Your Valentine: Favorite Quotes on Love

SHOP RED HOT VALENTINE

February 14th is around the corner bringing along with it a bouquet that smells like excitement to some, indifference to others, and for others, just plain dread. A holiday that seems to get more dolled up and commercialized year after year, the story of its origin is not one to get lost beneath the chocolates and flowers. St. Valentine of Rome is a 3rd century Roman saint associated with love, youth, and marriage. Although much of his life is unknown, many legends and miracles are attributed to him. Some stories state that Emperor Claudius believed single men made better soldiers than those married and with families, so he enforced a law making marriage illegal for all young men. Valentine recognized the horror of this law and continued to marry young couples in secret, resulting in his imprisonment and execution. [1] Another source claims that while Valentine was imprisoned he healed the jailer's blind daughter. On the day of his execution, he left the girl a note signed, "Your Valentine." [2] The church canonized him on February 14, 496, recognizing him as a saint who literally sacrificed his life for love.

No matter if you are spending the day with your bae, your bestie, or on the couch with Netflix and the dog, don't miss the opportunity to give love to those in your life. It's tempting to ruin the true meaning of this day by comparing your circumstances to others and pining for what you do not have. But take a valentine from St. Valentine's book, and spread love today. You will find that the love you give always come back to you. 

Love knows no bounds, her reservoirs are never exhausted. Though her ways may be steep, her voice is all truth and tenderness. For though she prunes you, it's always so that you may grow. Here is a compilation of our favorite quotes on love that never cease to inspire us –

♥ "Love, having no geography, knows no boundaries: weight and sink it deep, not matter, it will rise and find the surface." 

— Truman Capote

♥ "The chance to love and be loved exists no matter where you are."

— Oprah

♥ "Real love is a pilgrimage. It happens when there is no strategy."

— Anita Brookner

♥ "In the flush of love's light we dare be brave
And suddenly we see that love costs all we are and ever will be.
Yet, it is only love which sets us free."

— Maya Angelou

♥ "Open your life wide, and take me in forever. I will never be tired—I will never be noisy when you want to be still...nobody else will see me, but you—but that is enough—I shall not want any more."

— Emily Dickinson to an unknown recipient

♥ "The minute I heard my first love story
I started looking for you, not knowing
how blind that was. 
Lovers don't finally meet somewhere.
They're in each other all along."

— Rumi

♥ "I want to do things so wild with you that I don't know how to say them." 

— Anaïs Nin to Henry Miller

♥ "Love is the ultimate outlaw. It just won't adhere to any rules. The most any of us can do is to sign on as its accomplice. Instead of vowing to honor and obey, maybe we should swear to aid and abet."

— Tom Robbins

♥ "Love is not just something that happens to you: it is a certain special way of being alive."

— Thomas Merton 

♥ "What is required of us is that we love the difficult and learn to deal with it. In the difficult are the friendly forces, the hands that work on us. Right in the difficult we must have our joys, our happiness, our dreams.

—Rainer Maria Rilke 

♥ "Love doesn't sit there like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; remade all the time, made new."

— Ursula K. Le Guin 

♥ "Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within."

—James Baldwin 

♥ "What greater thing is there for two human souls than to feel that they are joined for life, to strengthen each other in all labor, to rest on each other in all sorrow, to minister to each other in all pain..."

— George Eliot 

♥ "To love yourself as you are is a miracle, and to seek yourself is to have found yourself, for now. And now is all we have, and love is who we are."

— Anne Lamott

If you enjoyed this blog, check out our other blogs like: "5 Ways to Pamper Mom on Mother's Day," "Resources for Your Well-Being," "Resources to Nurture your Spirituality," and "A Warrior Among Us."

[1] Kelleher, Liv. "A Brief History of Love." A Brief History of Valentine's Day. Stylecaster.com, 7 Feb. 2015. Web. 7 Feb. 2017

[2] Online, Catholic. "St. Valentine - Saints & Angels." Catholic Online. Catholic Online, 2017. Web. 07 Feb. 2017.