Those whom we can love, we can hate to others we are indifferent. – Henry David Thoreau

For one human being to love another that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation. – Rainer Maria Rilke

The lover is a monotheist who knows that other people worship different gods but cannot himself imagine that there could be other gods. – Theodor Reik, Of Love and Lust, 1957