Beauty is a primeval phenomenon, which itself never makes its appearance, but the reflection of which is visible in a thousand different utterances of the creative mind, and is as various as nature herself. Goethe , quoted in Johann Peter Eckermann's Conversations with Goethe , April 18, 1827. The simple lack of her is more to me than others' presence. To live is like to love-all reason is against it, and all healthy instinct for it. Samuel Butler , Life and love .
Love is, above all, the gift of oneself.
To love a thing means wanting it to live. Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own. As selfishness and complaint pervert and cloud the mind, so love with its joy clears and sharpens the vision. Helen Keller , My Religion , 1927. A poet's pleasure is to withhold a little of his meaning, to intensify by mystification.