105 'I Love You' Quotes and Messages

True love. It’s both our greatest accomplishment and our most elusive prize. It’s an emotion that has more sparkles than a diamond and just as many facets, too. There’s eros and agape and storge and philia — That is, there is erotic and Godly and parental and brotherly love.

And yet, if we’re honest with ourselves, we must admit that love also has a certain je ne sais quoi. It’s beyond description and definition. That’s why we so often turn to flowers and love songs and quotes to express the love we feel.

We hope that the following quotes and messages express “I love you” in all its myriad forms and aspects, from brotherly love to Divine love and everything in between.

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Famous Love Quotes

It’s because love is so universal that so many famous love quotes can even exist. That is, quotes about love become famous because we recognize ourselves in them, even if the quote originally came from the likes of a Gandhi or a King. Truly, Victor Hugo was right: “To love another person is to see the face of God.” If you’re searching for famous love quotes, then look no further than the sentiments below.

“To love is to recognize yourself in another.” — Eckhart Tolle
“Where there is love there is life.” — Mahatma Gandhi
“I have decided to stick to love; hate is too great a burden to bear.” — Martin Luther King, Jr.
”Love is always patient and kind. It is never jealous. Love is never boastful or conceited. It is never rude or selfish. It does not take offense and is not resentful. Love takes no pleasure in other people’s sins, but delights in the truth. It is always ready to excuse, to trust, to hope, and to endure whatever comes.” — 1 Corinthians 13:4-7
“Continue to share your heart with people even if it has been broken.” — Amy Poehler
“The real lover is the man who can thrill you by kissing your forehead or smiling into your eyes or just staring into space.” — Marilyn Monroe
“The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves.” — Victor Hugo
“I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine.” — Song of Solomon 6:3
“At the touch of love everyone becomes a poet.” ― Plato
“And remember, as it was written, to love another person is to see the face of God.” — Victor Hugo, Les Miserables
“To the world, you may be one person, but to one person you are the world.” — Anonymous

Romantic Love Quotes

While the light of romantic love shines most visibly on Valentine’s Day, its light is hardly dim during the rest of the year. Romantic love is heady, passionate, maddening, invigorating, confusing, and sublime. Truth be told, there aren’t enough metaphors to adequately express the love that creates the song of our hearts. That’s where beautiful romantic love quotes come in. They put the words in our mouths and the song in our hearts that usually only great poets can express.

“We loved with a love that was more than love.” — Edgar Allen Poe
“You know you’re in love when you can’t fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.” — Dr. Seuss
”You don’t marry someone you can live with — you marry someone you cannot live without.” — Anonymous
“You are the finest, loveliest, tenderest, and most beautiful person I have ever known and even that is an understatement.” — F. Scott Fitzgerald
“Love isn’t something you find. Love is something that finds you.” — Loretta Young
“Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength while loving someone deeply gives you courage.” — Lao Tzu
“When I see your face, there’s not a thing that I would change, ’cause you’re amazing – just the way you are.” — Bruno Mars
“To be your friend was all I ever wanted; to be your lover was all I ever dreamed.” — Valerie Lombardo
“Romance is the glamour which turns the dust of everyday life into a golden haze. ” ― Elinor Glyn
“He’s more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.” — Emily Bronte
“Take my hand, take my whole life too. For I can’t help falling in love with you.” — Elvis Presley
“There’s all kinds of reasons that you fall in love with one person rather than another: Timing is important. Proximity is important. Mystery is important.” — Helen Fisher

Cute and Humorous Love Quotes

While it’s true that love can be a very serious affair, very often, it’s quite the opposite. It’s milk-mustache charming and silliness incarnate. And that’s the way it should be. Yes, love often gets us through the most challenging times, but it’s only because love also has its humorous and cute sides that we truly appreciate it for its multidimensional force.

“All’s fair in love and basketball.” — Quincy, Love and Basketball
“My soul and your soul are forever tangled.” — N.R. Hart
“Love is being stupid together.” — Paul Valery
”When I saw you I fell in love, and you smiled because you knew.” ― Arrigo Boito
”It was love at first sight, at last sight, at ever and ever sight.” ― Vladimir Nabokov
“When you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.” — Harry Burns, When Harry Met Sally
“Your love is better than ice cream.” — Sarah McLachlan

Inspirational Love Quotes

When life gets so dark it cannot be endured, love gets us through. When hope for something better doesn’t come through, love mends us, too. And when the time in the hourglass has come to its end, its love, once again, that starts us anew. For all of us, love is an inspiration. Love is life, and nowhere is that more evident than inspirational quotes about love. They remind us that life, hope, and time come back to life under love’s gentle hand.

“One is loved because one is loved. No reason is needed for loving.” — Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist
“And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” — The Holy Bible
“Love is the whole thing. We are only pieces.” — Rumi
“If you remember me, then I don’t care if everyone else forgets.” — Haruki Murakami
“You know it’s love when all you want is that person to be happy, even if you’re not part of their happiness.” — Julia Robers
“If I had to choose between breathing and loving you I would use my last breath to tell you I love you.” — DeAnna Anderson
“Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction.” — Antoine de Saint-Exupery
“One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life: That word is love.” ― Sophocles

Love Quotes From Movies and Books

There is nothing like a good story to reflect back to us the love we desire, and the best books and movies often have love at their center. These stories make us forget our disappointment at love gone wrong and make us feel seen when love sends us soaring. As such, the love quotes from movies and books become some of our most repeated, moved adored lines. We tend to repeat them loudly and often, and they’re just the remedy we need when our love tank threatens to run dry.

“You make me want to be a better man.” – Melvin Udall, As Good as It Gets
“You complete me.” — Jerry Maguire, Jerry Maguire
“Any man has a chance to sweep any woman off her feet. He just needs the right broom.” — Alex Hitchens, Hitch
“So it’s not gonna be easy. It’s gonna be really hard. We’re gonna have to work at this every day, but I want to do that because I want you. I want all of you, forever, you and me, every day…” – Noah Calhoun, The Notebook
“I’m not a smart man… but I know what love is.” — Forrest Gump, Forrest Gump
“That moment when you kiss someone, and everything around you becomes hazy, and the only thing in focus is you and this person, and you realize that that person is the only person that you’re suppose to kiss for the rest of your life.” — Josie Geller, Never Been Kissed
“Well, it was a million tiny little things that, when you added them all up, they meant we were supposed to be together… and I knew it. I knew it the very first time I touched her. It was like coming home… only to no home I’d ever known… I was just taking her hand to help her out of a car and I knew. It was like… magic.” – Sam Baldwin, Sleepless in Seattle
“There are only four questions of value in life, Don Octavio. What is sacred? Of what is the spirit made? What is worth living for, and what is worth dying for? The answer to each is the same: only love.” – Don Juan, Don Juan DeMarco
“My love, I cannot tell you how thankful I am for our little infinity. I wouldn’t trade it for the world. You gave me a forever within the numbered days, and I’m grateful.” — Hazel Grace Lancaster, The Fault in Our Stars
“People do fall in love. People do belong to each other because that’s the only chance that anyone’s got for true happiness.” — Paul Varjak, Breakfast at Tiffany’s
“Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.” — Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land
“I have loved her even when I hated her…” – Cal Weaver, Crazy, Stupid, Love
“What do you want? You want the moon? Just say the word and I’ll throw a lasso around it and pull it down. Hey, that’s a pretty good idea. I’ll give you the moon.” — George Bailey, It’s a Wonderful Life
“You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.” — Mr. Darcy, Pride and Prejudice
“I think… if it is true that there are as many minds as there are heads, then there are as many kinds of love as there are hearts.” — Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

Love Quotes for Your Mom

While nothing might be more American than mom and apple pie, moms themselves express their love through apple pie and love American style. That is, our moms are our first soccer coaches, our cheerleaders, and a better cook than we may ever be. They’re grace under fire, and passionate love embodied. These quotes celebrate our moms in all their facets and quirks.

“My mother’s love has always been a sustaining force for our family, and one of my greatest joys is seeing her integrity, her compassion, her intelligence reflected in my daughters.” — Michelle Obama
“A mother is your first friend, your best friend, your forever friend.” ― Amit Kalantri, Wealth of Words
“Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children.” — William Makepeace Thackeray
“He didn’t realize that love as powerful as your mother’s for you leaves its own mark.” — JK Rowling
“Youth fades; love droops; the leaves of friendship fall; a mother’s secret hope outlives them all.” — Oliver Wendell Holmes
“There is no greater heaven the heart of a loving mother.” ― Bangambiki Habyarimana, The Great Pearl of Wisdom
“He who loses his mother loses a pure soul who blesses and guards him constantly.” ― Kahlil Gibran
“Ever wondered what melts like wax for the suffering of her children and hardens like granite to protect them? — The heart of a mother.” ― Rohit Dharupta, Order of the World
“When you look into your mother’s eyes, you know that is the purest love you can find on this earth.” — Mitch Albom
“She is the creature of life, the giver of life, and the giver of abundant love, care and protection. Such are the great qualities of a mother. The bond between a mother and her child is the only real and purest bond in the world, the only true love we can ever find in our lifetime.” ― Ama H.Vanniarachchy
“We love our mother unknowingly, and only realize how deep-rooted that love is at the ultimate separation.” ― Guy de Maupassant
”We are born of love; love is our mother.” — Rumi

Love Quotes for Your Dad

For our dads, love is often revealed in the fixed bike tire, the ride home from school, and a treehouse in the backyard. It’s also revealed in the hard lessons of the first time you got grounded, and the last time you said goodbye before college. Few things mean as much to us as our dad’s love, and few things feel so concrete. These love quotes for dads are a celebration of the first great love of our lives and our lifelong friend: our dad.

“Fathers are the first friend you make and the last love of your life.” — Anonymous
“The heart of a father is the masterpiece of nature.” ― Prevost Abbe, Manon Lescaut
“That was when the world wasn’t so big and I could see everywhere. It was when my father was a hero and not a human.” ― Markus Zusak, I Am the Messenger
“When he died, I went about like a ragged crow telling strangers, “My father died, my father died.” My indiscretion embarrassed me, but I could not help it. Without my father on his Delhi rooftop, why was I here? Without him there, why should I go back? Without that ache between us, what was I made of?”― Kiran Desai
“My dad’s my best mate, and he always will be.” — Cher Lloyd
“When my father didn’t have my hand, he had my back.” — Linda Poindexter
“If there is any immortality to be had among us human beings, it is certainly only in the love that we leave behind. Fathers like mine don’t ever die.” — Leo Buscaglia
“A father is someone you look up to no matter how tall you grow.” — Anonymous
“There is nothing that moves a loving father’s soul quite like his child’s cry.” ― Joni Eareckson Tada
“Old as she was, she still missed her Daddy sometimes.” — Glorida Naylor
“Lately all my friends are worried they’re turning into their fathers. I’m worried I’m not.” — Dan Zevin

Love Quotes for Your Siblings

Often, the people who grow to be our best friends grew up sleeping in the bunk next to us. Our siblings are our first friends and sometimes, rivals and best confidants. These love quotes for siblings capture the unique relationships we have with our sisters and brothers in all the myriad flavors that sibling love comes in.

“Acquaintances were always on their best behavior, but sisters loved each other enough to say anything.” — Lauren Weisberger
When brothers agree, no fortress is so strong as their common life.” — Antisthenes
“ There is a little boy inside the man who is my brother… Oh, how I hated that little boy. And how I love him too.” — Anna Quindlen
“I’m the big sister. I want to make sure she has everything, even if I don’t have anything. It’s hard. I love her too much. That’s what counts.” — Venus Williams
“ After a girl is grown, her little brothers — now her protectors — seem like big brothers.” — Terri Guillemets
“Is solace anywhere more comforting than that in the arms of a sister?” — Alice Walker
“ Brothers and sisters are as close as hands and feet.” — Vietnamese Proverb
“If you don’t understand how a woman could both love her sister dearly and want to wring her neck at the same time, then you were probably an only child.” — Linda Sunshine

Love Quotes for Your Friends

Right now, there are two popular sayings going around — “You’re my brother from another mother” or “You’re my sister from another mister” — that capture the bond that happens between good friends. Our best friends are only a phone call away when our heart breaks and close as our shirts when times get tough. These love quotes about friends allow us to celebrate those in our lives who are close enough to be siblings, but siblings by chance and by choice.

“Friendship is another word for love.” — Anonymous
“A friend knows the song in my heart and sings it to me when my memory fails.” — Donna Roberts
“That’s when I realized what a true friend was. Someone who would always love you—the imperfect you, the confused you, the wrong you—because that is what people are supposed to do.” — Anonymous
“Try to be a rainbow in someone’s cloud.” — Maya Angelou
“Rare as is true love, true friendship is rarer.” — Jean de La Fontaine
“A friend is what the heart needs all the time.” — Henry van Dyke
“How beautiful it is to find someone who asks for nothing but your company.” — Brigitte Nicole
“It’s not that diamonds are a girl’s best friend, but it’s your best friends who are your diamonds.” — Gina Barreca
“Share your smile with the world. It’s a symbol of friendship and peace.” — Christie Brinkley
“Many people will walk in and out of your life, but only true friends will leave footprints in your heart.” — Eleanor Roosevelt
“Nobody can avoid falling in love. They might want to deny it, but friendship is probably the most common form of love.” — Stieg Larsson
“A friend is one who overlooks your broken fence and admires the flowers in your garden.” — Anonymous

Poignant Love Quotes

Love everlasting. It’s one of life’s most poignant and special promises. It’s as close as we get to a guarantee that eternity exists. It’s the first flower of spring and the last red leaves of fall and everything in between. While it’s difficult to capture the true essence of love at its most poignant, we can certainly try. These poignant love quotes remind you that tough times never last but love at its most poignant always does.

“To be fully seen by somebody, then, and be loved anyhow – this is a human offering that can border on miraculous.” — Elizabeth Gilbert
“Because of you, I can feel myself slowly, but surely, becoming the me I have always dreamed of being.” — Tyler Knott Gregson
“Pleasure of love lasts but a moment. Pain of love lasts a lifetime.” — Bette Davis
“True love is rare, and it’s the only thing that gives life real meaning.” ― Nicholas Sparks
“What we have once enjoyed we can never lose. All that we love deeply becomes a part of us.” — Helen Keller
“If I know what love is, it is because of you.” — Hermann Hesse
“You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.” — The Buddha
“Love is shown more in deeds than in words.” — Saint Ignatius
“Never love anyone who treats you like you’re ordinary.” — Oscar Wilde

Final Thoughts on I Love You Quotes

Oh, love, most sublime! How we love thee. How we long for thee. How we pursue thee with a passion that’s second to none. Love is both as individual as two lovers and as universal as mankind. In these quotes about love, we celebrate love in all its many forms. May they inspire you to ever higher heights!

For more inspirational quotes and messages, see our in-depth guides to:

Petal Republic Team

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We are a floristry, plant, and lifestyle city resource curated by a passionate team of horticulturists, floral & plant enthusiasts, budding designers, and intrepid urban gardeners. We're committed to showcasing the best in floral and plant design, sharing our experience and recommendations on the best blooms and greenery for every occasion, season, and living environment, and spreading our love of the enchanting world of flowers and plants.