And Love Quotes (page 60)
love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. if you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. but in that casket--safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. it will not be broken; it will become impenetrable, irredeemable...to love is to be vulnerable
C. S. Lewis
And wilt thou have me fashion into speech. The love I bear thee, finding words enough, And hold the torch out, while the winds are rough, Between our faces, to cast light on each? -I dropt it at thy feet. I cannot teach. My hand to hold my spirits so far off. From myself--me--that I should bring thee proof. In words, of love hid in me out of reach. Nay, let the silence of my womanhood. Commend my woman-love to thy belief, -Seeing that I stand unwon, however wooed, And rend the garment of my...
Elizabeth Barrett Browning