You know that the language of love just has to have some good quotes on the topic of love. It’s true, the French language has a great many quotes on the topic of love. My personal favorite is one by George Sand. George Sand was actually a woman named Amandine Aurore Lucile Dupin; she was a writer who took on this pen name. This quote, her most famous, goes like this in French: “Il n’y a qu’un bonheur dans la vie, c’est d’aimer et d’être aimé.”
In English, this is translated as:
“There is only one happiness in life, to love and be loved.”
Another quote which expresses the joy and power of love comes from Desbordes-Valmore, who had this to say: “Entre deux coeurs qui s’aiment, nul besoin de paroles.” This is translated as: “Two hearts in love need no words.” Now was he referring to romantic love or universal?
But the French have more to comment about than the happy side of love, which is reflected in this quote by Marcel Proust: “On n’aime que ce qu’on ne possède pas tout entier.”
The somewhat tragic truth of this statement reads in English: “We love only what we do not wholly possess.” In this quote, Proust neatly sums up the often illusory nature of love.
And then we have the downright cynical, from the mind of Paul Valery, translated as “Love is being stupid together.” Not quite the image of romance, is it?
For more in this vein, check out this one by Jules Renard: “Love is like an hourglass, with the heart filling up as the brain empties”. I don’t suppose Monsieru Renard agreed with Antoine Saint-Exupery, author of the popular classic “The Little Prince”, who wrote “And now here is my secret, a very simple secret; it is only with the heart that one can see rightly, what is essential is invisible to the eye.”
Fortunately for people who appreciate romance, there are many such French quotes to counter the cynics.
