Sayings on Love

Ellen Pilon is a library assistant in the Patrick Power Library at Saint
Mary’s University in Halifax.

Dr. David C. Jones, an education professor at the University of Calgary,
has compiled a little collection of sayings on love. The brief
quotations are organized into sections entitled “Faces of Love,”
“What Only Looks Like Love,” “Corrupted Love,” and “Final
Missives.” Some of the sayings are taken from the extremely popular A
Course in Miracles. Others are attributed to such well-known writers as
Socrates, Elbert Hubbard, St. Paul, Rose Kennedy, Lord Byron, Norman
Vincent Peale, and Jones himself.

The quotations are, for the most part, uplifting and idealistic; almost
all are very religious, and none are concerned with physical love. While
an introduction presents some philosophical musings on love, there is no
mention of the criteria Jones used in selecting the sayings. Nor is the
relation between the sayings and the headings under which they appear
always clear. For example, under the heading “Love is Gentle” we
find Hannah More’s statement, “The world does not require so much to
be informed as reminded.” Is gentle love an idea Jones has imposed on
More, or part of More’s theories?

Sayings on Love will probably be lost amid the current glut of
self-help pep-talk books.