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Religion & Spirit
. Valentine's
Day: Some Thoughts on Love There's
no question but that Valentine's Day has become a
commercial boon for purveyors of everything from diamonds
& chocolates to flowers & lingerie. But has
it always been that way? ... Well,
we're not sure. But this much seems certain:
Love is not never having to say you're sorry, or
any other like platitudes. ... What is it,
then? We don't want to presume too much, so
we thought we'd let some writers down through the ages
have their say. ... Enjoy! .
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Some
Thoughts on Love |
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That Love is all there
is,
Is all we know of Love ...
Emily Dickinson, No. 1765 |
Love is a kind of warfare.
Ovid, Ars
Amatoria, II, 233 |
|
... Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds ...
Wm. Shakespeare, Sonnet 116 |
There are very few people who are not
ashamed
of having been in love when they no longer love
each other.
de La
Rochefoucauld, Reflections, Maxim 71 |
|
Stay me with flagons, comfort
me with apples:
for I am sick of love.
...
The Song of Solomon, 2:5 |
If I love you, what business is it of yours?
Goethe, Wilhelm
Meister's Apprenticeship, IV, 9 |
|
Give all to love;
Obey thy heart ...
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Poems |
I am two fools, I know,
For loving, and for saying so
In whining poetry.
John
Donne, The Triple Fool |
|
Can Wisdom be put in a silver
rod?
Or Love in a golden
bowl?
Wm. Blake, The Book of Thel |
It is good to love the unknown.
Charles Lamb, Essays of Elia,
"Valentine's Day" |
|
Once the realization is
accepted that even between the
closest human beings infinite distances
continue to
exist, a wonderful living side by side can grow up
...
Rainer Maria Wilke, Letters |
Like everybody who is not in love, he
imagined that
one chose the person whom one loved after endless
deliberations and on the strength of various
qualities
and advantages.
Marcel Proust, Remembrance of Things Past |
|
Love is most nearly
itself
When here and now cease to matter ...
T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets, East Coker |
Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come
away.
For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over &
gone;
The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the
singing of birds is come, and
The voice of the turtle is heard in our land.
The Song of Solomon, 2:10-12 |
Happy
Valentine's Day
.
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