

“ Mutually loving and loved as devotedly as ever was a wedded pair, blessed with the full possession of every good that nature and fortune can combine to bestow, with youth, health, beauty, genius, riches, honor—why should their wedded life be thus clouded? ”

“ It was a manifold, everlasting manifestation of one deep feeling—a desire for human affection.* Such a belief, while it enlisted even pride and self-interest on the side of piety, had a direct tendency to excite the best passions of our nature. Love is not long asked in vain from generous dispositions. A Being, never absent, but standing beside the life of each man with ever-watchful tenderness, and recognised, though invisible, in every blessing that befel them from youth to age, became naturally the object of their warmest affections. ”

“ Love, the third of that trinity of graces, was the other great secret and lesson of this life. And what is love? Not merely a complacent affection for what is lovable, which is often only a half-selfish taking of pleasure in the society and fellowship of those who love us. ”

“ These wells of feeling hidden in the soul, upon whose surface the slightest smile of affection falls like sunlight, but whose very depths are stirred by the breath of unkindness, are too often un-visited by the kindly influence of kindred sympathies, and go wearing their own channels deeper, in silence and in secrecy, and in infinite bitterness,—undermining health, happiness, the joy of life, and making existence one succession of burden-bearing days, and toilsome, aching, heavy hours. ”

“ The delightful hours I have passed in your society have left
an impression on my mind that is altogether indelible,
and cannot be effaced even by time itself. The frequent
opportunities I have possessed, of observing the thousand acts
of amiability and kindness which mark the daily tenor of your
life, have ripened my feelings of affectionate regard into
a passion at once ardent and sincere until I have at length
associated my hopes of future happiness with the idea of you
as a life partner, in them. ”

“ Shall love so vast, be unrepaid by grateful love again? Oh! true affection never chafes at obligation's chain, But hugs with joy the gracious yoke whose guidance is its gain; And such the Saviour's ardent love—His suff'ring patience—these Most unlike human bonds, are cancell'd by their own increase. ”

“ For our absent loved ones we implore thy loving-kindness. Keep them in life, keep them in growing honour; and for us, grant that we remain worthy of their love. For Christ’s sake, let not our beloved blush for us, nor we for them. ”

“ Having lost the son of the Infante of Fortune, not only by my marriage, but also, as is known to me, by reason of his love for another, and finding myself wedded to a man whom, strive as I may, I cannot love, I resolved to set heart and affection entirely on loving you. This love I built upon that virtue which I had so often perceived in you, and to which by your own assistance I think I have attained—I mean the virtue of loving one’s honour and conscience more than life. ”

“ "To be beloved is all I need,
And whom I love, I love indeed." ”

“ A sense as of one who shivers out under the winter stars, and turns to the warm firelight and the cheerful faces of friends in the cosy glow of home, came to him, and with it came temptation like a voice. Turn from this purpose—turn to love and life! You have been staunch and true in human kindness to its uttermost demand, but your life belongs to her, and not to another. ”

“ LOVE BLENDS YOUNG HEARTS.—Love blends young hearts in blissful unity, and, for the time, so ignores past ties and affections, as to make willing separation of the son from his father's house, and the daughter from all the sweet endearments of her childhood's home, to go out together and rear for themselves an altar, around which shall cluster all the cares and delights, the anxieties and sympathies, of the family relationship; this love, if pure, unselfish, and discreet, constitutes the chief usefulness and happiness of human life. ”

“ From it, various types of love are drawn in the secret of intermingling and various types of pleasures, whether those stemming from the body or those stemming from the soul. In the secret of 'How fair and how pleasant is love with delights!' Because this love is the path to the higher ascent, these types of love are beneficial. Through them, the lover enters into the proper love. This is the kindness that is the secret of this love, which only reaches up to heaven. From it, a person can enter into the higher love—the kindness that is above the heavens. ”

“ Our corresponding feelings confounded our very souls; and in many conversations we almost intuitively discerned each other's sentiments; the heart opened itself, not chilled by reserve, nor afraid of misconstruction. But, if virtue inspired love, love gave new energy to virtue, and absorbed every selfish passion. ”

“ Go to, sir, true love seeks to secure the entire happiness of the object of affection, it sacrifices its own wishes and aspirations, rather than a cloud should hang upon the loved one’s brow, a tear dim her eye, or the smile fade from her cheek. ”

“ As the son resembles his father in looks so he will to a certain extent resemble him in character. Love in the heart of the parent will beget kindness and affection in the heart of a child. Continuous scolding and fretting in the home will soon make love a stranger.
4. If you desire to cultivate love, create harmony in all your feelings and faculties. Remember that all that is pure, holy and virtuous in love flows from the deepest fountain of the human soul. Poison the fountain and you change virtue to vice, and happiness to misery. ”

“ An affection that shows itself not in caresses alone, as if these were the only demonstration of love, but of that respect which distinguishes love as a principle, from that brief passion which assumes, and only assumes, the name—a respect which consults the judgment as well as the wishes of the object beloved, which considers her who is worthy of being taken to the heart as worthy of being admitted to all the counsels of the head. ”

“ They show such love to their offspring for a certain period, and are so beloved by them, that they clearly have a share in this natural, instinctive affection. But of course it is more evident in the case of man: first, in the natural affection between children and their parents, an affection which only shocking wickedness can sunder; and next, when the passion of love has attained to a like strength—on our finding, that is, some one person with whose character and nature we are in full sympathy, because we think that we perceive in him what I may call the beacon-light of virtue. ”

“ That is, in the sweetness of our love; not only in that sweetness of ordinary union, but also in that which flows from active and affective love, whether in the will by an act of affection, or outwardly in good works which tend to the service of the Beloved. For love, as I have said, where it is firmly rooted, ever runs after those joys and delights which are the acts of exterior and interior love. All this the soul does that it may be made like to the Beloved. ”

“ This is the second half of the activity of upper or self-less or spiritual love. There is a tremendous great joy in exploring and discovering the beloved. For what is the beloved? She is that which I myself am not. ”

“ Now the race to which I belong have no other means of obtaining a soul than by forming with an individual of your own the most intimate union of love. I am now possessed of a soul, and my soul thanks you, my best beloved, and never shall cease to thank you, if you do not render my whole future life miserable. ”

“ Those lovers will never know what eyes looked upon them that day, what hearts were comforted with the sight of their happiness, or how a careworn man, three thousand miles away, fanning upon his hearthstone the dying embers of hope, now thinks of them with tender sympathy, and murmurs a blessing on the gracious scene which their presence so much endeared. ”

“ Each time of life has its own kind of love." ”

“ O my beloved, may your souls be swallowed up in this love. Think and think while you will, you can never think how much you are beloved. See that you love again by way of gratitude, though not of requital: What though your souls be but narrow, and your powers but little? ”

“ This resistless love was also life's highest worth, and the spring of inspiration and strength for doing valorously and living nobly. The trouvère of the twelfth century created new conceptions of love's service, and therewith the impassioned thought that beyond what men might do in the hope of love's fruition or at the dictates of its affection, love was itself a power strengthening and ennobling him who loved. ”

“ That we can thus alone make ourselves sought and beloved is an inferior consideration, though an important one to us, to whom warmth and kindness are as peculiarly animating as sunshine to the caged bird. ”

“ Be kindly affectioned one to another, with brotherly love, philostorgoi—it signifies not only love, but a readiness and inclination to love, the most genuine and free affection, kindness flowing out as from a spring. ”

“ The consummation of this greeting gave a freer flow to the general expression of joy; the scholars, old and young, soon clustered around us, eager to become known and recognized in the current reciprocation of affection by name, bestowing in love such endearments, that for the moment, with sadness, our own youthful impressions, barren of their cheer, reappeared in contrasted desolation. But translated back to the reality, by the warmth of glowing sympathy, with its unspeakable thrill of tender emotions, the void of our past lives was relieved of its selfish regrets. ”

“ The affection which we rightly have for what is lovely must ordinate justly, in due manner end proportion, become the object of a new affection, or be itself beloved, in order to our being endued with that virtue which is the principle of a good life. ”

“ Let me remind you, too, that steadfastness of habitual love all round our hearts, as it were, is the source and germ of all perfectness of life and conduct. 'Love and do as Thou wilt,' is a bold saying, but not too bold. For the very essence of love is the smelting of the will of the lover into the will of the beloved. ”

“ Above all, wipe from the eyes of oppressed innocence the trickling crystals of agonized feeling; let the tears of virtue in distress, fall upon thy sympathizing bosom; let the genial glow of sincere friendship animate thine honest heart; let the fond attachment of a mate, cherished by thy warmest affection, make thee forget the sorrows of life: be faithful to her love, responsible to her tenderness, that she may reward thee by a reciprocity of feeling; that under the eyes of parents united in virtuous esteem, thy offspring may learn to set a proper value on practical virtue ”

“ Frankness and candour were among the virtues of my beloved: she listened to protestations of affection, and, rising above the little arts of her sex, avowed a reciprocal attachment. The measure of my bliss seemed now to be full: the purity of my passion was such, that the thoughts of the grosser animal desires never once occurred; and happy in loving, and in being beloved, we passed our time in all the innocent blandishments which truly virtuous Love inspires, without our imagination roaming even for an instant into the wilds of sensuality. ”

“ If the first recognition of the existence of thy love be delirious ecstacy, by what name shall I nominate that joy which issues from the consummation of thy heart's desire, when thy love is perfected by a union with one that loves thee better than he loves himself? ”

“ To show the love we have to Him, we ought to serve and love every rational creature.... Every virtue receives life from love, and love is gained in love, that is, by raising the eye of our mind to behold how much we are beloved of God. Seeing ourselves loved, we cannot do otherwise than love.... So thou seest that we conceive virtues through God and bring them to the birth for our neighbour. ”

“ Thou who, where thou givest love, seekest, though meekly, for love in return;—to be the soul's sweet necessity, the life's household partner to him who receives all thy faith and devotion—canst thou influence the sources of joy and of sorrow in the heart that does not heave at thy name? ”