What attracts us in a woman rarely binds us to her.

He drew a circle that shut me out-- heretic, rebel, a thing to flout. But love and I had the wit to win: we drew a circle that took him in.

Getting divorced just because you don't love a man is almost as silly as getting married just because you do.

The most self-destructive impulse that afflicts young men is the desire to be honest with young women.

Peace is defined not by the absence of hate, but by the presence of love.

He isn't impressed so much with the dimensions of our work as the love with which it is done.

[Disinterested love] sees creatures for what they are, means to the possession of God. It uses them only as means and thus arrives successfully at the end, which is God. But cupidity is doomed from the start to frustration because it is based on a false system of values. It takes created things for ends in themselves, which they are not. The will that seeks rest in creatures for their own sake stops on the way to its true end, terminates in a value which does not exist, and thus frustrates all its deepest capacities for happiness and peace.

God desires love because it leads to intimate relationships, Satan desires tolerance because it leads to superficial relationships.

Lust is rooted in biology, love is a matter of chemistry, and sex is a matter of physics. To really get kinky, however, requires engineering.

One who is in love with himself has at least this advantage -- he won't encounter many rivals.

It is estimated that 85% of arranged marriages work out.

What do little kids know about love? Read on and be surprised that despite their young and innocent minds, kids already have a simple but deep grasp of that four-letter word. "Love is that first feeling you feel before all the bad stuff gets in the way. When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn't bend over and paint her toenails anymore. So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. That's love. When someone loves you, the way she says your name is different. You know that your name is safe in her mouth. Love is when a girl puts on perfume and a boy puts on shaving cologne and they go out and smell each other. Love is what makes you smile when you're tired. Love is what's in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents for a minute and look around. When you tell someone something bad about yourself and you're scared she won't love you anymore. But then you get surprised because not only does she still love you, she loves you even more. Love is when you tell a guy you like his shirt, then he wears it everyday. Love is like a little old woman and a little old man who are still friends even after they know each other so well."

KIDS ON LOVE AND ROMANCE: SOME SUREFIRE WAYS TO MAKE A PERSON FALL IN LOVE WITH YOU "Tell them that you own a whole bunch of candy stores." (Del, age 6) "Shake your hips and hope for the best." (Camille, age 9) "Yell out that you love them at the top of your lungs ... and don't worry if their parents are right there." (Manuel, age 8) "Don't do things like have smelly, green sneakers. You might get attention, but attention ain't the same thing as love." (Alonzo, age 9) "One way is to take the girl out to eat. Make sure it's something she likes to eat. French fries usually works for me." (Bart, age 9) HOW A PERSON LEARNS TO KISS "You can have a big rehearsal with your Barbie and Ken dolls." (Julia, age 7) "You learn it right on the spot when the gooshy feelings get the best of you." (Brian, age 7) "It might help to watch soap operas all day." (Carin, age 9) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ WHEN IS IT OKAY TO KISS SOMEONE? "When they're rich." (Pam, age 7) "It's never okay to kiss a boy. They always slobber all over you. That's why I stopped doing it." (Tammy, age 7) "If it's your mother, you can kiss her anytime. But if it's a new person, you have to ask permission." (Roger, age 6) "I look at kissing like this: Kissing is fine if you like it, but it's a free country and nobody should be forced to do it." (Dave, age 8) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ WHAT MOST PEOPLE ARE THINKING WHEN THEY SAY "I LOVE YOU"? "The person is thinking: Yeah, I really do love him. But I hope he showers at least once a day." (Michelle, age 9) "Some lovers might be real nervous, so they are glad that they finally got it out and said it and now they can go eat." (Dick, age 7)

"In this world no one rules by love; if you are but amiable, you are no hero; to be powerful, you must be strong, and to have dominion you must have a genius for organizing."

When you're away, I'm restless, lonely, Wretched, bored, dejected; only Here's the rub, my darling dear I feel the same when you are near.

If God had a refrigerator, your picture would be on it. If God had a wallet, your photo would be in it. He sends you flowers every spring and a sunrise every morning. When you want to talk, He'll listen. He could live anywhere in the universe and yet He chose your heart. And remember that Christmas gift He sent you in Bethlehem? Not to mention that Friday at Calvary. Face it. He's crazy about you! Remember: God answers knee-mail!

Barrie tells us how, in the little house at Thrums, they used to tiptoe to and fro when his mother was upon her knees, awed by the knowledge that she was praying for them. And here and there in the Hew Testament, we blunder in on Christ and find Him on His knees; and, once at least, ere we can escape, cannot but overhear Him pleading our names. "Neither pray I for these alone," that is, for Peter and John and the rest, "but for those who will believe through them" -- that is, for you and me. Hush! the Lord Christ is praying for you! And what is it He asks for us? That we be given such a spirit of unity and brotherliness and Christlikeness that people, coming upon us, will look at us, and look again, and then from us to Jesus Christ, seeking the explanation of us there. My note on using this: have you ever overheard someone praying for you?

If you don't like someone, the way he holds his spoon makes you furious; if you like him, he can turn his plate over into your lap and you won't mind.

What would the apostle Paul have said about love in 2003? If I speak with the confidence of Rush Limbaugh and sing with the ease of Celine Dion, but don't have love, my words are like scraping fingernails on a frozen windshield. If I can hack into the Pentagon's classified files and outsmart my chemistry professor, if I can memorize the Psalms and read Leviticus without dozing, if I can predict the future, but have not love, my value is equal to a pitcher of warm spit. If I give my entire wardrobe to Goodwill or let my little sister rummage through my closet, if I go to the stake and fry as a martyr, or if I donate a gallon of blood every hour, but don't have love, my offerings are useless. Love is patient, even if it means skipping a trip to 31 Flavors in order to tutor an immigrant. Love is kind; it doesn't tell racial jokes, believe stereotypes, pass on rumors, or take advantage of others. Love does not envy the basketball team captain, the National Merit finalist, the class president, or even the blonde who sports the best tan. Love doesn't get a swelled head over straight A's or a scholarship to Princeton. Love isn't snooty about a new Corvette or a season pass to the world's premiere ski resort. Love never jeers at the overweight kid who hangs out of his T-shirt in PE. Love smiles when getting cut off on the interstate. Love submits an honest tax return. Love doesn't whine about the referee's bad call. Love believes that God always provides the best stuff in life. Love hangs on to hope when the family is splitting apart. Love does not change like hemlines and hairdos. Love is like the Energizer Bunny; it keeps going and going. In the end, only three things will remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Get a picture of Jesus, some darts, and some blank paper. Cover the Jesus with paper. Tell everyone you're going to engage in some therapy: draw a picture of a person who makes you mad and draw it on the paper. Throw darts at the paper. Then take the paper off, and show them the picture of Jesus. "As you have done it unto the least of my brothers you have done it unto me."

Thrifty Car Rental sponsors an annual Honeymoon Disasters Contest (www.honeymoondisasters.com), and they have received stories on everything from mudslides to Montezuma's revenge. For example, on their way to Nevada, Paul and Leah Lusk of Sugar City, Idaho, flipped their car into floodwaters. When they emerged, Paul, who had hit his head, couldn't remember the accident, recognize his bride, or recall he'd just been married. Then there is the story of Chris and Doug of Clovis, California, who honeymooned in Cancun, Mexico. They lounged by the pool, ate terrific seafood buffets, and went dancing. Back at the hotel, six-foot-three, 255-pound Doug playfully threw his bride on the bed. He landed on her and broke two bones in her right leg. Three hours, one plate, and eight screws later, Chris was left with an $11,000 hospital bill that insurance wouldn't cover. Mae and Kyle of Richmond, Virginia, who were finalists in Thrifty's contest last year, were forced to listen to the comedian on their cruise ship joke about the Titanic movie. Then the couple awoke to the horrible sound of crunching metal and the captain's order to abandon ship. Their lifeboat made it to shore in St. Maarten, where the cruise line put them up at a nudist colony.

By Uwe Siemon-Netto UPI Religion Editor From the Life & Mind Desk Published 3/12/2003 5:50 PM View printer-friendly version WASHINGTON, March 12 (UPI) -- For Jennifer Hoes, a Dutch student, May 28 will be a doubly exciting day. She'll turn 30, and she'll be a blushing bride -- plus her own groom. In the Trouwzaal, or wedding room, of the City Hall of Haarlem in the Netherlands, Jennifer will marry herself. Bedecked in a wedding gown studded with 200 perfect latex copies of her own nipples, Jennifer will appear before Ruud Grondel, Haarlem's registrar, and promise to "love, respect and honor" herself in good times and in bad, according to Dutch and German newspaper reports. Then Jennifer, her mother, her uncle, aunts, cousins and some other 80 relatives will indulge in a $22,000 wedding feast. That done, Jennifer's wedding garment, studs included, will wind up in the show window of the shop that manufactured it free of charges. Jennifer pretty much acknowledges that hers will be the quintessential postmodern union. "We live in a 'Me' society. Hence it is logical that one promises to be faithful to oneself," she told a reporter of Der Spiegel, the leading German newsmagazine. This leaves of course a number of unanswered questions: Will she fall for the postmodern rage and adopt a double-barreled name -- Jennifer Hoes-Hoes, for example? And what if she ceases to like herself -- will divorce be an option, and which Hoes will get the car? Indeed, what if she should fall in love with somebody else deeply enough to wed him -- must she first send herself packing? In case she doesn't but still says, "I do," to the guy, would this be considered an act of bigamy? Could she go to jail for that? "There's room for two rings of my finger," she said. In more ways than one, Jennifer ought to be congratulated. Intentionally or unintentionally, she is taking the Mickey out of a nutty society determined to deconstruct matrimony, a state most religions and cultures have since time immemorial held up as holy and essential for the health of communities and nations. To be sure, Jennifer's auto-marriage will be a secular event. But, rest assured, it won't be long before some churches and synagogues will give such unions their blessing. To paraphrase Malcolm Muggeridge, there is no cause mad enough not to enlist the services of demented clergymen strumming their guitars. Think of those Dutch, Danish, German and indeed American clerics asking men and men and women and women to kiss each other after they appeared with white carnations in their lapels before the altar. Think of the pastors sealing these unions with the sign of the cross. Think of Bob Edgar, general secretary of the National Council of Churches of Christ, who in the year 2000 withdrew his signature from an interdenominational "Marriage Declaration" defining matrimony as a union between a man and a woman. At their ordination, all these ministers promised to uphold Scripture, which makes it very clear that marriage between man and woman is an order of creation. It an essential element in man's role as God's cooperator in the ongoing process of creation. Seen from the monotheistic perspective, Jennifer's "marriage" is the quintessence of idolatry; it is a bow before what Christopher Hershman, a pastor and psychologist in Allentown, Pa., calls the "postmodern Trinity": Me, Myself and I. Jennifer doesn't say, but perhaps she got the idea of marrying herself after years of observing same-sex pairs of seemingly identical twins all over the place. If so, she is to be commended. What better way mock a culture, which is so much into itself that its generally youthful exponents -- their mobile phones glued to their ears -- keep banging into you in the street because they simply do not see you unless you look precisely like them. Whatever folly visits Holland will soon cross the Atlantic. That's a rule of thumb. One shudders to think of the ornaments on the wedding gowns worn at one-person weddings and then exhibited in American malls. By God, if any mad event underscores the need for a federal amendment declaring marriage as a union solely between a man and a woman -- an amendment introduced in Congress in 2001 -- Jennifer Hoes's wedding will certainly fit the bill. Look at Haarlem, the Netherlands, on May 28, and sniff the postmodern rot. This might well become America's future -- or, rather, no future at all.

When it comes time to die, make sure all you have to do is die.

Love means to love that which is unlovable, or it is no virtue at all; forgiving means to pardon that which is unpardonable, or it is no virtue at all.

You learn to speak by speaking, to study by studying, to run by running, to work by working; and just so, you learn to love... by loving. All those who think to learn in any other way deceive themselves.

Our calling and purpose as followers of Christ is to love God completely, to love self correctly, and to love others compassionately.

We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love, one another. -- Jonathan Swift

Engrave this upon my heart: There isn’t anyone you couldn’t love once you’ve heard their story. -- Mary Lou Kownacki, OSB

To love a person means to see him as God intended him to be. -- Dostoevsky

If you could only love enough, you could be the most powerful person in the world. -- Emmett Fox

What's the difference between infatuation and love? Infatuation is when you think that he's as sexy as Robert Redford, as smart as Stephen Hawking, as noble as Aleksandr Solhenitsyn, as funny as Robin Williams, and as athletic as Arnold Swartzenegger. Love is when you realize he's as sexy as Stephen Hawking, as smart as Arnold Swartzenegger, as funny as Aleksandr Solhenitsyn, as athletic as Robin Williams, and nothing at all like Robert Redford, but you take him anyway.

To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to be sure to keep it in tact, you must give your heart to no one. Lock it up, safe in the coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless it will change. It will not be broken, but it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The only place outside of heaven where you can be safe from all the dangers of love is hell. -- C. S. Lewis

Love is the answer, but while you're waiting for the answer, sex raises some pretty good questions. --Woody Allen

Patience with others is Love, Patience with self is Hope, Patience with God is Faith. -- Adel Bestavros

Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing; a confusion of the real with the ideal never goes unpunished. -- Goethe

To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to be sure to keep it in tact, you must give your heart to no one. Lock it up, safe in the coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless it will change. It will not be broken, but it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The only place outside of heaven where you can be safe from all the dangers of love is hell. --

Anger is the fluid that love bleeds when you cut it.

What are the four degrees of love? First, we love ourselves for our own sake; since we are unspiritual and of the flesh we cannot have an interest in anything that does not relate to ourselves. When we begin to see that we cannot subsist by ourselves, we begin to seek God for our own sakes. This is the second degree of love; we love God, but only for our own interests. But if we begin to worship and come to God again and again by meditating, by reading, by prayer, and by obedience, little by little God becomes known to us through experience. We enter into a sweet familiarity with God, and by tasting how sweet the Lord is we pass into the third degree of love so that now we love God, not for our own sake, but for himself. It should be noted that in this third degree we will stand still for a very long time ... Blessed are we who experience the fourth degree of love wherein we love ourselves for God's sake. Such experiences are rare and come only for a moment. In a manner of speaking, we lose ourselves as though we did not exist, utterly unconscious of ourselves and emptied of ourselves. If for even a moment we experience this kind of love, we will then know the pain of having to return to this world and its obligations as we are recalled from the state of contemplation. In turning back to ourselves we will feel as if we are suffering as we return into the mortal state in which we were called to live. But during those moments we will be of one mind with God, and our wills in one accord with God. The prayer, 'Thy will be done', will be our prayer and our delight. Just as a little drop of water mixed with a lot of wine seems to entirely lose identity as it takes on the taste and colour of wine; just as iron, heated and glowing, looks very much like fire, having lost its original appearance; just as air flooded with the light of the sun is transformed into the same splendour of the light so that it appears to be light itself, so it is like for those who melt away from themselves and are entirely transfused into the will of God. This perfect love of God with our heart, soul, mind, and strength will not happen until we are no longer compelled to think about ourselves…. Only then can the soul attend to God completely… it is within God's power to give such an experience to whom he wills, and it is not attained by our own efforts. --From On the Love of God St Bernard of Clairvaux

One of the most amazing stories to come out of World War II concernns a church leader in Bulgaria named Metropolitan Kyril. When the Nazis rounded up the Jews in his city and herded them into a barbed wire enclosure, he decided to act. The train that was supposed to take the Jews to Auschwitz pulled up at the station. The S.S. guards were just about ready to load the Jews into the box cars that would take them to the gas chambers, when suddenly, out of the darkness, Metropolitan Kyril appeared. He was a tall man to start with, but as an Orthodox priest, he wore a miter on his head, which must have made him appear like a giant as he emerged out of the darkness. He was wearing his black robes and his white beard hung over them. Marching behind him were many of the townspeople. Kyril went to the entrance of the barbed wire enclosure, which was then surrounded by his supporters. When the Nazi guards tried to stop them, he laughed at them and pushed aside their guns. He went in among the Jews and as they surrounded them, crying hysterically, he raised his hands. He quoted one Verse of Scripture, and with that verse her contibuted signifcantly to the changing destiny of a nation. Quoting from the Book of Ruth he declared to his Jewish friends, "Whither thou goest, I will go. Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God!" The Jews cheered and the Christians joined in cheering. They were no longer separate peoples. They had become on in the declaration of the Word of God. Because of such heroics, not a single Bulgarian Jew ever died in a Nazi conventration campe during World War II, in spite of the fact that Bulgaria was one of the Nazi powers. When a man is willing to lay down his life to oppose oppression and injustice, amazing things can happen.

Beware you are not swallowed up in books! An ounce of love is worth a pound of knowledge.

Does Anyone Know The Source of This Quote?

He was a lover of mankind, but he loved no man.