Honore de Balzac

Love has its own instinct, finding the way to the heart, as the feeblest insect finds the way to its flower, with a will which nothing can dismay nor turn aside.

The fact is that love is of two kinds, one which commands, and one which obeys. The two are quite distinct, and the passion to which the one gives rise is not the passion of the other.

Nobody loves a woman because she is handsome or ugly, stupid or intelligent. We love because we love.

A woman knows the face of the man she loves as a sailor knows the open sea.

Love is the poetry of the senses.

The more one judges, the less one loves.

True love is eternal, infinite, and always like itself. It is equal and pure, without violent demonstrations: it is seen with white hairs and is always young in the heart.

Nothing so fortifies a friendship as a belief on the part of one friend that he is superior to the other.