41 Affectionate Quotes

In a world where words have the power to heal, inspire, and connect, a simple affectionate quote can remarkably brighten someone's day. Whether you're looking to express your feelings to a loved one, uplift a friend, or simply bask in the warmth of kind words, our curated collection of the top 41 affectionate quotes is sure to touch your heart. Dive into these beautifully crafted sentences and let them remind you of the power and beauty of genuine affection.

1. “Owners of dogs will have noticed that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they will think you are god. Whereas owners of cats are compelled to realize that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they draw the conclusion that they are gods.” - Christopher Hitchens

2. “I like the scientific spirit—the holding off, the being sure but not too sure, the willingness to surrender ideas when the evidence is against them: this is ultimately fine—it always keeps the way beyond open—always gives life, thought, affection, the whole man, a chance to try over again after a mistake—after a wrong guess.” - Walt Whitman

3. “To see her is a picture—To hear her is a tune—To know her an IntemperanceAs innocent as June—To know her not—Affliction—To own her for a FriendA warmth as near as if the SunWere shining in your Hand.” - Emily Dickinson

4. “Oh, I love hugging. I wish I was an octopus, so I could hug 10 people at a time!” - Drew Barrymore

5. “Love is made up of three unconditional properties in equal measure:1. Acceptance2. Understanding3. AppreciationRemove any one of the three and the triangle falls apart.Which, by the way, is something highly inadvisable. Think about it — do you really want to live in a world of only two dimensions?So, for the love of a triangle, please keep love whole.” - Vera Nazarian

6. “He wasn't the type for displays of affection, either verbal or not. He was disgusted by couples that made out in the hallways between classes, and got annoyed at even the slightest sappy moments in movies. But I knew he cared about me: he just conveyed it more subtly, as concise with expressing this emotion as he was with everything else. It was in the way he'd put his hand on the small of my back, for instance, or how he'd smile at me when I said something that surprised him. Once I might have wanted more, but I'd come around to his way of thinking in the time we'd been together. And we were together, all the time. So he didn't have to prove how he felt about me. Like so much else, I should just know.” - Sarah Dessen

7. “Laughter is more than just a pleasurable activity...When people laugh together, they tend to talk and touch more and to make eye contact more frequently.” - Gretchen Rubin

8. “You know the reason The Beatles made it so big?...'I Wanna Hold Your Hand.' First single. Fucking brilliant. Perhaps the most fucking brilliant song ever written. Because they nailed it. That's what everyone wants. Not 24/7 hot wet sex. Not a marriage that lasts a hundred years. Not a Porsche...or a million-dollar crib. No. They wanna hold your hand. They have such a feeling that they can't hide. Every single successful song of the past fifty years can be traced back to 'I Wanna Hold Your Hand.' And every single successful love story has those unbearable and unbearably exciting moments of hand-holding.” - David Levithan

9. “Conviction affects all substances in the vicinity.” - Toba Beta

10. “Even with friends, I had difficulty giving or receiving physical affection, although I secretly craved it.” - Kate M. Taylor

11. “It is a severe cruelty inflicted upon women...that we should be the ones who so desperately need love...affection...acceptance.And yet, we suffer...many of us, for lack of it throughout our entire lives."-Shackles of Honor” - Marcia Lynn McClure

12. “I wasn't actually in love, but I felt a sort of tender curiosity.” - F. Scott Fitzgerald

13. “The very condition of having Friends is that we should want something else besides Friends. Where the truthful answer to the question "Do you see the same truth?" would be "I see nothing and I don't care about the truth; I only want a Friend," no Friendship can arise - though Affection of course may. There would be nothing for the Friendship to be about; and Friendship must be about something, even if it were only an enthusiasm for dominoes or white mice. Those who have nothing can share nothing; those who are going nowhere can have no fellow-travellers.” - C.S. Lewis

14. “If equal affection cannot be,Let the more loving one be me.” - W.H. Auden

15. “But it is doubtless true, and evident from [the] Scriptures, that the essence of all true religion lies in holy love; and that in this divine affection, and an habitual disposition to it, and that light which is the foundation of it, and those things which are the fruits of it, consists the whole of religion.” - Jonathan Edwards

16. “Divines are generally agreed that sin radically and fundamentally consists in what is negative, or privative, having its root and foundation in a privation or want of holiness. And therefore undoubtedly, if it be so that sin does very much consist in hardness of heart, and so in the want of pious affections of heart, holiness does consist very much in those pious affections.” - Jonathan Edwards

17. “But yet it is evident that religion consists so much in affection, as that without holy affection there is no true religion; and no light in the understanding is good which does not produce holy affection in the heart: no habit or principle in the heart is good which has no such exercise; and no external fruit is good which does not proceed from such exercises.” - Jonathan Edwards

18. “I knew you'd kiss me.""How?" I say. Because I didn't know myself. "Because I am in pain," He say's. "That's the only way I get your attention.” - Suzanne Collins

19. “Needs cause motivation. Deep-rooted desires for esteem, affection, belonging, achievement, self-actualization, power, and control motivate us to push for what we want and need in our lives.” - Lorii Myers

20. “I have found it is surprisingly difficult to remain sad when a cat is doing its level best to sandpaper one's cheeks.” - R. L. LaFevers

21. “Conversion is not the smooth, easy-going process some men seem to think... It is wounding work, this breaking of the hearts, but without wounding there is no saving... Where there is grafting there will always be a cutting, the graft must be let in with a wound; to stick it onto the outside or to tie it on with a string would be of no use. Heart must be set to heart and back to back or there will be no sap from root to branch. And this, I say, must be done by a wound, by a cut.” - John Bunyan

22. “We men are fascinated by the things we don't really understand. It gives us something to think and talk about: like females, they drive us nuts.” - Criss Jami

23. “I am not sure if women are attracted to genius. Can you imagine the wise wizard winning the woman over the gallant swordsman? It seems rather otherworldly in more ways than one.” - Criss Jami

24. “Only as we mature does affection begin to depend on achievement.” - Alain De Botton

25. “The day drags along, you make thousands of plans, you imagine every possible conversation, you promise to change your behavior in certain ways–and you feel more and more anxious until your loved one arrives. But by then, you don't know what to say. The hours of waiting have been transformed into tension, the tension has become fear, and the fear makes you embarrassed about showing affection.” - Paulo Coelho

26. “Affection makes fools. Always, without exception, love digs a channel that's sooner or later flooded by the briny water of despair.” - Sonya Hartnett

27. “He was not his father, and this was not his work; but he was the master, and this was his masterpiece.” - Victor Hugo

28. “What Douglas had once seen as the attractive over-confidence of youth, now looked more like unyielding selfishness.” - Len Deighton

29. “A concrete love is a mass of emotion formed into a compound mixture of affection, care, desire and expectation.” - Munia Khan

30. “In a world of complete economic equality, you get and keep the affections you deserve. You can’t buy love with gifts or favors, you can’t hold love by raising an inadequate child, and you can’t be secure in love by serving as a good scrub woman or a good provider.” - B.F. Skinner

31. “When someone who's starved of love is shown something that looks like sincere affection, is it any wonder that she jumps at it and clings to it?” - Sayo Masuda

32. “I use the chopsticks to outline the biggest heart possible. Then I use the Sweet'N Low packets to fill it in. I borrow some from two other tables when I run out.When I'm done, I point to the heart on the table."This," I say, "is only about one ninety-millionth of how I feel about you."She laughs."I'll try not to take it personally," she says."Take what personally?" I say. "You should take it very personally.""The fact that you used artificial sweetener?"I take a Sweet'N Low and fling it at her."Not everything is a symbol!" I shout.” - David Levithan

33. “Though the human heart may have to pause for rest when climbing the heights of affection it rarely stops on the slippery slope of hatred.” - Honoré de Balzac

34. “It all turns on affection now," said Margaret. "Affection. Don't you see?... And affection, when reciprocated, gives rights. Put that down in your notebook, Mr. Mansbridge. It's a useful formula.” - E.M. Forster

35. “I had the most beautiful dream, and then I fell asleep in your arms and my dream turned lovelier still.” - Richelle E. Goodrich

36. “You ask me why I don’t love you, but surely you must believe I am very fond of you and if to desire to possess a person wholly, to admire and honour that person deeply, and to seek to secure that person’s happiness in every way is to “love” then perhaps my affection for you is a kind of love. I will tell you this that your soul seems to me to be the most beautiful and simple soul in the world and it may be because I am so conscious of this when I look at you that my love or affection for you loses much of its violence.” - James Joyce

37. “Do not keep the slanderer away,treat him with affection and honor:Body and soul, he scours all clean,babbling about this and that.” - Kabir

38. “My relationship with him was defined by these complex emotions, this mixture of gratitude and resentment.” - Otsuichi

39. “Any love or happiness given to anyone always comes back. Unfortunately we expect it from the same person” - Brahmakumaris

40. “Set your affection to infinity and your hate to zero!” - Mehmet Murat ildan

41. “If a mark of affection can sometimes be taken for an insult, perhaps the gesture of love is not universal: it too must be translated from one language to another, must be learned.” - Kim Thuy