11 Short Love Quotes for Handwritten Notes, Checked Against the Source

This page used to promise 35 short love quotes. When each one was checked against its source, most could not be traced: some belong to films, some to other authors, and some to nobody we could find. What is left is 11 lines short enough for a card, a sticky note or the inside of an envelope, each checked against a text you can open yourself, with the chapter, act or poem named so you can find it.

Short does not mean careless. A line you copy by hand should be the one the author wrote, so every entry below says where it comes from and what is happening around it. If you would rather write your own words, how to write a love letter walks through it.

Lines from letters and plays: spoken to be believed

Doubt thou the stars are fire, / Doubt that the sun doth move, / Doubt truth to be a liar, / But never doubt I love.

— William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2 (c. 1600)

This is a love letter inside a play. Hamlet wrote the verse to Ophelia, and Polonius reads it aloud to the king and queen as proof of the prince's feelings. The same letter admits that Hamlet is "ill at these numbers", which makes it a fair patron for anyone who finds rhyme hard. It fits a card for someone who needs reassurance, not fireworks.

You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope.

— Jane Austen, Persuasion, chapter 23 (1817)

Captain Wentworth writes this note to Anne Elliot and leaves it on the desk for her to find. It is an ideal line after a quarrel or a long silence, because it admits uncertainty instead of claiming confidence. Pair it with one plain sentence of your own.

CopyShareSave image

I love you as one loves certain obscure things, secretly, between the shadow and the soul.

— Pablo Neruda, Sonnet XVII, Cien sonetos de amor (1959), trans. Mark Eisner

Careful with this one. Neruda's Spanish line is "te amo como se aman ciertas cosas oscuras, secretamente, entre la sombra y el alma", and every English version is a translation, so the wording you see on cards varies from one to the next. If you copy an English wording, name the translator, or write the Spanish and your own translation side by side.

Lines from novels: a character says it, not the author

Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.

— Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights, chapter 9 (1847)

Catherine says this to the housekeeper Nelly while explaining why she feels she is "more myself than I am" in Heathcliff. It is about kinship of temperament, which makes it better for a long-established couple than for a first note. The novel is not a model of a healthy relationship, so keep to the one sentence.

CopyShareSave image

Every atom of your flesh is as dear to me as my own.

— Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre, chapter 27 (1847)

Rochester says it to Jane just after the wedding that never happened, when she has learned about his wife and is trying to leave. The next lines say that her mind is his "treasure" even if it were broken. Read in that scene, it is a pledge of care in illness, which suits an anniversary note better than a flirtatious one.

I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be.

— Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, chapter 29 (1861)

Pip is describing his love for Estella, which he says he felt even when he knew it was against his better judgement. This is a confession of stubborn attachment, not a carefree one, so it works for a letter about a love that was hard-won or complicated, and badly for a cheerful birthday card.

Lines from poems and essays: small enough to carry

But we loved with a love that was more than love.

— Edgar Allan Poe, "Annabel Lee" (1849)

Poe wrote the poem in 1849 and it appeared shortly after his death that year. It is a lament for a lost young woman, and the line is a good fit for a memorial or an anniversary of a long marriage, where the sentence can stand on its own.

Love is not love / Which alters when it alteration finds.

— William Shakespeare, Sonnet 116 (1609)

The sonnet goes on to call love "an ever-fixed mark" that "looks on tempests and is never shaken". Because it is about constancy, it belongs in a wedding card or a vow-renewal note. We checked the wording against the 1609 text as printed on Project Gutenberg.

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in my heart)

— E. E. Cummings, 95 Poems (1958)

The poem is quoted with Cummings's own lowercase and unspaced parenthesis, and that is how to write it. A note slipped into a coat pocket or a bag is the natural home for it, since the poem is about carrying someone around.

There is no remedy for love but to love more.

— Henry David Thoreau, Journal, 25 July 1839

A private journal entry, not a published line, and the Walden Woods Project's Thoreau quotation archive dates it to that day. It is a quiet answer to someone who is afraid of loving too much.

A line from a film

It was a million tiny little things that, when you added them all up, they meant we were supposed to be together.

— Sam Baldwin (Tom Hanks), Sleepless in Seattle (1993)

Spoken by Sam in a radio call-in scene, in a screenplay credited to Nora Ephron, David S. Ward and Jeff Arch. Credit it as a film line, not as a quotation by the actor or by Ephron alone. It suits a note listing small details you love: the coffee order, the way they hum.

CopyShareSave image

Quotes removed from the old page

Lines that circulate widely but that we could not source to the person or book named are not repeated here. Two examples, both credited to Jane Austen on the earlier version of this page: "You have bewitched me, body and soul" is not in Pride and Prejudice (see Pride and Prejudice love quotes, chapter by chapter for the real wording), and "My heart is, and always will be, yours" has no source in her novels that we could find. A broader list of such cases is in misattributed love quotes.

How to put a borrowed line on a small note

Write the line, then the source in smaller letters underneath ("Persuasion, ch. 23"), then one sentence only you could write. The source line tells the reader you did not invent it, and the personal sentence tells them why you picked it. For where to place the greeting and sign-off, see how to start and end a love letter.

Questions people ask

Are short quotes less meaningful than a long letter?

Not by length. A short line works when it is accurate and chosen for the person; a copied line with no sentence of yours beside it can feel borrowed. Add a few of your own words.

Do I have to write my own words to be sincere?

No. Choosing a line that matches the person is a form of attention, as long as you credit the real author and do not present the words as yours.

How do I know a quote is real?

Look for a named work and a place in it (chapter, act, poem title) that you can open. If a line is credited only to a name with no work, treat it as unverified.

For more verified lines from novels, see 9 love quotes from classic novels, checked against the text.