“How does he love me?With adoration, with fertile tears,With groans that thunder love, with sighs of fire.”

“Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs;Being purg'd, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes;Being vex'd, a sea nourish'd with lovers' tears;What is it else? A madness most discreet,A choking gall, and a preserving sweet.”

“I wasted time, and now doth time waste me; For now hath time made me his numbering clock: My thoughts are minutes; and with sighs they jar Their watches on unto mine eyes, the outward watch, Whereto my finger, like a dial's point, Is pointing still, in cleansing them from tears. Now sir, the sound that tells what hour it is Are clamorous groans, which strike upon my heart, Which is the bell: so sighs and tears and groans Show minutes, times, and hours.”

“Because it is a customary cross, As die to love as thoughts, and dreams, and sighs, Wishes, and tears, poor fancy's followers.”

“Her passions are made of nothing but the finest part of pure love; we cannot call her winds and waters, sighs and tears; they are greater storms and tempests than almanacs can report...”

“O me, what eyes hath Love put in my head,Which have no correspondence with true sight!...Or, if they have, where is my judgment fled,That censures falsely what they see aright?If that be fair whereon my false eyes dote,What means the world to say it is not so?If it be not, then love doth well denoteLove's eye is not so true as all men's 'No.'How can it? O, how can Love's eye be true,That is so vex'd with watching and with tears? No marvel then, though I mistake my view;The sun itself sees not till heaven clears.O cunning Love! with tears thou keep'st me blind,Lest eyes well-seeing thy foul faults should find. - Shakespeare's Sonnet 148”

“No sooner met but they looked; no sooner looked but they loved; no sooner loved but they sighed; no sooner sighed but they asked one another the reason; no sooner knew the reason but they sought the remedy; and in these degrees have they made a pair of stairs to marriage...”