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Quotations about Kissing
Though the honeymoon is sweet,
Harken, brides, a true word this is,—
Even lovers have to eat.
~Louise Bennett Weaver and Helen Cowles LeCron, "June," A Thousand Ways to Please a Husband with Bettina's Best Recipes, 1917
A kiss is the outward visible sign of an inward fever. ~Minna Thomas Antrim (1861–1950), Phases, Mazes, and Crazes of Love, 1904
Kissing is one of the cheapest and healthiest luxuries of the season, and don't show any disposition to go out of fashion, and will keep sweet in any climate. ~Josh Billings (Henry Wheeler Shaw, 1818–1885), "Kissing Considered"
When soul meets soul on lovers' lips... ~Percy Bysshe Shelley, "The Moon," Prometheus Unbound, 1820
In that last kiss I gave her all my soul,
My being and my breathing and the whole
Of what I am and what I am to be.
~Robinson Jeffers, "Northward-Bound"
Stars encircle me when your lips lean down to mine, there is the sound of many waters falling. There is the murmur of a million nightingales, — and the flash of brilliant lightning. ~Blanche Shoemaker Wagstaff
...kisses are a better fate
than wisdom...
~E.E. Cummings
...I can forget my very existence in a deep kiss of you. ~Byron Caldwell Smith (1849–1877), letter to Kate Stephens (1853–1938)
O kiss me into faintness sweet and dim! ~Alexander Smith, "A Life-Drama"
All other caresses are valueless without a kiss; for is not a kiss the very autograph of Love? ~Henry Theophilus Finck (1854–1926), "The Language of Love," Romantic Love and Personal Beauty, 1887
A kiss is the heart's autograph. ~James Lendall Basford (1845–1915), Seven Seventy Seven Sensations, 1897
A kiss can be a comma, a question mark or an exclamation point. That's basic spelling that every woman ought to know. ~Mistinguett (Jeanne-marie Bourgeois, 1875–1956), as quoted in Theatre Arts, 1955
KISS. A sigh set to music. ~Noah Lott (George V. Hobart), The Silly Syclopedia, 1905
A kiss is remembered, when kisses are forgotten. ~Minna Thomas Antrim (1861–1950), Phases, Mazes, and Crazes of Love, 1904
Girl, when he gives you kisses twain,
use one, and let the other stay;
And hoard it, for moons die, red fades,
and you may need a kiss—some day.
~Frederic Ridgely Torrence, The House of a Hundred Lights: A Psalm of Experience After Reading a Couplet of Bidpai, 1899
A kiss is the soul's cocktail. ~Noah Lott (George V. Hobart), The Silly Syclopedia, 1905
A kiss, when all is told, what is it? An oath taken a little closer, a promise more exact. A wish which longs to be confirmed, a rosy dot placed on the i in loving, a secret whispered to the mouth instead of the ear, a moment of infinity humming like a bee, a communion tasting of flowers, a way of breathing in a little of the heart and tasting a little of the soul with the edge of the lips! ~Edmond Rostand, Cyrano de Bergerac, 1897, translated from French
She laid her blushing face in his chest. The stars were twinkling, and they could no longer find words. How did it happen that their lips met? How does it happen that the birds sing, that the snow melts, that the rose unfolds, that May bursts into life, that dawn lights behind the silhouetted trees on the rustling hilltops? One kiss, and all was said. They trembled and gazed upon one another in the darkness with dazzling eyes. Cosette's soul quivered on her lips like a dewdrop on a flower. ~Victor Hugo, Les Misérables, 1862
I have swung to the uttermost reaches of pain,
'Mid the echo of sighs, and a deluge of rain,
But ah! I rebound to the limits of bliss,
On the rapturous swing of an infinite kiss.
~Georgia Douglas Camp Johnson (1880–1966), "Pendulum," The Heart of a Woman and Other Poems, 1918
It's sad when two people who could never part without a kiss come to the point where they never part and so never kiss. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
The time not spent in kissing you is chaff
Gone windily away; is desert bones;
Is the lost acorn; the discarded half
Of ore from which were plucked the golden stones...
~Mark Van Doren, A Winter Diary And Other Poems, 1935
O Love, O fire! once he drew
With one long kiss my whole soul through
My lips, as sunlight drinketh dew.
~Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892), "Fatima"
By my troth, I kiss thee with a most constant heart. ~William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part II, c.1597 [II, 4, Doll Tearsheet]
The sound of a kiss is not so loud as that of a cannon, but its echo lasts a deal longer. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809–1894)
Kissing is the art of extracting honey from tulips, and protecting the same against frost by careful massage and frequent watering. ~Gideon Wurdz (Charles Wayland Towne), "Kissing," Eediotic Etiquette, 1906
KISS. A wireless message from he to she, with a little peaches and cream on the side. ~Noah Lott (George V. Hobart), The Silly Syclopedia, 1905
Yesterday's yesterday while to-day's here,
To-day's to-day till to-morrow appear,
To-morrow's to-morrow until to-day's past,
And kisses are kisses as long as they last.
~Anonymous, in The Banquet Book, by Cuyler Reynolds, 1902
Oh, the sweet lies lurk in kisses! ~Heinrich Heine, translated from German by Theodore Martin
I kissed his lips, and the stone of my heart became a song. I kissed his lips, and was born again. ~James Oppenheim, The Beloved, 1915 [Trixie
A kiss is but a modified bite... ~Ambrose Bierce
A lover counts time in kisses, not years. ~Terri Guillemets
We two — we are young!
We have lips to sing,
To sing and kiss.
We two, we are glad!
We have hearts that beat,
That beat — and break.
~Mary Carolyn Davies, "Songs of a Girl: XVII," Youth Riding, 1919
A poem that he had always thought the last word in silliness became a modest expression of his own emotions — the poem in which Catallus begs Lesbia, "Give me a thousand kisses, then a hundred, then a thousand more, then a second hundred; then, when we have made up thousands galore, we shall mix them up so that we shall not know — nor any enemy be able to cast a spell because he knows — how many kisses there are." ~Rupert Hughes, "Baby Talk," In a Little Town, 1917
Give me a kisse, and to that kisse a score;
Then to that twenty, adde an hundred more;
A thousand to that hundred; so kisse on,
To make that thousand up a million;
Treble that million, and when that is done,
Let's kisse afresh, as when we first begun.
~Robert Herrick (1591–1674), "To Anthea"
What is love? 'tis not hereafter;
Present mirth hath present laughter;
What's to come is still unsure:
In delay there lies no plenty;
Then come kiss me, sweet and twenty,
Youth's a stuff will not endure.
~William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, c.1599 [II, 3, Feste]
I could see the moon a million times
and it would never lose its magic.
You could kiss me in a billion ways,
every last one would be romantic.
~Terri Guillemets
I'll smother thee with kisses...
And yet not cloy thy lips with loathed satiety,
But rather famish them amid their plenty,
Making them red and pale with fresh variety,
Ten kisses short as one, one long as twenty:
A summer's day will seem an hour but short,
Being wasted in such time-beguiling sport...
~William Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis, 1593
Give me one kiss, I'll give it thee again,
And one for interest, if thou wilt have twain...
~William Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis, 1593
Pure lips, sweet seals in my soft lips imprinted,
What bargains may I make, still to be sealing?
To sell myself I can be well contented,
So thou wilt buy and pay and use good dealing;
Which purchase if thou make, for fear of slips
Set thy seal-manual on my wax-red lips...
~William Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis, 1593
A thousand kisses buys my heart from me;
And pay them at thy leisure, one by one.
What is ten hundred touches unto thee?
Are they not quickly told and quickly gone?
Say, for non-payment that the debt should double,
Is twenty hundred kisses such a trouble?
~William Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis, 1593
...kissing speaks, with lustful language...
~William Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis, 1593
Teach not thy lips such scorn, for they were made
For kissing, lady, not for such contempt.
~William Shakespeare, Richard III, c.1592 [I, 2, Richard III (Duke of Gloucester)]
"Man was made to mourn," so warbled Burns, "and woman was made to kiss," so warbles Billings. ~Josh Billings (Henry Wheeler Shaw, 1818–1885), "Kissing Considered"
The Natural kiss is a product of spontaneous combustion arising from the too close contact of a pair of Sparks. The Artificial is the kind we sometimes manage to pucker up and explode on the person of a Baby, a Girl Chum, or a Mother-in-Law. ~Gideon Wurdz (Charles Wayland Towne), "Kissing," Eediotic Etiquette, 1906
Send your little child to bed happy. Whatever cares press, give it a warm good-night kiss as it goes to its pillow. The memory of this in the stormy years which fate may have in store for the little one will be like Bethlehem's star to the bewildered shepherds. — "My father — my mother loved me!" Fate cannot take away that blessed heart-balm. Lips parched with the world's fever will become dewy again at this thrill of youthful memories. Kiss your little child before it goes to sleep. ~Charles Bullock, 1861
Your kiss is on my face
Like the first snow
Upon a summer place.
~Mary Carolyn Davies, "Snow," Youth Riding, 1919
Oh, that kiss, his only kiss! She had hidden it in her soul. ~Guy de Maupassant (1850–1893), "Moonlight," translated by Jonathan Sturges
Drink to me, only with thine eyes,
And I will pledge with mine;
Or leave a kiss but in the cup,
And I'll not look for wine...
~Ben Jonson (1572–1637), "The Forest: To Celia"
They look'd up to the sky, whose floating glow
Spread like a rosy ocean, vast and bright;
They gazed upon the glittering sea below,
Whence the broad moon rose circling into sight;
They heard the waves splash, and the wind so low,
And saw each other's dark eyes darting light
Into each other — and, beholding this,
Their lips drew near, and clung into a kiss;
A long, long kiss, a kiss of youth, and love,
And beauty, all concentrating, like rays
Into one focus kindled from above;
Such kisses as belong to early days,
Where heart, and soul, and sense, in concert move,
And the blood 's lava, and the pulse a blaze,
Each kiss a heart-quake, — for a kiss's strength,
I think it must be reckon'd by its length...
~Lord Byron, Don Juan, 1819
Strong love paralyzes the vocal cords, leaving the functions of speech to looks, hugs, and osculation. ~Sarah L. Minchler
Kissing, for all one hears of it, has not attracted the scientists and literati; one compares its meagre literature with the endless books upon the other phenomena of love, especially divorce and obstetrics. Even Dr. Sturgeon, pioneering bravely, is unable to get beyond a sentimental and trivial view of the thing he vivisects, and so his book is no more than a compendium of mush. His very description of the act of kissing is made up of sonorous gabble about heaving bosoms, red lips, electric sparks and such-like imaginings. ~H. L. Mencken (1880–1956), "The Labial Infamy"
Of all parts of the visible body the lips are the most sensitive to contact. Here the layer in which the nerves and blood-vessels are contained is not covered over, as elsewhere on the skin, by a thick leathery epidermis, but only thinly veiled by a transparent epithelium; so that when lips are applied to lips, the blood-vessels which carry the vital fluid straight from the two loving hearts, and the soul-fibres, called nerves, are brought into almost immediate contact: whence that interchange of soul-magnetism — that electric shock which makes the first mutual kiss of Love the sweetest moment of life... ~Henry T. Finck, "Kissing — Past, Present, and Future: The Origin of Kissing," Romantic Love and Personal Beauty, 1887
Asymmetrical kisses,
the sexiest yearning —
one lip on nostalgia, the
other, love yet earning
~Terri Guillemets
I climbed up the door and opened the stairs.
I said my pajamas and put on my prayers.
I turned off the bed and crawled into the light,
And all because you kissed me goodnight.
Next morning I woke and scrambled my shoes.
I shined up an egg, then I toasted the news.
I buttered my tie and took another bite,
And all because you kissed me goodnight...
~Eddie Pola and George Wyle, "I Said My Pajamas (And Put On My Prayers)," 1949
What of soul was left, I wonder, when the kissing had to stop? ~Robert Browning
I vow to you for eternity an infinity of kisses. ~Terri Guillemets
Kiss not thy neighbor's wife, unless
Thine own thy neighbor doth caress.
~Ambrose Bierce, revised edition of the Ten Commandments "calculated for this meridian," 1906
Kisses change hue with each lover. ~Terri Guillemets
A man had given all other bliss,
And all his worldly worth for this,
To waste his whole heart in one kiss
Upon her perfect lips.
~Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892)
O Helena, goddess, nymph, perfect, divine!
To what, my love, shall I compare thine eyne?
Crystal is muddy. O, how ripe in show
Thy lips, those kissing cherries, tempting grow!
...O, let me kiss
This princess of pure white, this seal of bliss!
~William Shakespeare, Midsummer Night's Dream, c.1595 [III, 2, Demetrius]
Kiss: love professed through lips. ~Terri Guillemets
I can express no kinder sign of love
Than this kind kiss...
~William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part II, c.1590 [I, 1, Henry VI]
Our passion and kisses were stumbling — but stumbling in sync. ~Terri Guillemets, "Shaken, stirred," 1994
Were kisses all the joys in bed,
One woman would another wed.
~William Shakespeare
If I profane with my unworthiest hand
This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this:
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.
~William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, c.1594 [I, 5, Romeo]
Your kisses are no asterisk, no postscript — they're always the matter at hand. ~Terri Guillemets
Faithful are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful. ~Scottish proverb
When a thief kisses you, count your teeth. ~Proverb
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published 2000 Dec 23
revised 2021 Jul 12
www.quotegarden.com/kisses.html