In this, my first post of 2025, I explore some quotations based on the Beatles’ song “All You Need Is Love,” written by John Lennon in 1967. The song has the timeless message that love alone can bring peace and solidarity to our world, for ‘love is everything.’

Its philosophy was reflective of the ideas behind the American ‘flower power’ movement in the 1960’s and early 1970’s. This slogan was initially a symbolic rallying cry for peaceful protest against the Vietnam war. The artwork of Peter Max became associated with Flower Power, with peace and love.

Aimee Ray. I ♥ Peter Max. Flickr.

Let us make a good start to the new year by contemplating love…

Quote 1

Romeo and Juliet. Frank Bernard Dicksee. 1884. Wikimedia Commons.

“We can live without religion and meditation, but we cannot survive without human affection.”

Dalai Lama

Coming from the Dalai Lama, this is a very big statement. Obviously, Buddhism is central to him, and meditation is a daily practice, yet he still asserts that love and affection are the most crucial to our survival.

He is acutely aware of the central role that love plays in our existence, and how it is foremost in terms of our wellbeing and sense of self. We need each other and we need to experience compassion and affection from those around us at all stages in life.

From their earliest days, infants need parental love. Without this, they would not thrive. People who had not experienced enough love in childhood will grow up with many symptoms of deprivation and will likely find it hard to lead a fulfilling life.

Quote 2

Love Among the Ruins. Edward Burne-Jones. c 1873. Wikimedia Commons

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

Sophocles

The image above expresses the fact that love conquers all; there is little need to dwell on the ruins of past and present if there is love between two people. Then they will understand that nothing matters but the love of the other, regardless of what is happening around them.

The ruined city in the artwork may once have been thriving, but now it is lost, unlike the couple’s love, which is eternal. This love is liberating and freeing; the problems of life are lightened and they become less important when love is present.

The story expressed in this image was written in the poem ‘Love Among The Ruins,’ by Robert Browning, in 1855. The poem ends with the following lines:

“In one year they sent a million fighters forth
South and North,
And they built their gods a brazen pillar high
As the sky
Yet reserved a thousand chariots in full force—
Gold, of course.
O heart! oh blood that freezes, blood that burns!
Earth’s returns
For whole centuries of folly, noise and sin!
Shut them in,
With their triumphs and their glories and the rest!
Love is best.”

Quote 3

Carolus-Duran.The Kiss (1868), Wikimedia Commons.

“Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.”

Lao Tsu

This wise quotation tells us that love can be very powerful, and is much more than a powerful emotional experience. Being loved can be liberating and strengthening, it can give us confidence and a deep sense of who we are and how we affect others.

Loving another person, whilst not a cure-all, can make us courageous, brave and intrepid in the face of the difficulties and challenges that we encounter in life.

Quote 4

Wilhelm Trübner. Adelheid und Franz. 1879. Wikimedia Commons.

“We’re born alone, we live alone, we die alone. Only through our love and friendship can we create the illusion for the moment that we’re not alone.”

Orson Welles

This is a very chastening thought and one that lies at the heart of painful existential angst. Facing the fact that we are, actually, alone on this earth can be very alarming. As the quotation says, we come into this world, and leave it, alone. Nobody accompanies us on these two major journeys.

However, we are also reminded that love and friendship ‘create the illusion’ that we are accompanied on our journey through life. We can lose ourselves in a fantasy of eternally being with our loved ones, and although we know at some level that our sense of timeless security is not real, it can feel good for a while.

But this illusion cannot last, and at some point we will need to face the reality, and the fear of death and aloneness. If we do this, it is likely that we will find the prospect of death less scary, and that we will be able to enjoy life more, finding meaning and purpose.

“…the more unlived your life, the greater your death anxiety. The more you fail to experience your life fully, the more you will fear death.”

Irvin D. Yalom, Staring at the Sun: Overcoming the Terror of Death

We cannot continue to use a relationship in order to mask reality and the fear of aloneness; we need to discover who we are before we can truly engage in a relationship based on mutual awareness of our separateness.

“I should have become an “I” before I became a “we”.”

Irvin Yalom, When Nietzsche Wept

Quote 5

Image by Sh-Andrei, Pexels.

“Love has no age, no limit; and no death.”

John Galsworthy

This is a beautiful quotation, for it reminds us of the fact that love can be experienced at any age, at any stage, in our lives. Whilst this may contradict some of the ideas in the previous quotation, in fact, both thoughts can be true. Although, in reality, we know that we will die and that, ultimately, love will be lost in time, there is an immortality attached to the notion of love.

“Death ends a life, but not a relationship”

Mitch Albom

For example, whilst we ourselves cannot last forever, the love we have felt can be passed on through the generations, as will our loving contributions to the world, made during our lifetime.

“Love is really the only thing we can possess, keep with us, and take with us.”

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

Love does not discriminate; it embraces all ages, genders, cultures, nationalities and races. It does not impose ‘limits’ or restrictions and can defy time and even death.

Love lives on, in memories, photographs, writings. We inevitably leave invisible traces everywhere we have been, in terms of our DNA. Those we have loved, who returned our love during life, will inevitably keep a place deep in their hearts especially for us after we have gone.

Derek Bradley. drocksays. Flickr.

“To live in the hearts we leave behind is not to die.”

Thomas Campbell

❤️♥️❤️♥️❤️♥️

© Linda Berman