50 Classic Love Quotes From Books (Perfect for Instagram)

Love Quotes from English Literature

The thing about love is, it is hard to express it wholeheartedly! That is when classic love quotes matter!

Saying “I love you” to your partner may feel like an overused expression.

At times you need deep and meaningful words to express your affection and fondness for him/her.

This is why you should take notes of the most beautiful love quotes from literature. Classic love quotes from books to express your feelings.

From Jane Austen to Toni Morrison you can find the most romantic and beautiful literary quotes. I am sure classic literature quotes about love will never be old-fashioned!

One of my whole time favorite literary love quotes is from Russian writer Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina.

“I’ve always loved you, and when you love someone, you love the whole person, just as he or she is, and not as you would like them to be.”

These words capture the essence of love! This a beautiful quote to define love.

So if you are looking for some inspirational romantic literature quotes I’m here to help!

I have compiled a great list of romantic quotes from literature. These are a set of charming and romantic love quotes you can use on Valentine’s day cards along with Valentine’s day fifts , wedding anniversary cards, or even as wall decor.

These classic quotes are so deep and romantic that they will make great INSTAGRAM captions.

This post also has a shortlist of classic romance books & classic romance poems so that you can add them to your reading list.

So now, let’s get started with 50 classic Love quotes and books from famous authors and poets!

✅ Want to gift special someone on Valentines day? Check this- 20 Most Romantic Valentine’s Day Gifts For Book Lovers 2023

More Quotes About Love and Relationships

“There is no charm equal to tenderness of heart.”– Jane Austen

Jane Austen was an English novelist famous for romance novels such as “Sense and Sensibility “, and “Pride and Prejudice”. Most of her characters represented the upper middle class from the early 19th century.

“He’s more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.”– Emily Brontë

Emily Jane Brontë was an English novelist and poet. She was the second eldest of the Brontë sisters. Her only novel “Wuthering Heights” is considered one of the best classic novels of all time.

“Soul meets soul on lovers’ lips.”– Percy Bysshe Shelley

Percy Bysshe Shelley is considered to be one of the best lyric poets of the English language. Some of his most famous works are “Ode to the West Wind”, “To a Skylark”, and “The Masque of Anarchy”.

“Love ceases to be a pleasure when it ceases to be a secret.”- Aphra Behn

Aphra Behn was an English playwright, poet, and fiction writer. She is considered to be a literary role model for women authors as she was one of the first women professional writers. Biographer Janet Todd has written an engaging biography called- “The Secret Life of Aphra Behn”.

“Love is just a word until someone comes along and gives it meaning.”– Paulo Coelho

Paulo Coelho is a Brazilian author best known for inspiring the fable “The Alchemist”. Some of his other works include “Veronika Decides to Die”, and “Brida”

“How do you spell ‘love’?” – Piglet “You don’t spell it…you feel it.” ― A.A. Milne

Alan Alexander Milne was a British author best known as the creator of “Winnie-the-Pooh” and various other characters in children’s literature. Some of the best books from the Winnie-the-Pooh series include “Winnie-the-Pooh”, “The House At Pooh Corner” and When We Were Very Young”.

“I would like to be the air that inhabits you for a moment only. I would like to be that unnoticed and that necessary.” ― Margaret Atwood

Margaret Atwood is a Canadian author and has written more than thirty-five volumes of poetry, children’s literature, fiction, and non-fiction. She is best known for her novel “The Handmaid’s Tale”. Some of her other works include “The Robber Bride”, “Alias Grace”, “The Blind Assassin”.

“Love is like the wind, you can’t see it but you can feel it.” – Nicholas Sparks

Nicholas Sparks is one of the world’s most celebrated storytellers. All his books have been New York Times bestsellers. His popular works include “The Notebook”, “A Walk to Remember”, and “Safe Haven”.

Read more Nicholas Sparks’ love quotes-> 13 Quotes From Nicholas Sparks that Can Make you to Fall in Love Again.

“Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead. The consciousness of loving and being loved brings warmth and richness to life that nothing else can bring.”– Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde is an Irish poet and dramatist. He is best known for his novel “The Picture of Dorian Gray” along with comic classics “Lady Windermere’s Fan” and “The Importance of Being Earnest”.

“As he read, I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once”– John Green

John Green is a well-known young adult novelist. “The Fault in Our Stars”, “Looking for Alaska”, and “An Abundance of Katherines” are his popular novels.

“Who, being loved, is poor?”– Oscar Wilde

Wilde’s another delightful quote about the feeling of being loved.

“Try to be a rainbow in someone’s cloud.”-Maya Angelou

Maya Angelou was an American author best known for her memoir, “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings”. Angelou made literary history through the novel as the first nonfiction bestseller by an African American woman.

“Doubt thou the stars are fire; Doubt that the sun doth move; Doubt truth to be a liar; But never doubt I love.”– William Shakespeare

The world’s greatest dramatist William Shakespeare was also a well-known poet. Some of his must-read dramas include “Hamlet”, “King Lear” and “Othello”.

✅ You’ll love this post- 23 Cool Gifts For Shakespeare Fans

“You are my heart, my life, my one and only thought.”-Arthur Conan Doyle

Arthur Conan Doyle was a British writer and physician best known as a creator of the Sherlock Holmes series.

“Love is a great beautifier.” -Louisa May Alcott

Louisa May Alcott was an American novelist and short-story writer. She is the author of the classic “Little Women”. She wrote various other novels under pseudonyms.

“There is no charm equal to tenderness of heart.” -Jane Austen

Austen’s this particular quote is from one of her popular novels “Emma”.

“So, I love you because the entire universe conspired to help me find you.” ― Paulo Coelho

Coelho’s thoughtful quote about love and relationship is from “ The Alchemist”.

“There is never a time or place for true love. It happens accidentally, in a heartbeat, in a single flashing, throbbing moment.” ― Sarah Dessen

Sarah Dessen is an American author who writes predominantly in Young adult fiction. Some of her popular novels include “The Truth About Forever”, “Just Listen”, and “This Lullaby”.

“You don’t love someone because they’re perfect, you love in spite of the fact that they’re not.”-Jodi Picoult

Jodi Picoult is one of America’s most praised novelists. She has written numerous bestsellers. Some of her popular novels are “The Book of Two Ways”, “The Storyteller” and “Small Great Things”.

“You know you’re in love when you can’t fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.” ― Dr. Seuss

Theodor Seuss Geisel, commonly known as Dr. Seuss was a children’s author, illustrator, and poet. He wrote more than 40 books for children mainly based on imaginative characters and rhymes.” Oh, the Places You’ll Go”, “Green Eggs and Ham”, and “The Cat in the Hat” are some of his popular works.

You’ll love this post ❤️ – 12 Most Romantic Valentine’s Day Gifts For Book Nerds

“You love me. Real or not real?” I tell him, “Real.” ― Suzanne Collins

Suzanne Collins is an American television writer and author. She is praised for her widely successful, New York Times bestselling novel “Hunger Games trilogy”.

“If I had a flower for every time I thought of you…I could walk through my garden forever.” ― Alfred Tennyson

The British poet is often considered the chief representative of the Victorian age in poetry. His best poems include,” In Memoriam”, and “Idylls of the King”.

“If you love somebody, let them go, for if they return, they were always yours. If they don’t, they never were.”― Kahlil Gibran

Kahlil Gibran was a Lebanese-American artist, poet, and writer and is said to be one of the world’s bestselling poets. Some of his popular works are “The Prophet”, “The Madman” and “The Broken Wings”.

Love is a battle, love is a war; love is a growing up.” James A. Baldwin

James Arthur Baldwin was an American novelist and playwright. His works often explored themes like racial, sexual, and class distinctions. His popular works are “The Fire Next Time”, “Giovanni’s Room”, and “Go Tell It on the Mountain”.

“I loved you like a man loves a woman he never touches, only writes to, keeps little photographs of.”― Charles Bukowski

Charles Bukowski was a German–American poet and novelist. He wrote more than forty-five books of poetry and prose, including “Screams from the Balcony” and “The Last Night of the Earth Poems”.

“After all this time?” “Always,” said Snape. ― J.K. Rowling

Probably the only quote from the list that’s known for the character who said it, Severus Snape. Exceptionally skilled wizards from the Harry Potter series.

You’ll love this post ❤️ – Trending Harry Potter Gifts for Teens

“Goodbyes are only for those who love with their eyes. Because for those who love with heart and soul there is no such thing as separation.” ― Rumi

Jalāl ad-Dīn Mohammad Rūmī, also known as Rumi, was a Persian poet and Islamic scholar. His poems have been widely translated into many of the world’s languages. “The Love Poems of Rumi” is one of his popular poems.

“Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired.” ― Robert Frost

Robert Frost was an American poet who is often praised for his realistic portrayal of the rural life of England. His works include “The Road Not Taken and Other Poems”, and “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”

“I would die for you. But I won’t live for you.” ― Stephen Chbosky

Stephen Chbosky is an American novelist and screenwriter best known for the coming-of-age novel “The Perks of Being a Wallflower”.

“You are, and always have been, my dream.” ― Nicholas Sparks

This romantic quote is from Sparks’s most famous novel “The Notebook “. Which is also one of the most romantic movies of all time.

✅ You’ll love this movie recommendations- – 21 Epic Romantic Movies Based On Books

“Nobody has ever measured, not even poets, how much the heart can hold.” ― Zelda Fitzgerald

Zelda Fitzgerald was an American socialist, novelist, and the wife of the writer F. Scott Fitzgerald who described her as “the first American flapper.” Biographer Sally Cline has written a meticulously researched book about the novelist. “Zelda Fitzgerald”

“Once upon a time there was a boy who loved a girl, and her laughter was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering.” ― Nicole Krauss

The American writer Nicole Krauss is best known for her four novels “Man Walks Into a Room”, “The History of Love”, “Great House” and “Forest Dark”.

“Every heart sings a song, incomplete until another heart whispers back. Those who wish to sing always find a song. At the touch of a lover, everyone becomes a poet.” ― Plato

Plato was a classical Greek philosopher and a student of Socrates. He is considered the founder of Western political philosophy. His book “The Republic” is widely recognized as the cornerstone of Western philosophy.

“We loved with a love that was more than love.” ― Edgar Allen Poe

Edgar Allan Poe was an American short-story writer, poet, and literary critic. His book “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” is described as the first modern detective story. Some of his best works include, “The Raven” and “Annabel Lee”.

“I seem to have loved you in numberless forms, numberless times, in life after life, in age after age forever.” ― Rabindranath Tagore

Rabindranath Tagore was a Bengali poet, playwright, composer, philosopher, and painter. His writing mostly included common people’s lives and nature. His most famous work is “Gitanjali”.

“Two people in love, alone, isolated from the world, that’s beautiful.” ― Milan Kundera

Milan Kundera is a Czech-French writer. His well-known works are “ The Unbearable Lightness of Being”, “The Joke”, and “The Book of Laughter and Forgetting”.

“Love is so short, forgetting is so long.” ― Pablo Neruda

Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basoalto better known by his pen name Pablo Neruda was a prominent Latin American poet of the 20th century. Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair, “100 Love Sonnets”, and “The Captain’s Verses” are some of his best works.

“There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.”― Friedrich Nietzsche

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a 19th-century German philosopher. As a scholar and cultural critic, he became one of the most influential modern thinkers. Some of his best works include “The Anti-Christ”, “On the Genealogy of Morality” and “Beyond Good and Evil”

“If you remember me, then I don’t care if everyone else forgets.” ― Haruki Murakami

Haruki Murakami is a well-known Japanese writer. His works have been widely popular all over the world. “Norwegian Wood”, “Kafka on the Shore” and “The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle” are some of his best works.

“The most painful thing is losing yourself in the process of loving someone too much, and forgetting that you are special too.” ― Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway is a novelist and short-story writer who won a Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954. Some of his great works include “Old man and the Sea”, “Farewell to Arms” and “Men Without Women”.

“If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain;” ― Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson was an American poet. Although she wasn’t a celebrated figure during her life, later she is regarded as a prominent poet in literature. “Hope Is the Thing with Feathers” is one of her best poems.

“For the two of us, home isn’t a place. It is a person. And we are finally home.”― Stephanie Perkins

Stephanie Perkins is a New York Times bestselling author. She is best known for her books “Anna and the French Kiss”, “Lola and the Boy Next Door”, and “Isla and the Happily Ever After”.

“Never close your lips to those whom you have already opened your heart.” ― Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens was an English novelist and considered the greatest writer of the Victorian Era. His works include “A Christmas Carol”, “David Copperfield”, “Bleak House”, and “A Tale of Two Cities”.

“Love is not affectionate feeling, but a steady wish for the loved person’s ultimate good as far as it can be obtained.” ― C.S. Lewis

C.S. Lewis was an Irish-born scholar and writer best known as the author of the Chronicles of Narnia series.

“It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important.” ― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was a French writer and poet. Best known for “The Little Prince”. He has also written numerous other books including “Citadelle”, and “Wind, Sand and Stars” are his notable works.

“Love is an untamed force. When we try to control it, it destroys us. When we try to imprison it, it enslaves us. When we try to understand it, it leaves us feeling lost and confused.” ― Paulo Coelho

Another great quote from “The Alchemist” author. This quote is a great reminder for us on how to treat “love”.

Look after my heart – I’ve left it with you.- Stephenie Meyer

Stephenie Meyer is an American novelist best known for her “Twilight series”, “The Chemist” and “The Host”.

“One word Frees us of all the weight and pain of life: That word is love.” ― Sophocles

Sophocles was one of Athens’ three great tragic playwrights best known for his 123 dramas in Oedipus the King.

“Today we will read love poetry. You shall read aloud to me and we will weep together.” ― Iris Murdoch

Iris Murdoch was an Irish-British novelist. She is best known for her novels about sexual relationships and morality. Some of her works include “The Bell”, “The Black Prince”, and “The Good Apprentice”.

“The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart”— Helen Keller

Helen Keller was an American author and political activist. She lost her sight and hearing when she was nineteen months old. She has authored 13 books including “The Story of My Life”, “The World I Live In”, “Light in my Darkness”.

“We love the things we love for what they are.” ― Robert Frost

Another beautiful quote from the poet to remind us of the reason for the pure love we have for someone.

So….

Now you have got some of the best literary love quotes from classic books! However there are also many contemporary author who have written memorable love quotes that I think deserve a place in this list of 50 Love Quotes From Books

Love quotes from famous writers in the 21st century

As I have been reading many romance books from authors such as Colleen Hoover, Emily Henry, Julia Quinn, and Christina Lauren I figured its time to include some of the famous love quotes from books written by romance authors from the 21st century. Use these popular romantic love quotes in your Instagram caption.

Romantic book quotes from Colleen Hoover

Colleen Hoover is the New York Times bestselling author of twenty-two novels. She has written novels in genres including, YA romance and thriller. Her popular novels include, It Ends With Us, Verity, Confess, and Ugly Love.

“Just because someone hurts you doesn’t mean you can simply stop loving them. It’s not a person’s actions that hurt the most. It’s the love. If there was no love attached to the action, the pain would be a little easier to bear.” – It Ends with Us

“In the future… if by some miracle you ever find yourself in the position to fall in love again… fall in love with me.” It Ends with Us

“Love isn’t always pretty. Sometimes you spend all your time hoping it’ll eventually be something different. Something better. Then, before you know it, you’re back to square one, and you lost your heart somewhere along the way.” ― Ugly Love

Romantic quotes from books by Emily Henry

Emily Henry is one of the popular romance authors of the 21st century. Henry is known for writing love stories that feature both teens and young adults. Her latest novel Book Lovers is receiving rave reviews.

“I’ve never met someone who is so perfectly my favorite person.”― Beach Read

“I still have a lot to figure out, but the one thing I know is, wherever you are, that’s where I belong. I’ll never belong anywhere like I belong with you.” People We Meet on Vacation

“I love him so much. I love him more than I did yesterday, and I already know tomorrow I’ll love him even more, because every piece of him he gives me is another to fall in love with.”― People We Meet on Vacation

“Love is giving the world away, and being loved is having the whole world to give.”― The Love That Split the World

Romantic novel quotes by Christina Lauren

The American author duo Christina Lauren is known for writing both young and adult fiction. They have written more than eighteen novels. Their popular novels include The Unhoneymooners, Love and Other Words, The Soulmate Equation, and many others. Their 2022 release is Something Wilder.

“I like your kind of quiet. Your heart isn’t quiet.”― Christina Lauren, Love and Other Words

“I couldn’t go home to someone else and pretend to love her with everything I have.”― Christina Lauren, Love and Other Words

Must-read classic books about love

Here are 10 timeless classic romance novels that you should read at least once. These enthralling classic books have the most romantic and memorable characters in literature.

“Jane Eyre” by Charlotte Brontë
“Pride and Prejudice” by Jane Austen
“Gone With The Wind” by Margaret Mitchell
“Sense and Sensibility” by Jane Austen
“Anna Karenina” by Leo Tolstoy
“Romeo and Juliet” by William Shakespeare
“Wuthering Heights” by Emily Brontë
“Little Women” by Louisa May Alcott
“The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald
“Far From the Madding Crowd “ by Thomas Hardy

Inspirational classic love poems

I don’t think there is a better way to express love than through poetry. Poets pen immense emotions through their words that make it utterly impossible not to fall in love with these beautiful lines.

“Annabel Lee” by Edgar Allan Poe
“Bright Star” by John Keats
“Let Me Not to the Marriage of True Minds” by William Shakespeare
“The Lady of Shalott” by Alfred Tennyson
“Songs of Innocence and of Experience“ by William Blake

Read the most beautiful romantic quotes by poets-> 51 Most Romantic Quotes by Famous Poets

Time For YOUR action:

Do you have other quotes to add to the list? What’s your favorite one to write on a Valentine’s Day card? Let me know in the comments!

Always curious to hear from you,

Stephy

More Quotes About Love and Relationships.

5 Comments

Stephy George

09/05/2023 / 11:30

Awesome! I am glad to hear that:)
winurge

08/05/2023 / 02:12

Thank you for putting together this amazing list of love quotes, It was a joy to read and I will definitely be sharing some of these quotes on my page
Stephy George

27/02/2023 / 17:51

You’re welcome:)
Stephy George

04/10/2021 / 21:26

Thanks for reading!
Sabka Quotes

04/10/2021 / 18:04

Wow, thank you for sharing the most romantic love quotes. I liked it soo much.