50 Iconic Shakespeare Quotes About Love

Has there ever lived a more romantic writer than William Shakespeare? When it came to words of love, no one did it better than the Bard. Looking for an iconic line to add to your wedding vows, anniversary card, or love letter? Look no further than these 50 iconic Shakespeare quotes about love.

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Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
-Sonnet 18

Doubt that the stars are fire,
Doubt that the sun doth move his aides,
Doubt truth to be a liar,
But never doubt I love.
-Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2

My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
My love as deep. The more I give to thee,
The more I have, for both are infinite.
-Romeo and Juliet, Act 2, Scene 2

The course of true love never did run smooth.
-A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 1, Scene 1

Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken.
-Sonnet 116

Love goes by haps;
Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps.
-Much Ado About Nothing, Act 3, Scene 2

I do love nothing in the world so well as you-
is not that strange?
-Much Ado About Nothing, Act 4, Scene 1

If music be the food of love, play on.
Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken and so die.
-Twelfth Night, Act 1, Scene 1

Speak low, if you speak love.
-Much Ado About Nothing, Act 2, Scene 1

The sight of lovers feedeth those in love.
-As You Like It, Act 2, Scene 4

Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?
-As You Like It, Act 3, Scene 5

There’s beggary in the love that can be reckoned.
-Antony and Cleopatra, Act 1, Scene 1

She’s beautiful, and therefore to be wooed.
She is woman, and therefore to be won.
-Henry VI Part 1, Act 5, Scene 2

A heart to love, and in that heart
Courage, to make’s love known.
-Macbeth, Act 2, Scene 3

I would not wish any companion in the world but you.
-The Tempest, Act 3, Scene 1

Love is like a child,
That longs for everything it can come by.
-The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act 3, Scene 1

So are you to my thoughts as food to life,
Or as sweet-seasoned showers are to the ground.
-Sonnet 75

A lover’s eyes will gaze an eagle blind.
A lover’s ear will hear the lowest sound,
When the suspicious head of theft is stopped.
Love’s feeling is more soft and sensible
Than are the tender horns of cockled snails.
And when love speaks, the voice of all the gods
Make heaven drowsy with the harmony.
-Love’s Labor’s Lost, Act 4, Scene 3

Love is blind, and lovers cannot see,
The pretty follies that themselves commit.
-The Merchant of Venice, Act 2, Scene 6

Love sought, is good;
But given unsought, is better.
-Twelfth Night, Act 3, Scene 1

Thee will I love, and with thee lead my life.
-The Comedy of Errors, Act 3, Scene 2

When you depart from me,
Sorrow abides and happiness takes his leave.
-Much Ado About Nothing, Act 1, Scene 1

What is love? ‘Tis not hereafter:
Present mirth hath present laughter.
-Twelfth Night, Act 2, Scene 3

Come what sorrow can,
It cannot countervail the exchange of joy,
That one short minute gives me in her sight.
-Romeo and Juliet, Act 2, Scene 6

Her passions are made of nothing
But the finest part of pure love.
-Anotony & Cleopatra, Act 3, Scene 5

She loved me for the dangers I had passed,
And I loved her that she did pity them.
-Othello, Act 1, Scene 3

His unkindness may defeat my life,
But never taint my love.
-Othello, Act 4, Scene 2

When you do dance, I wish you
A wave o’ th’ sea, that you might ever do
Nothing but that.
-The Winter’s Tale, Act 4, Scene 4

Love is a smoke rais’d with the fume of sighs;
Being purg’d, a fire sparkling in a lover’s eyes;
Being vex’d, a sea nourish’d with lovers’ tears:
What is it else? a madness most discreet,
A choking gall and a preserving sweet.
-Romeo and Juliet, Act 1, Scene 1

Thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
-Sonnet 29

I love you more than words can wield the matter;
Dearer than eyesight, space and liberty.
-King Lear, Act 1, Scene 1

Love is begun by time,
And time qualifies the spark and fire of it.
-Hamlet, Act 4, Scene 7

Love looks not with the eyes but with the mind,
And therefore is winged cupid painted blind.
-A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 1, Scene 1

If thou rememb’rest not the slightest folly
That ever love did make thee run into,
Thou has not loved.
-As You Like It, Act 2, Scene 3

What is light, if Sylvia be not seen?
What is joy if Sylvia be not by?
-The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act 3, Scene 1

Men have died from time to time,
And worms have eaten them,
But not for love.
-As You Like It, Act 4, Scene 1

To be wise and love,
Exceeds man’s might
-Troilus & Cressida, Act 3, Scene 2

Hear my soul speak:
The very instant that I saw you, did
My heart fly to your service.
-The Tempest, Act 3, Scene 1

This bud of love by summer’s ripening breath,
May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet.
-Romeo and Juliet, Act 2, Scene 1

Men’s vows are women’s traitors.
-Cymbeline, Act 3, Scene 4

Oh, how this spring of love resembleth,
The uncertain glory of an April day,
Which now shows all beauty of the Sun,
And by and by a cloud takes all away.
-The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act 1, Scene 3

Is this the generation of love?
Hot blood, hot thoughts and hot deeds?
Why, they are vipers.
Is love a generation of vipers?
-Troilus & Cressida, Act 3, Scene 1

They are in the very wrath of love,
And they will go together.
Clubs cannot part them.
-As You Like It, Act 5, Scene 2

Lovers ever run before the clock.
-The Merchant of Venice, Act 2, Scene 6

A heaven on earth I have won by wooing thee.
All’s Well That Ends Well, Act 4, Scene 2

Alas, that love, so gentle in his view,
Should be so tyrannous and rough in proof.
-Romeo and Juliet, Act 1, Scene 1

I will not be sworn but love may transform me to an oyster.
-Much Ado About Nothing, Act 2, Scene 3

Mistress, you know yourself, down on your knees,
And thank heaven, fasting, for a good man’s love.
-As You Like It, Act 3, Scene 5

For where thou art, there is the world itself,
And where thou art not, desolation.
-Henry VI Part 2, Act 3, Scene 2

I know no ways to mince it in love,
But directly to say ‘I love you'.
-Henry V, Act 5, Scene 2