Valentine's Day Quotes

This page has no collection of its own behind it. It is built from the pages on love, romance and beauty, so it is very large and not selective. Use it as a place to start, and check what you pick.

The check matters more for love than for most topics, because so many of the famous lines are not what they seem. “Choose a job you love” is not Confucius, and “God made beer because he loves us” is probably a garbled Franklin on wine. See the Love page for both. If you are going to put a quote in a card, look at the label next to it first.

Random quote on Valentine's Day

Most quoted on valentine's day:

I think poetry ultimately is a more communal activity than fiction, but I love both equally.

Marge Piercy Life of Prose and Poetry — An Inspiring Combination (1999)

But beauty vanishes; beauty passes;
However rare—rare it be;
And when I crumble, who will remember
This lady of the West Country?

Walter de la Mare

And I dance with William Blake
For love, for Love's sake; And everything comes to One,
As we dance on, dance on, dance on.

Theodore Roethke The Far Field (1964)

The tap of hangers,
swaying in the closet —
unburdened hooks
and empty drawers —
and everywhere I tried to love you
is yours again,
and only yours.

Joanna Newsom Have One On Me (2010)

It's one of those secrets that's embarrassing to acknowledge, but we do love our students.

Joyce Carol Oates Address at Mount Holyoke College (2006)