“I cannot love you as I love myself until I love God as I ought to love Him.”

“I may repeat 'Do as you would be done by' till I am black in the face, but I cannot really carry it out till I love my neighbor as myself: and I cannot learn to love my neighbor as myself till I learn to love God;and I cannot learn to love God except by learning to obey him.”

“A Christian society is not going to arrive until most of us really want it: and we are not going to want it until we become fully Christian. I may repeat "Do as you would be done by" till I am black in the fact, but I cannot really carry it out till I love my neighbour as myself: and I cannot learn to love my neighbour as myself till I learn to love God: and I cannot learn to love God except by learning to obey Him. And so, as I warned you, we are driven on to something more inward - driven on from social matters to religious matters.”

“Trust me, I have not earned your dear rebuke,I love, as you would have me, God the most;Would lose not Him, but you, must one be lost,Nor with Lot's wife cast back a faithless lookUnready to forego what I forsook;This say I, having counted up the cost,This, tho' I be the feeblest of God's host,The sorriest sheep Christ shepherds with His crook.Yet while I love my God the most, I deemThat I can never love you overmuch;I love Him more, so let me love you too;Yea, as I apprehend it, love is suchI cannot love you if I love not Him.I cannot love Him if I love not you.”

“You need not fear me, for I not only should think it wrong to marry a man that was deficient in sense or in principle, but I should never be tempted to do it; for I could not like him, if he were ever so handsome, and ever so charming, in other respects; I should hate him—despise him—pity him—anything but love him.  My affections not only ought to be founded on approbation, but they will and must be so: for, without approving, I cannot love.  It is needless to say, I ought to be able to respect and honour the man I marry, as well as love him, for I cannot love him without.”

“I will love you like God, because of God, mighted by the power of God. I will stop expecting your love, demanding your love, trading for your love, gaming for your love. I will simply love. I am giving myself to you, and tomorrow I will do it again. I suppose the clock itself will wear thin its time before I am ended at this altar of dying and dying again. God risked Himself on me. I will risk myself on you. And together, we will learn to love, and perhaps then, and only then, understand this gravity that drew Him, unto us.”