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.” – Anonymous
“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.” – Johnny Depp
“To burn with desire and keep quiet about it is the greatest punishment we can bring on ourselves.” – Federico García Lorca
“It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.” – Alfred Lord Tennyson
“Love is whispering, ‘I love you,’ knowing you may never hear it whispered back.” – Original
“So what’s the point of your love? To make me feel, and then suffer?” – Khalid Khannouchi
“Everything I touch turns to surrenders in silence.” – Pablo Neruda
“Some say that I’m so alone that we’re practically talking.” – Radiohead
“In the arithmetic of love, one plus one equals everything, and two minus one equals nothing.” – Mignon McLaughlin
“Loving you is like a battle and we both end up with scars.” – Lauryn Hill
“When you love someone and it goes to waste, what could be worse?” – Coldplay
“The heart was made to be broken.” – Oscar Wilde
“I can’t drown my demons, they know how to swim.” – Bring Me The Horizon
“I gave you my heart, I just didn’t expect to get it back in pieces.” – Original
“The worst feeling is desperately wanting something, knowing it’s out of reach.” – Original
“Perhaps this is what it means to be in love: to see the sky as blue as it isn’t.” – Original
“I wear your favourite sweater, like I carry the weight of something that never was.” – Original
“I wonder how much of the day I spend just trying to forget.” – Original
“I’d rather hear the truth and be hurt, than hear a lie and be lost.” – Original
“Loving you was the most exquisite form of self-destruction.” – Original
“Every time I see you, I fall in love all over again, knowing it will never be reciprocated.” – Original
“You never really know how strong you are, until being strong is your only choice.” – Bob Marley
“You can never control who you fall in love with, even when you’re in the most sad, confused time of your life.” – Kirsten Dunst
“I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once.” – John Green
“I used to think you were the only one for me; now I know you were the only one for my heartbreak.” – Original
“It hurts to let go, but sometimes it hurts more to hold on.” – Anonymous
Poignant Unrequited Love Quotes from Literature
“Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, and therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.” – William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream
“The heart was made to be broken.” – Oscar Wilde, De Profundis
“To burn with desire and keep quiet about it is the greatest punishment we can bring on ourselves.” – Federico García Lorca, Blood Wedding
“You can make yourself love anybody.” – Wendell Berry, The Memory of Old Jack
“Why, darling, I don’t live at all when I’m not with you.” – Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms
“When you give someone your whole heart and he doesn’t want it, you cannot take it back. It’s gone forever.” – Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath
“Isn’t it ironic that the one who truly loves you is the one who can never have you?” – Unknown
“It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.” – Alfred Lord Tennyson, In Memoriam A.H.H.
“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.” – Orange
“I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.” – W.B. Yeats, The Cloths of Heaven
“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.” – R.M. Drake
“You never lose by loving. You always lose by holding back.” – Barbara De Angelis
“Part of me aches at the thought of her being so close yet so untouchable.” – Nicholas Sparks, Message in a Bottle
“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!” – C. JoyBell C.
“And ever has it been known that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.” – Khalil Gibran, The Prophet
“She hated that she was still so desperate for a glimpse of him, but it had been this way for years.” – Julia Quinn, Romancing Mister Bridgerton
“I wish I knew how to quit you.” – Annie Proulx, Brokeback Mountain
“To be your friend was all I ever wanted; to be your lover was all I ever dreamed.” – Valerie Lombardo
“The worst feeling isn’t being lonely, it’s being forgotten by someone you could never forget.” – Unknown
“Unrequited love does not die; it’s only beaten down to a secret place where it hides, curled and wounded.” – Elle Newmark, The Book of Unholy Mischief
“And still, I find that just wanting was better than having.” – Cassandra Clare, City of Bones
“It is a fearful thing to love what death can touch.” – Unknown
“Love is never lost. If not reciprocated, it will flow back and soften and purify the heart.” – Washington Irving
“The hardest thing in life is to watch the person you love, love someone else.” – Unknown
“It’s so difficult to say ‘I love you’ and not be able to say ‘I love you, too.’” – Unknown
“Sometimes, the only way to suffer is to love someone who doesn’t love you back.” – Anonymous
Quotes About the Pain of Unrequited Love
“The heart was made to be broken.” – Oscar Wilde
“Ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.” – Kahlil Gibran
“To burn with desire and keep quiet about it is the greatest punishment we can bring on ourselves.” – Federico García Lorca
“It’s as if I’m screaming, but no one can hear.” – Sylvia Plath
“The hardest thing is to hurt someone you love by telling them the truth.” – Nicholas Sparks
“Some say absence makes the heart grow fonder, but I know the pain of unrequited love makes the heart grow stronger.” – Unknown
“Love that we cannot have is the one that lasts the longest, hurts the deepest, and feels the strongest.” – Unknown
“Love is knowing that your love for her is all you have to give.” – Sándor Márai
“You flew off with the wings of my heart and left me flightless.” – Stelle Atwater
“One is never wounded by the love one gives, only by the love one expects.” – Marty Rubin
“To want and not to have, sent all the way through anguish.” – Virginia Woolf
“She had loved him with a love that was more than love.” – Edgar Allan Poe
“Sometimes, remembering hurts too much.” – Jess Rothenberg
“Your absence has gone through me like thread through a needle.” – W. S. Merwin
“You left, and my heart is a ceaseless sermon of loss.” – Unknown
“I have to confess that I miss you, but only because I choose you over forgetting.” – Unknown
“The pain of longing is the agony of the ideal.” – Friedrich Nietzsche
“The worst feeling is falling for someone and knowing that they won’t be there to catch you.” – Rashida Rowe
“I’m always hoping for the best, but somehow expecting the worst.” – Unknown
“The broken will always be able to love harder than most.” – Unknown
“The reason it hurts so much to separate is because our souls are connected.” – Nicholas Sparks
“When you give yourself to someone who doesn’t want you, it hurts.” – Unknown
“I felt like I was waiting for something that was never going to happen.” – Unknown
“Your name is a memory that I’ll never forget.” – Unknown
“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.” – Johnny Depp
Insightful Quotes on Dealing with Unrequited Love
“The saddest thing in life is to love someone who used to love you.” – Anonymous
“Hearts will never be practical until they can be made unbreakable.” – L. Frank Baum
“Some people are meant to fall in love with each other but not meant to be together.” – Scott Neustadter
“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.” – Sarah Dessen
“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?” – Bob Marley
“The worst feeling is falling for someone and knowing that they won’t be there to catch you.” – Rashida Rowe
“Unrequited love is like hitting your head against a wall that isn’t there.” – Shannon Wheeler
“To burn with desire and keep quiet about it is the greatest punishment we can bring on ourselves.” – Federico García Lorca
“The heart was made to be broken.” – Oscar Wilde
“The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.” – Mahatma Gandhi
“Unrequited love does not die; it’s only beaten down to a secret place where it hides, curled and wounded.” – Elle Newmark
“The pain of unrequited love can turn sharp as the edge of a knife.” – Tammara Webber
“I have sought love only to find disappointment; I have sought to give love only to remain empty-handed.” – Anonymous
“There is nothing so mortifying as to fall in love with someone who does not share one’s sentiments.” – Georgette Heyer
“It takes one person to forgive, it takes two people to be reunited.” – Lewis B. Smedes
“When you love someone and they don’t love you back, it’s harder than you could ever imagine.” – Taylor Swift
“Sometimes, the person you want the most is the person you’re best without.” – Anonymous
“There’s only so many times you can allow someone to let you down before you can’t handle the disappointment anymore.” – Anonymous
“Love that we cannot have is the one that lasts the longest, hurts the deepest and feels the strongest.” – Kay Knudsen
“One of the cruelest things a person can do is to awaken someone’s love without the intention of truly loving them.” – Unknown
“Life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent.” – Arthur Conan Doyle
“Sometimes your heart needs more time to accept what your mind already knows.” – Anonymous
“It’s amazing how quickly your mood can change, how deep your heart can sink and how much one person can affect you.” – Anonymous
“I think it’s every girl’s dream to find a guy who takes her breath away instantly.” – Scarlett Johansson
“We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.
“Unrequited love is as different from the mutual love as the error from the truth.” – George Sand
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.” – N.R. Hart
“To burn with desire and keep quiet about it is the greatest punishment we can bring on ourselves.” – Federico García Lorca
“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.” – Jodi Picoult, ‘Sing You Home’
“Part of me aches at the thought of her being so close yet so untouchable.” – Nicholas Sparks, ‘Message in a Bottle’
“The heart is stubborn; it holds onto something it can’t have, something that it knows full well isn’t meant to be.” – Lang Leav
“I wanted to tell you all my secrets, but you became one of them instead.” – Anonymous
“Unrequited love does not die; it’s only beaten down to a secret place where it hides, curled and wounded.” – Elle Newmark
“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.” – Johnny Depp
“It’s hard to forget someone who gave you so much to remember.” – Anonymous
“Somewhere in between longing and heartache, I found peace in loving you from afar.” – Alexandria Drzewiecki
“Because, if I am incapable of touching someone, then I must make them feel my heart without acknowledging theirs for me.” – Anonymous
“Her love was an adventurous journey; his was a mere station stop along the road.” – Sanober Khan
“Most relationships fail not because of the absence of love but because one loves too much and the other loves too little.” – Anonymous
“Hearts are not had as a gift, but hearts are earned.” – William Butler Yeats
“If you love someone and they don’t love you back, it can destroy your sense of self-worth.” – Taylor Swift
“There is nothing so mortifying as to fall in love with someone who does not share one’s sentiments.” – Georgette Heyer
“Now that I’ve seen your face, I can never see anything else.” – Anonymous
“It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.” – Alfred Lord Tennyson
“I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, in secret, between the shadow and the soul.” – Pablo Neruda
“The worst feeling is falling for someone and knowing that they won’t be there to catch you.” – Rashida Rowe
“You never lose by loving. You always lose by holding back.” – Barbara De Angelis
“To be your friend was all I ever wanted; to be your lover was all I ever dreamed.” – Anonymous
“Love isn’t always fireworks. Sometimes, love is the quiet, soft voice whispering at the end of the day, ‘I’m here.’” – Anonymous
“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.” – Abraham Cowley
“Loving you was like going to war; I never came back the same.” – Warsan Shire
“Sometimes the person you’d take a bullet for ends up being the one behind the gun.” – Anonymous
“It takes a lot of courage to show your dreams to someone else.” – Erma Bombeck
Inspirational Quotes for Overcoming Unrequited Love
“The greatest pain that comes from love is loving someone you can’t have.” – Anonymous
“Sometimes the heart sees what is invisible to the eye.” – H. Jackson Brown Jr.
“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.” – Faraaz Kazi
“Love that remains longest in your heart is the one that is not returned.” – Anonymus
“To love and win is the best thing. To love and lose is the next best.” – William Makepeace Thackeray
“The worst feeling is falling for someone and knowing that they won’t be there to catch you.” – Rashida Rowe
“It’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.” – Alfred Lord Tennyson
“The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it.” – Oscar Wilde
“The course of true love never did run smooth.” – William Shakespeare
“Never make someone a priority when all you are to them is an option.” – Maya Angelou
“You can’t force yourself to stop loving someone, but you can tell yourself that you deserve better.” – Anonymus
“It’s amazing how much destruction one person can cause with simply an unreturned glance.” – Alis Volat Propriis
“Hope is the worst of evils, for it prolongs the torments of man.” – Friedrich Nietzsche
“The heart was made to be broken.” – Oscar Wilde
“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.” – Unknown
“The saddest thing in life is to love someone who used to love you.” – Anonymous
“Sometimes you have to forget what you feel and remember what you deserve.” – Anonymus
“Some of us think holding on makes us strong, but sometimes it is letting go.” – Hermann Hesse
“Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.” – Haruki Murakami
“we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
“It takes a minute to like someone, an hour to love someone, but to forget someone takes a lifetime.” – Khalil Gibran
“If you truly want to be respected by people you love, you must prove to them that you can survive without them.” – Michael Bassey Johnson
“It is never too late to give up our prejudices.” – Henry David Thoreau
“Don’t waste your affection to a wrong one who is not responding, but don’t misinterpret the one who is truly loving you.” – Mohith Agadi
“A love unreturned is like a question without an answer.” – Anonymous
“In the arithmetic of love, one plus one equals everything, and two minus one equals nothing.” – Mignon McLaughlin
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.
