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Swami Vivekananda on Love:
Love unselfishly for love’s sake.
Love, truth, and unselfishness are not merely moral figures of speech, but they form our highest ideal, because in them lies such a manifestation of power.
Every act of love brings happiness; there is no act of love which does not bring peace and blessedness as its reaction.
Duty is seldom sweet. It is only when love greases its wheels that it runs smoothly; it is a continuous friction otherwise.
Duty is sweet only through love, and love shines in freedom alone.
It is always the heart that speaks in the man of love; it discovers a greater instrument than intellect can give you, the instrument of inspiration.
So long as there is any fear in the heart, how can there be love also? Love conquers naturally all fear.
Love and do good to everybody, but do not become a slave.
Love knows no reward. Love is always for love’s sake.
None, O beloved, loves the husband for the husband’s sake, but it is for the sake of the Self who is in the husband that the husband is loved; none, O beloved, loves the wife for the wife’s sake, but it is for the sake of the Self who is in the wife that the wife is loved.
When a woman loves her husband, she does not understand that it is the divine in her husband that is the great attractive power.
Wherever there is love, wherever there is a spark of joy, know that to be a spark of His presence because He is joy, blessedness, and love itself.
The highest, most expressive, strongest, and most attractive human love is that between man and woman, and, therefore, that language was used in expressing the deepest devotion.
Love cannot come through fear, its basis is freedom.
The first test of love is that it knows no bargaining. Love is always the giver, and never the taker.
The second test is that love knows no fear.
Every time we particularise an object, we differentiate it from the Self. I am trying to love a woman; as soon as that woman is particularised, she is separated from the Atman, and my love for her will not be eternal, but will end in grief. But as soon as I see that woman as the Atman, that love becomes perfect, and will never suffer.
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