Love can be a beautiful thing, yet sometimes it hurts. Unrequited love, where feelings are not returned, touches many souls. This kind of love can feel like an ache that never fades away.
Quotes about unrequited love capture this bittersweet experience. They give voice to the silent pain and longing. Here, we share some of the best quotes that might speak to your heart when words fail.
Heartbreaking Quotes of Unrequited Love
“The saddest thing in life is loving someone who used to love you.”
“You can close your eyes to the things you do not want to see, but you cannot close your heart to the things you do not want to feel.”
“To burn with desire and keep quiet about it is the greatest punishment we can bring on ourselves.”
“It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”
“Love is whispering, ‘I love you,’ knowing you may never hear it whispered back.”
“So what’s the point of your love? To make me feel, and then suffer?”
“Everything I touch turns to surrenders in silence.”
“Some say that I’m so alone that we’re practically talking.”
“In the arithmetic of love, one plus one equals everything, and two minus one equals nothing.”
“Loving you is like a battle and we both end up with scars.”
“When you love someone and it goes to waste, what could be worse?”
“The heart was made to be broken.”
“I can’t drown my demons, they know how to swim.”
“I gave you my heart, I just didn’t expect to get it back in pieces.”
“The worst feeling is desperately wanting something, knowing it’s out of reach.”
“Perhaps this is what it means to be in love: to see the sky as blue as it isn’t.”
“I wear your favourite sweater, like I carry the weight of something that never was.”
“I wonder how much of the day I spend just trying to forget.”
“I’d rather hear the truth and be hurt, than hear a lie and be lost.”
“Loving you was the most exquisite form of self-destruction.”
“Every time I see you, I fall in love all over again, knowing it will never be reciprocated.”
“You never really know how strong you are, until being strong is your only choice.”
“You can never control who you fall in love with, even when you’re in the most sad, confused time of your life.”
“I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once.”
“I used to think you were the only one for me; now I know you were the only one for my heartbreak.”
“It hurts to let go, but sometimes it hurts more to hold on.”
Poignant Unrequited Love Quotes from Literature
“Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, and therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.”
“The heart was made to be broken.”
“To burn with desire and keep quiet about it is the greatest punishment we can bring on ourselves.”
“You can make yourself love anybody.”
“Why, darling, I don’t live at all when I’m not with you.”
“When you give someone your whole heart and he doesn’t want it, you cannot take it back. It’s gone forever.”
“Isn’t it ironic that the one who truly loves you is the one who can never have you?”
“It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”
“Some say that the worst way to miss someone is when they are right next to you and you know you can’t have them.”
“I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.”
“It’s amazing how quickly someone can become a stranger; it’s even more amazing how you can be a complete stranger to someone who once knew you just as well as they knew themselves.”
“You never lose by loving. You always lose by holding back.”
“Part of me aches at the thought of her being so close yet so untouchable.”
“I think we are like stars; something happens to burst us open, but when we burst and think we are dying, we are actually turning into a supernova. And then when we look at ourselves again, we see that we’re suddenly more beautiful than we ever were before!”
“And ever has it been known that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.”
“She hated that she was still so desperate for a glimpse of him, but it had been this way for years.”
“I wish I knew how to quit you.”
“To be your friend was all I ever wanted; to be your lover was all I ever dreamed.”
“The worst feeling isn’t being lonely, it’s being forgotten by someone you could never forget.”
“Unrequited love does not die; it’s only beaten down to a secret place where it hides, curled and wounded.”
“And still, I find that just wanting was better than having.”
“It is a fearful thing to love what death can touch.”
“Love is never lost. If not reciprocated, it will flow back and soften and purify the heart.”
“The hardest thing in life is to watch the person you love, love someone else.”
“It’s so difficult to say ‘I love you’ and not be able to say ‘I love you, too.’”
“Sometimes, the only way to suffer is to love someone who doesn’t love you back.”
Quotes About the Pain of Unrequited Love
“The heart was made to be broken.”
“Ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.”
“To burn with desire and keep quiet about it is the greatest punishment we can bring on ourselves.”
“It’s as if I’m screaming, but no one can hear.”
“The hardest thing is to hurt someone you love by telling them the truth.”
“Some say absence makes the heart grow fonder, but I know the pain of unrequited love makes the heart grow stronger.”
“Love that we cannot have is the one that lasts the longest, hurts the deepest, and feels the strongest.”
“Love is knowing that your love for her is all you have to give.”
“You flew off with the wings of my heart and left me flightless.”
“One is never wounded by the love one gives, only by the love one expects.”
“To want and not to have, sent all the way through anguish.”
“She had loved him with a love that was more than love.”
“Sometimes, remembering hurts too much.”
“Your absence has gone through me like thread through a needle.”
“You left, and my heart is a ceaseless sermon of loss.”
“I have to confess that I miss you, but only because I choose you over forgetting.”
“The pain of longing is the agony of the ideal.”
“The worst feeling is falling for someone and knowing that they won’t be there to catch you.”
“I’m always hoping for the best, but somehow expecting the worst.”
“The broken will always be able to love harder than most.”
“The reason it hurts so much to separate is because our souls are connected.”
“When you give yourself to someone who doesn’t want you, it hurts.”
“I felt like I was waiting for something that was never going to happen.”
“Your name is a memory that I’ll never forget.”
“You can close your eyes to the things you don’t want to see, but you can’t close your heart to the things you don’t want to feel.”
Insightful Quotes on Dealing with Unrequited Love
“The saddest thing in life is to love someone who used to love you.”
“Hearts will never be practical until they can be made unbreakable.”
“Some people are meant to fall in love with each other but not meant to be together.”
“I have to admit, an unrequited love is so much better than a real one. It’s perfect… as long as something is never even started, you never have to worry about it ending. It has endless potential.”
“You may not be her first, her last, or her only. She loved before she may love again. But if she loves you now, what else matters?”
“The worst feeling is falling for someone and knowing that they won’t be there to catch you.”
“Unrequited love is like hitting your head against a wall that isn’t there.”
“To burn with desire and keep quiet about it is the greatest punishment we can bring on ourselves.”
“The heart was made to be broken.”
“The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.”
“Unrequited love does not die; it’s only beaten down to a secret place where it hides, curled and wounded.”
“The pain of unrequited love can turn sharp as the edge of a knife.”
“I have sought love only to find disappointment; I have sought to give love only to remain empty-handed.”
“There is nothing so mortifying as to fall in love with someone who does not share one’s sentiments.”
“It takes one person to forgive, it takes two people to be reunited.”
“When you love someone and they don’t love you back, it’s harder than you could ever imagine.”
“Sometimes, the person you want the most is the person you’re best without.”
“There’s only so many times you can allow someone to let you down before you can’t handle the disappointment anymore.”
“Love that we cannot have is the one that lasts the longest, hurts the deepest and feels the strongest.”
“One of the cruelest things a person can do is to awaken someone’s love without the intention of truly loving them.”
“Life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent.”
“Sometimes your heart needs more time to accept what your mind already knows.”
“It’s amazing how quickly your mood can change, how deep your heart can sink and how much one person can affect you.”
“I think it’s every girl’s dream to find a guy who takes her breath away instantly.”
“We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.”
“Unrequited love is as different from the mutual love as the error from the truth.”
Famous Quotes on One-sided Love
“The pain of one-sided love, of knowing that I had loved her more than she could have loved me – that was the worst pain I ever felt.”
“To burn with desire and keep quiet about it is the greatest punishment we can bring on ourselves.”
“She had loved him for such a long time, halfway around the world and back again, two nouns colliding in a sentence that could never be altered.”
“Part of me aches at the thought of her being so close yet so untouchable.”
“The heart is stubborn; it holds onto something it can’t have, something that it knows full well isn’t meant to be.”
“I wanted to tell you all my secrets, but you became one of them instead.”
“Unrequited love does not die; it’s only beaten down to a secret place where it hides, curled and wounded.”
“You can close your eyes to the things you do not want to see, but you cannot close your heart to the things you do not want to feel.”
“It’s hard to forget someone who gave you so much to remember.”
“Somewhere in between longing and heartache, I found peace in loving you from afar.”
“Because, if I am incapable of touching someone, then I must make them feel my heart without acknowledging theirs for me.”
“Her love was an adventurous journey; his was a mere station stop along the road.”
“Most relationships fail not because of the absence of love but because one loves too much and the other loves too little.”
“Hearts are not had as a gift, but hearts are earned.”
“If you love someone and they don’t love you back, it can destroy your sense of self-worth.”
“There is nothing so mortifying as to fall in love with someone who does not share one’s sentiments.”
“Now that I’ve seen your face, I can never see anything else.”
“It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”
“I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, in secret, between the shadow and the soul.”
“The worst feeling is falling for someone and knowing that they won’t be there to catch you.”
“You never lose by loving. You always lose by holding back.”
“To be your friend was all I ever wanted; to be your lover was all I ever dreamed.”
“Love isn’t always fireworks. Sometimes, love is the quiet, soft voice whispering at the end of the day, ‘I’m here.’”
“A mighty pain to love it is, and ’tis a pain that pain to miss; but of all the pains, the greatest pain is to love, but love in vain.”
“Loving you was like going to war; I never came back the same.”
“Sometimes the person you’d take a bullet for ends up being the one behind the gun.”
“It takes a lot of courage to show your dreams to someone else.”
Inspirational Quotes for Overcoming Unrequited Love
“The greatest pain that comes from love is loving someone you can’t have.”
“Sometimes the heart sees what is invisible to the eye.”
“Some people are going to leave, but that’s not the end of your story. That’s the end of their part in your story.”
“Love that remains longest in your heart is the one that is not returned.”
“To love and win is the best thing. To love and lose is the next best.”
“The worst feeling is falling for someone and knowing that they won’t be there to catch you.”
“It’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”
“The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it.”
“The course of true love never did run smooth.”
“Never make someone a priority when all you are to them is an option.”
“You can’t force yourself to stop loving someone, but you can tell yourself that you deserve better.”
“It’s amazing how much destruction one person can cause with simply an unreturned glance.”
“Hope is the worst of evils, for it prolongs the torments of man.”
“The heart was made to be broken.”
“Sometimes you just have to accept that some people are going to stay in your heart, even if they don’t stay in your life.”
“The saddest thing in life is to love someone who used to love you.”
“Sometimes you have to forget what you feel and remember what you deserve.”
“Some of us think holding on makes us strong, but sometimes it is letting go.”
“Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.”
“we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”
“It takes a minute to like someone, an hour to love someone, but to forget someone takes a lifetime.”
“If you truly want to be respected by people you love, you must prove to them that you can survive without them.”
“It is never too late to give up our prejudices.”
“Don’t waste your affection to a wrong one who is not responding, but don’t misinterpret the one who is truly loving you.”
“A love unreturned is like a question without an answer.”
“In the arithmetic of love, one plus one equals everything, and two minus one equals nothing.”
To Wrap Things Up
Unrequited love is a feeling many of us have experienced. The quotes shared in this article capture that unique mix of hope, longing, and heartache. They remind us that even in moments of one-sided affection, there is beauty and depth in our emotions. These words can offer comfort and a sense of connection when we feel alone in our feelings.
Each quote tells a story of its own, echoing the universal truth that love, even when not returned, still holds immense power. So next time you’re feeling the sting of unreturned affection, revisit these quotes. They might just remind you that you’re not alone and that your feelings are a natural part of the human experience.
