The Quote Garden ™

I dig old books. ™

Est. 1998
Quotations about Relationships
It is hard to exist. Man is a knot into which relationships are tied... ~Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Flight to Arras, 1942, translated from the French by Lewis Galantière
Cling tight to the hearts that will not let you fall. ~Emily Dickinson
Sometimes, in a relationship, we fail to put two and two together because we want so much to keep one and one together. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
Then clasp my hand with closer hold,
True hearts are never unconsoled,—
They fear not care, nor cloud, nor cold,
And smile at growing old!
~Elizabeth Chase Akers Allen (1832–1911), "November," c.1864
There are days when you need someone who just wants to be your sunshine and not the air you breathe. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
[I]f any one had asked what gifts she desired most, she would have answered with a look more pathetic than any shivering child had given her: "I want the sound of a loving voice; the touch of a friendly hand." ~Louisa May Alcott, "Seamstress," Work: A Story of Experience, 1873
To truly know someone is to know the silence that stands for the thing they never speak of. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
For lack of an occasional expression of love, a relationship strong at the seams can wear thin in the middle. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
Those who need us give us a hold upon life. ~Marie Dubsky, Freifrau von Ebner-Eschenbach (1830–1916), translated by Mrs Annis Lee Wister, 1882
Sometimes it is the person closest to us who must travel the furthest distance to be our friend. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
We need sympathy; hence we crave friendship and love. By the devotion of the other we feel our own power, our own value enhanced. Love tends to make man kinder and better through his complete identification with the existence of another. In the beauty of a loving attachment, man learns to comprehend all his fellowmen and to value and look at all the world by the glorious light of an inner community of emotions. ~Bernard S. Talmey, M.D., Love: A Treatise on the Science of Sex-Attraction, For the Use of Physicians and Students of Medical Jurisprudence, 1915
It's not about finding fun things to do. It's about finding someone in whose company, it's all fun. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com, 2018
In the end, who among us does not choose to be a little less right to be a little less lonely. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
As important as shared memories is the silent agreement that certain things never happened. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
This world abounds indeed with misery: to lighten its burthen we must divide it with one another. ~Thomas Jefferson, 1786
There is nothing that quite draws us to another human being like the discovery that we have the power to make them happy. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
They say the world is round, and yet
I often think it square;
So many little hurts we get
From corners here and there.
But one great truth in life I've found,
While journeying to the West:
The only folks who really wound
Are those we love the best...
The choicest garb, the sweetest grace
Are oft to strangers shown;
The careless mien, the frowning face
Are given to our own.
We flatter those we scarcely know;
We please the fleeting guest;
And deal full many a thoughtless blow
To those who love us best...
~Ella Wheeler Wilcox, "Life's Scars," 1896
In the end there doesn't have to be anyone who understands you. There just has to be someone who wants to. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
Caresses, expressions of one sort or another, are necessary to the life of the affections, as leaves are to the life of a tree. If they are wholly restrained, love will die at the roots. ~Nathaniel Hawthorne
More important than how your day goes is having someone in your life to ask how it went. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
With half a laugh of hearty zest
I strip me of my coat and vest.
Then heeding not the frigid air,
I fling away my underwear.
So, having nothing else to doff,
I rip my epidermis off.
More secrets to acquaint you with
I pare my bones to strips of pith.
And when the exposé is done
I hang, a cobweb skeleton.
While there you sit, aloof, remote,
And will not shed your overcoat.
~Tom Prideaux (1908–1993), "We Meet Again," c.1924
In the best of relationships you have two people who cannot think of anything that was not part of the deal. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
...he caught her in his arms as if she were a spar and he a drowning sailor. They made up like young lovers and swore oaths that they would never quarrel again — oaths which, fortunately for the variety of their future existence, they found capable of infinite breaking and mending. ~Rupert Hughes, "Baby Talk," In a Little Town, 1917
Sticks and stones are hard on bones.
Aimed with angry art,
Words can sting like anything,
But silence breaks the heart.
~Phyllis McGinley, "A Choice of Weapons," 1950s
...the wounded souls of Bayard and Leila forgot discretion. They wrangled wildly well. ~Rupert Hughes, The Thirteenth Commandment, 1916
When something is missing in your life, it usually turns out to be someone. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
Dear Friend,— I felt it shelter to speak to you. ~Emily Dickinson, letter to Thomas Wentworth Higginson, 1878
You can be happy with someone who likes you despite your faults — until you meet someone who likes your faults. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
Sooner or later we realize that we will only be offered imperfect people to love. ~Dr. SunWolf, @wordwhispers, tweet, 2016, professorsunwolf.com
The people in your life who don't need an invitation still like to get one. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
When God is thundering the last world into oblivion,
And quenching the farthest star,
And putting blackness around,
We two will cling to each other.
~Mary Carolyn Davies, "Love-songs," 1915
It is usually the case that people who know you better than you know yourself think you're a pretty good person. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
To know when to go away and when to come closer is the key to any lasting relationship. ~Doménico Cieri Estrada
A lovers' quarrel is always about every quarrel you ever had. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
What we find in a soulmate is not something wild to tame but something wild to run with. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
Let us thank God... that we can love our friends, our brothers and our sisters, and weep when they are gone, and smile at their return. It is indeed a joy which we are blest to know. ~Emily Dickinson, letter to brother, 1854
Happiness is having a dream you cannot let go of and a partner who would never ask you to. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
The I that does not love you
I have kept hidden away
In the dark.
(I never dreamed
There was a You
That does not love me!)
Tonight they met.
I hear their words
Falling like icicles
Upon me…
I am frozen in terror…
Have they killed the You
That Loves me?
Belovèd, can you hear me
Through the bitter sound
Of icicles falling?
Can you see me from behind
Your frozen eyes?
~Marjorie Allen Seiffert, "Winter Night," A Woman of Thirty, 1919
Some people come into our lives and quickly go. Some stay for a while, leave footprints on our hearts, and we are never, ever the same. ~Flavia Marie Register Weedn (1929–2015), Forever, 1999, https://flavia.gallery
So often the end of a love affair is death by a thousand cuts, so often its survival is life by a thousand stitches. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
Sometimes, we need a few people in our lives who will calmly call our bluff. ~Dr. SunWolf, professorsunwolf.com
Eventually, if you're lucky in life, you find someone with the same chemical imbalance you have. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
There are times when two people need to step apart from one another, but there is no rule that says they have to turn and fire. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
It is possible to live a simple, uncomplicated life, but we usually call it by a different name. We call it loneliness. ~Robert Brault, 2017, rbrault.blogspot.com
When you have nobody you can make a cup of tea for, when nobody needs you, that's when I think life is over. ~Audrey Hepburn (1929–1993)
It is one of life's curious puzzles how two people walking arm-in-arm can end up in different places. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
Today, befriend a stranger, or if you feel up to more of a challenge, befriend a loved one. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
But, once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human beings infinite distances continue to exist, a wonderful living side by side can grow up, if they succeed in loving the distance between them which makes it possible for each to see the other whole and against a wide sky! ~Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by Jane Bannard Greene and M. D. Herter Norton
Most often the person for whom you would climb any mountain and swim any sea would settle for a little conversation at dinner. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
There are couples a matchmaker would match every time — and couples who, for no rhyme or reason, rhyme. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
If God had intended us to be alone, there would be more pleasure in massaging our own shoulders. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
Sometimes two people need to step apart
and make a space between
that each might see the other anew,
in a glance across a room
or silhouetted against the moon.
~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
We are, many of us, a planet orbiting somebody's sun, unconscious of a lonely moon, orbiting our planet. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
Once you find someone to share your ups and downs, downs are almost as good as ups. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com
published 2003 Dec 8
revised 2021 Feb 21
last saved 2025 Jan 20
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