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While matters of the heart are not so easily put into words, these quotes surprisingly nail it.
By Elizabeth Blasi — Written on Apr 17, 2019
Whether 15 or 50, there's nothing like the experience and feelings of falling (and being) in love for the first time. Everyone remembers their first love, as it occupies such a special place in our hearts and has lasting, fond memories.
As words are not everyone's cup of tea, we've comprised a list of 40 love quotes from some of the greats, like iconic writers, philosophers, musicians and actors from across generations. Read on as we deep dive into these first love quotes and what it's like to re-live that special time in our lives.
1. Meanings learned from our favorite childhood stories
“You know you’re in love when you can’t fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.” —Dr. Seuss
2. Or musical classics
"All you need it love." —The Beatles
3. Words from beloved RomComs
“My daddy said that the first time you fall in love, it changes you forever, and no matter how hard you try, that feeling just never goes away.” ―The Notebook
4. Lyrics can perfectly describe how we all feel
“The future for me is already a thing of the past / You were my first love and you will be my last” ―Bob Dylan
5. Because it's true
"There’s no love like the first." —Nicholas Sparks
6. They grow us into the person we're meant to be
"My first love, I'll never forget, and it's such a big part of who I am, and in so many ways, we could never be together, but that doesn't mean that it's not forever. Because it is forever." —Rashida Jones
7. It can even be crippling
"I am glad it cannot happen twice, the fever of first love. For it is a fever, and a burden, too, whatever the poets may say." —Daphne du Maurier
8. In the words of country music classics
"Like an old photograph, time can make a feeling fade, but the memory of a first love never fades away." —Tim McGraw
9. From wise and spiritual men
“Where there is love, there is life.” —Mahatma Gandhi
10. First loves can be remembered, even through loss and hardships
"Every morning I still wake up and the first thing I want to do is see your face." —P.S. I Love You
11. And our iconic movie classics
"You had me at hello." —Jerry Maguire
12. Because when it comes to love, everyone knows
"But when it comes to being loved, she's first / That's how I know / The first cut is the deepest." —Cat Stevens, "The First Cut is the Deepest"
13. It seems impossible to be without your first love
“If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day so I never have to live without you.” —A. A. Milne
14. Falling in love for the first time is a true adventure
"True love, especially first love, can be so tumultuous and passionate that it feels like a violent journey." —Holiday Grainger
15. As told by iconic men from our history books
“Love will find a way through paths where wolves fear to prey.” —Lord Byron
16. First love can feel like one soul in two bodies
"Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same." —Wuthering Heights
17. Sometimes it's hard to tell if you've had a first love, until you're out of it
"Your first love ain’t the one you give your heart to. It's the first one who breaks it." —Lang Leav
18. Love defys all science
"No, this trick won't work... How on earth are you ever going to explain in terms of chemistry and physics so important a biological phenomenon as first love?" —Albert Einstein
19. Love truly conquers all
“One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life: That word is love.” —Sophocles
20. Sometimes it's focusing on what could be instead of what is (or has been)
Suddenly she realized that what she was regretting was not the lost past but the lost future, not what had not been but what would never be." —F. Scott Fitzgerald
21. There's nothing like innocent and young love
"When you discover first love as a teenager, your whole life revolves around it and you open yourself up to it." —Patrick Dempsey
22. Just like sequels to a movie, it's hard to compete with a first of anything
"When everything happens to you when you're so young, you're very lucky, but by the same token, you're never going to have that same feeling again. The first time anything happens to you — your first love, your first success — the second one is never the same." —Lauren Bacall
23. Everyone is responsible for their own love story
“Love is a canvas furnished by nature and embroidered by imagination.” ―Voltaire
24. First loves stay with you forever, every beautiful detail
"If you think back to your first love, you always remember them and little things always remind you of them." —Naya Rivera
25. There are no restrictions or requirements meant for a first love
“Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope.” —Maya Angelou
26. The roles gender plays in a first (or even last) love
"Men always want to be a woman’s first love. Women like to be a man’s last romance." —Oscar Wilde
27. Love makes a life worth living
"Why, darling, I don't live at all when I'm not with you." —Ernest Hemingway
28. There's just no denying it
"The heart wants what it wants." —Woody Allen
29. True love means you always want the best for them, no matter the outcome
“You know it’s love when all you want is that person to be happy, even if you’re not part of their happiness.” —Julia Roberts
30. First love can be subconsciously exciting and daring
"Love, like everything else in life, should be a discovery, an adventure, and like most adventures, you don’t know you’re having one until you’re right in the middle of it." —E.A. Bucchianeri
31. Loss of a first love is detrimental
"The loss of young first love is so painful that it borders on the ludicrous." —Maya Angelou
32. Giving love without any motives or hidden agendas is a phenomenal trait
"To be brave is to love someone unconditionally, without expecting anything in return." —Madonna
33. Those who judge are not truly in love
"Love is the absence of judgement." —Dalai Lama XIV
34. From the wisest of philosphophers
"Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies." —Aristotle
35. When you truly love someone, you can't explain nor describe why or how
"I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this" —Pablo Neruda
36. There's so much to explore in a first love
"First love is only a little foolishness and a lot of curiosity." —George Bernard Shaw
37. The beautiful innocence of a first love
"I wanna hold your hand." —The Beatles
38. Maybe your first and your last love are one of the same...
"A man is lucky if he is the first love of a woman. A woman is lucky if she is the last love of a man." —Charles Dickens
39. First love's magic feels as if it can go on forever
"The magic of first love is our ignorance that it can ever end." —Benjamin Disraeli
40. No one can understand the depths of a first love, until their in it
"'The glory of first love, and all that. It's incredible, isn't it, the difference between reading about something, seeing it in the pictures, and experiencing it?' 'Very different,' I agreed. 'More forceful than I'd imagined.'” ―Twilight
Elizabeth Blasi is a New Yorker. A lifestyle & travel writer, who is often seen with a suitcase in hand, jetsetting to her next location. But as a true Digital Nomad, her love of writing and romance novels means her laptop is always beside her.