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Literary inspiration for your Valentine message

ImpressionNeed inspiration for a romantic phrase to write in the card to your valentine? Or a sweet phrase for a DM Valentine tweet?! Why not let the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations inspire you? Here are some lovestruck quotations to help you express your feelings on that most romantic of days:

My heart was not in me but with you, and now,
even more, if it is not with you it is nowhere.
Letter to Peter Abelard (c.1132), Heloise

Come live with me, and be my love,
And we will some new pleasures prove
Of golden sands, and crystal brooks,
With silken lines, and silver hooks.
Songs and Sonnet ‘The Bait’, John Donne

Night and day, you are the one,
Only you beneath the moon and under the sun.
‘Night and Day’ (1932 song) in Gay Divorce, Cole Porter

My true love hath my heart and I have his,
By just exchange one for the other giv’n.
Arcadia (1581), Philip Sidney

Unwearied still, lover by lover,
They paddle in the cold
companionable streams or climb the air;
Their hearts have not grown old.
‘The Wild Swans at Coole’ (1919), W.B.Yeats

But true love is a durable fire,
In the mind ever burning.
‘Walsinghame’, Walter Raleigh

Oh, what a dear ravishing thing is the beginning of an Amour!
The Emperor of the Moon (1687), Aphra Behn

Hear my soul speak:
The very instant that I saw you, did
My heart fly to your service.
The Tempest (c.1610), William Shakespeare

9780199663842

And if you are also interested in the philosophy of love, you may like to read Very Short Introduction: Love which attempts to answer the ‘big’ questions about eros or romantic love. Do we love someone for their virtue, their beauty, or their morals or other qualities? Are love’s characteristic desires altruistic or selfish? Are there duties of love? And what do the sciences – neuroscience, evolutionary and social psychology, and anthropology – tell us about love?

Do you have a favourite quotation about love and romance? We would love to hear it!

Written by Nicola Weideling, Marketing Operations Manager

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