Love Quotes From Famous Music Personalities

Ella Fitzgerald
Ella Fitzgerald.

Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

Love—such a powerful emotion that has inspired countless artists to paint masterpieces, composers to write unforgettable music, and authors to pen bestselling novels. Let's read what some composers, musicians, singers, and other music personalities have said about love.

  • Ludwig van Beethoven: "I can live only wholly with you or not at all.”
  • Benjamin Britten: "These two are not two, love has made them one. Amo Ergo Sum! And by its mystery each is no less but more."
  • Ray Charles: "Love is a special word, and I use it only when I mean it. You say the word too much and it becomes cheap.”
  • Duke Ellington: "Love is supreme and unconditional; like is nice but limited.”
  • Ella Fitzgerald: "Just don't give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don't think you can go wrong."
  • George Gershwin: "For suddenly, I saw you there, And through foggy London town, The sun was shining everywhere ..."
  • Billie Holiday: "Love is like a faucet, it turns off and on."
  • Charles Ives: "If a composer has a nice wife and some nice children, how can he let the children starve on his dissonances?"
  • Alicia Keys: "If I didn't love it, I would not record it."
  • Carole King: "Do the things you believe in, in the name of love. And know that, you aren't alone. We all have doubts and fears.”
  • Beyonce Knowles: "There's definitely a dangerous feeling when you're in—it's giving your heart to someone else and knowing that they have control over your feelings. I know for me, who always tries to be so tough, that's the dangerous thing.”
  • John Lennon: "We've got this gift of love, but love is like a precious plant. You can't just accept it and leave it in the cupboard or just think it's going to get on by itself. You've got to keep watering it. You've got to really look after it and nurture it."
  • Sarah McLachlan: "If you love large, you've got to hurt large. If you've got a lot of light, you've probably got an equal amount of darkness."
  • Gian Carlo Menotti: "I know of no better definition of love than the one given by Prouste—Love is space and time measured by the heart.
  • Mandy Moore: "Love is like nothing else on this earth, but only when it is shared with someone wonderful like you."
  • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: "Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius."
  • Franz Schubert: "Some people come into our lives, leave footprints on our hearts, and we are never the same.”
  • Alexander Scriabin: "In love's God-like breathing, there's the innermost aspect of the universe."
  • Beverly Sills: "I had found a kind of serenity, a new maturity ... I didn't feel better or stronger than anyone else but it seemed no longer important whether everyone loved me or not—more important now was for me to love them. Feeling that way turns your whole life around; living becomes the act of giving."
  • Igor Stravinsky: "What force is more potent than love?"
  • Justin Timberlake: “Every relationship I've been in, I've overwhelmed the girl. They just can't handle all the love.”