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We cannot know whether we love God, although there may be strong reason for thinking so; but there can be no doubt about whether we love our neighbor or not. Be sure that, in proportion as you advance in fraternal charity, you are increasing your love of God, for His Majesty bears so tender an affection for us that I cannot doubt He will repay our love for others by augmenting, and in a thousand different ways, that which we bear for Him.
--
Fifth Mansion, Ch. 3, translated by the Benedictines of Stanbrook (1921), revised and edited by Fr. Benedict Zimmerman (1930); reprinted (2003) by Kessinger Publications, ISBN 0-766-17267-8 p. 109

 

Teresa of Avila (Teresa de Jesus)

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We love what we love. Reason does not enter into it. In many ways, unwise love is the truest love. Anyone can love a thing because. That's as easy as putting a penny in your pocket. But to love something despite. To know the flaws and love them too. That is rare and pure and perfect.

 

Patrick Rothfuss

 

I love you more than bears love honey,
I love you more than Jews love money,
I love you more than Asians are good at math.
I love you even if it's not hip,
I love you more than black guys don't tip,
I love you like Puerto Ricans need baths.

 

Sarah Silverman

 

Love all men, even your enemies; love them, not because they are your brothers, but that they may become your brothers. Thus you will ever burn with fraternal love, both for him who is already your brother and for your enemy, that he may by loving become your brother. ... Even he that does not as yet believe in Christ ... love him, and love him with fraternal love. He is not yet thy brother, but love him precisely that he may be thy brother..

 

Augustine of Hippo

 

Oh, love, love, love —
Love on a hilltop high,
Love against a cloudless sky,
Love where the scene is
Painted by a million stars,
Love with martinis
In the cabarets and bars.
Oh, love, love, love...

 

Anthony Burgess

 

Is it an excellence in your love that it can love only the extraordinary, the rare? If it were love’s merit to love the extraordinary, then God would be — if I dare say so — perplexed, for to Him the extraordinary does not exist at all. The merit of being able to love only the extraordinary is therefore more like an accusation, not against the extraordinary nor against love, but against the love which can love only the extraordinary. Perfection in the object is not perfection in the love. Erotic love is determined by the object; friendship is determined by the object; only love of one’s neighbor is determined by love. Therefore genuine love is recognizable by this, that its object is without any of the more definite qualifications of difference, which means that this love is recognizable only by love.

 

Soren Aabye Kierkegaard