11 Romantic Spanish Love Quotes (With English Translation)

Ah, love. Who doesn’t get weak in the knees when they read great love quotes? And since Spanish is a romance language, it makes sense that some of the best quotes about love are in Spanish!

But more importantly, reading and understanding quotes is a great way to prepare you for your Spanish IB and Spanish AP exams. That’s because they often rely on figurative language, which means that the literal translation is different than the phrase’s actual meaning. By studying quotes like these, you gain a better understanding of how to speak, read, and understand Spanish on a more advanced level.  

In this post, we’re going to help you prepare for your exams by giving you a list list of the 11 best Spanish love quotes with English translation. For each quote, we’ll:

• Give you the love quote in Spanish
• Provide the English translation
• Discuss the meaning of the quote

Ready? Let’s get started!

Spanish Love Quote #1: A Quote About Eternity

Prefiero un minuto contigo a una eternidad sin ti.

 This sentence literally translates to, “I prefer a minute with you than an eternity without you.” In other words, you’d rather know (and love!) a person for a short amount of time than live a full life having never known them at all. It’s incredibly romantic...which is why we chose it to kick off our list!

This line also teaches you how to set up a comparison in Spanish. You can use the basic form of this sentence to show how one thing is better than the other, which is going to be an important skill for the written portion of your Spanish exams. Memorizing a quote like this one is like having a little grammar shortcut that you can whip out at any time.

Spanish Love Quote #2: A Quote About Fighting

Riñen a menudo los amantes, por el gusto de hacer las paces.

Literally, this quotation translates to, “Lovers quarrel often for the pleasure of making peace.” However, there’s a more figurative way to think of this line, too.

At its core, this quote is about passion. In passionate relationships, there’s often a thin line between arguing and attraction. That’s why it’s so common to see this happen in romantic movies. One of our favorite scenes is this one from The Notebook:

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/EemLsTG5fX8" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

This scene shows us that the quote might be right: making up is the best part of a lover’s quarrel!

Spanish Love Quote #3: A Quote About Changing Someone

Amar a alguien para hacerlo distinto significa asesinarle.

 The word-for-word translation of this quote is a little gruesome. Literally, it means, “Loving someone to make them different means murdering them.” But more accurately, this quote is saying that loving someone to try and change who they are is a recipe for disaster. That’s because you’re actually not in love with the person your significant other is...you’re in love with this ideal person you wish they could become!

In the end, this quote warns us that trying to change the person you love—rather than loving them for who they are—results in unhappiness for everyone.

Spanish Love Quote #4: A Quote About Fear

El mayor obstáculo para el amor es el temor secreto de no ser dignos de ser amados.

 This line translates to, “The greatest obstacle to love is the hidden fear of not being worthy of being loved.”

For many people, love can be difficult...but it can sometimes be compounded by how we feel about ourselves. In fact, research suggests that good self-esteem is important to having healthy relationships. In this case, this quote reminds us that it’s just as important to love ourselves as it is to love someone else.

Spanish Love Quote #5: A Quote About Young Love

Amor de niño, agua en cestillo.

 Okay, this is one of those quotes where you just have to remember the figurative meaning. Literally, this quote translates to, “Love of a child, water in basket.” Which, to be fair, doesn’t make much sense at all!

In actuality, this quote is saying that young love is fickle. Yeah, we know: it’s one of those things you just have to memorize to understand. (English is full of these idioms that make no sense, like “cool as a cucumber” for being good under pressure.) But knowing idiomatic phrases like this one—and using them correctly!—can be pretty impressive when you’re writing your exam essays.

Spanish Love Quote #6: A Quote About Heartbreak

Hay mucho más donde elegir.

 What do you do when you—or a friend—goes through a really bad break-up? You know, the type where you were head-over-heels in love, but for some reason, the other person didn’t feel the same?

That’s where this quote can come in handy. It translates to, “There’s a lot more out there to choose from.” But it’s closer in meaning to the English saying, “there are plenty of fish in the sea.”

Heartbreak is painful, and sometimes it feels like you lost “the one” for you. But this quote is a good reminder that the world is a big place! While breakups are tough, they’re also temporary. If you’re brave enough—and follow the advice from Quote #4 above!—you can find love again.

Spanish Love Quote #7: A Quote About Partnership

Amar no es mirarse el uno al otro, es mirar juntos en la misma dirección.

 This sentence has the same literal and figurative meaning. It translates to, “Love it’s not to look at each other, it’s to look together towards the same direction.”

Is loving someone enough for a long, happy relationship? According to this quote, there might be more to it than just affection. And actually, science seems to support this. This article from Psychology Today explains that common reasons for relationships failing are having different expectations or priorities in life than your partner.

This quote teaches us that love about more than just thinking the other person is attractive, or even caring deeply about your partner. Long-lasting, loving relationships involve working with your partner to determine where your lives are going, so you can ensure you’re both heading in the same direction.

Spanish Love Quote #8: A Quote About Motivation

El amor todo lo puede.

This sentence translates to, “Love can do everything.” In other words, love is a powerful motivator.

This is a favorite topic of feel-good news stories like this one about a father who runs triathlons with his disabled son, or this story about this man who donated his kidney to his best friend. These are just a few examples of how love can motivate us to do things for other people that we never thought possible. And while that might seem anecdotal at first, science actually supports this idea. Whether it’s love for a partner, a family member, a friend, or even a pet, love can drive us to accomplish amazing things!

Spanish Love Quote #9: A Quote About Pain

Donde hay amor, hay dolor.

 But as we all know, love can also be painful, too. That’s why we’ve included this quote in our list, which translates to “Where there’s love, there’s pain.”

Oftentimes, we immediately think of a bad break-up or a divorce as an example of love causing pain. But there are different types of love, too! For example, let’s say you love your school, but your parents get new jobs and you have to move to a new city. You’d probably be pretty upset about it, right? That pain is a result of the love you feel for your teachers and friends. And you’re not alone in feeling a love/pain connection: scientists now believe that love and pain are neurologically interconnected!

Given all of that, it's tempting to think of this quote as warning us against love, but that’s not the case. Rather, this saying is a reminder that pain is the price of love, but it doesn’t mean that loving isn’t worth it in the end.

Spanish Love Quote #10: A Quote About Dislike

No hay amor perdido entre nosotros.

 This quote, which translates to “there is no love lost between us,” comes from the famous Spanish writer Miguel de Cervantes. Cervantes is perhaps the most famous Spanish author of all time, and he’s most well known for writing Don Quixote.

Before he became a writer, Cervantes served in the Spanish military and took part in naval battles as part of the Spanish navy marines. That meant he saw the animosity between people firsthand, so he definitely knew what he was talking about when he wrote this line.

To say that there’s “no love lost” between you and someone else is a polite way to say that you don’t like another person or thing. In fact, it means that you don’t like them at all! (For example, as far as we’re concerned, there’s no love lost between us and Croc shoes, dill pickles, and people who litter). This is just another example of the ways that love and other emotions can be tied together.

Spanish Love Quote #11: When You Want to Be Honest (but Funny)

El amor entra por la cocina.

 Our last Spanish love quote is another one that has a literal and a figurative translation. Literally, this sentence means, “Love enters through the kitchen.” But what it’s really saying is that the quickest way to a person’s heart is through their stomach.

And if that’s not true, we don’t know what is!

The 20 Words and Phrases You Need to Know to Write Your Own Romantic Spanish Quotes

Like we mentioned before, the quotes above can help you start to understand Spanish a little better. But the best way to improve your Spanish for the Spanish AP exam is practice...and what better way to do that than by writing your own Spanish love quotes?

To get you started, we’ve put together a list of twenty of the most romantic Spanish words and phrases. Check them out below!

What’s Next?

Looking for more Spanish quotes? Check out our list of the nine most inspirational Spanish quotes about life.

Let’s keep the vocabulary work going! Here’s a list of the 71 body parts you should know how to talk about in Spanish—and the two most import rules to remember when talking about body parts in Spanish.

But there’s more to learning Spanish than just memorizing vocabulary words. You also have to learn how to conjugate verbs, too. (Actually, conjugation might be the hardest part!) The verb “to be” is a good place to start because it’s super common and really versatile. This guide not only gives you every conjugation of ser you need to know...but it teaches you how to use ser in a sentence, too!