5 Love Quotes for Instagram, Checked Against the Source
Five love lines from Twain, Homer, Shakespeare and Browning checked against the text, how to credit them in a caption, and four popular ones we could not source.
Updated
The caption "The best thing to hold onto in life is each other" appears under thousands of photos with Audrey Hepburn's name on it, and no one has been able to show us where she said it. That is the problem with borrowed love lines on Instagram: the ones that travel fastest are often the ones nobody can trace. This page keeps five lines we checked against a printed text, tells you what to put in the caption so the credit is right, and lists four popular captions we could not source.
This one is for people who want a line with a real author and a real page behind it.
Five love lines with a page behind them
Mark Twain, Following the Equator, 1897
"Grief can take care of itself; but to get the full value of a joy you must have somebody to divide it with."
It is a chapter epigraph (chapter 48), credited in the book to "Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar", Twain's invented almanac of sayings. Quote Investigator notes the idea is older: a Rev. Arthur T. Pierson wrote in 1887 that "joys shared are added and multiplied". Most captions drop the first half and change "a joy" to "joy", which is fine for a photo of two coffees, but the full sentence is the better one. Pair it with a picture of something you did together.
Homer, The Odyssey, Book 6 (Samuel Butler's translation)
"There is nothing better in this world than that man and wife should be of one mind in a house."
Odysseus says this to Nausicaa, the young princess who finds him washed up on a beach. He is flattering her, and the line is a wish for her future marriage, not a statement about his own. Other translations word it differently, so name the translator if you quote it. It suits an anniversary photo or a picture of a home you share.
William Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act 3 Scene 1, 1611
"I would not wish any companion in the world but you."
This is Miranda speaking to Ferdinand, not the other way round. She has never seen a woman's face except her own reflection, and has met only her father and Ferdinand, so the line is both shy and absolute. At eleven words it fits a caption without trimming. The First Folio spells it "Any Companion"; modern editions use the lower case above.
Robert Browning, "Rabbi Ben Ezra", 1864
"Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be."
These are the opening lines of a poem in Browning's collection Dramatis Personae (1864). The speaker is the medieval scholar Abraham ibn Ezra, and the poem is a long argument that old age is the point of a life, not its loss. The couple in the first line is the poem's invitation to the reader. It is a natural caption for a milestone anniversary photo.
William Shakespeare, Sonnet 116, 1609
"Love is not love / Which alters when it alteration finds."
Printed in the 1609 Quarto, the sonnet defines love by what it survives. Use the two lines together with the line break, or on one line with a slash, and keep it for a long relationship photo. On a first-date picture it reads as a vow.
What to write in the caption so the credit is right
Put the line in quotation marks, then the author and the work on the next line, for example: "— Shakespeare, The Tempest (Miranda to Ferdinand)". You don't need to tag anyone. The work is more useful to your followers than a tag, and a year is optional.
- Keep the line intact. If you cut it, end at a natural stop and don't add words; an edited line under an author's name is a misquote.
- Match the line to the picture. Twain suits a shared moment, Homer a home, Browning a long marriage, Sonnet 116 a relationship that has been through something.
- Short is not a rule. Instagram cuts a long caption behind a "more" link, so put the quote first and the credit after.
Four popular captions we could not source
| Caption | Usually credited to | What we found |
|---|---|---|
| "The best thing to hold onto in life is each other." | Audrey Hepburn | No interview, film or book given anywhere we looked; only quote sites repeat it. |
| "You are the finest, loveliest, tenderest, and most beautiful person I have ever known." | F. Scott Fitzgerald, to Zelda, 1939 | Widely printed, but we did not reach the letter itself, so we left it out. |
| "We are asleep until we fall in love." | Tolstoy, War and Peace | A shortened version of a longer speech by the character Denisov; the novel's wording is different. |
| "Two minds with but a single thought, two hearts that beat as one." | Friedrich Halm, Ingomar | Appears in an English adaptation; we did not check the wording against the translation. |
For more of these, see our list of misattributed love quotes.
Questions people ask before posting
How long should an Instagram caption with a quote be?
One quote of one or two sentences and a credit line. Instagram cuts a long caption after the first lines, so the quote should come first.
Should I tag the author?
No. Writing the author and the work is enough, and for historical authors there is nobody to tag.
Can I change a quote to fit my photo?
Choose a shorter excerpt instead of changing words. If you do change it, don't put an author's name under it.
If you would rather write something of your own, how to write a love letter shows how to start from one true detail.
