Valentine’s Day 2016: Best Quotes About Love, Plus History Of The February 14 Holiday


Valentine’s Day 2016 is here, and those looking for great quotes to share with the love of their life, or who just want to learn a little bit more about the holiday, can look no further. There is a lot of pressure on Valentine’s Day, from picking out the right gift (here’s a bit of help) to making sure you’ve got your reservation all in order for that special dinner (if you haven’t already done it, call now). But, with all the work to do, it’s great to start the day by sharing a nice quote on Facebook or Twitter.

Here are some of the best Valentine’s Day quotes about love:

  • “Young love is a flame; very pretty, often very hot and fierce, but still only light and flickering. The love of the older and disciplined heart is as coals, deep-burning, unquenchable.” Henry Ward Beecher
  • “Love is like a beautiful flower which I may not touch, but whose fragrance makes the garden a place of delight just the same.” – Helen Keller
  • “Love has no desire but to fulfill itself. But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires; To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night. To know the pain of too much tenderness. To be wounded by your own understanding of love; And to bleed willingly and joyfully.” – Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

Valentine’s Day 2016 is also a good chance for people to share a bit of humor. Whether you’re single and watching the rest of your friends fawning over their significant others, or if you’re just hoping to share a smile, there are plenty of great quotes poking fun at the love-filled holiday. Here are some great funny Valentine’s Day quotes:

  • “All you need is love. But a little chocolate now and then doesn’t hurt.” – Charles M. Schulz
  • “Women marry men hoping they will change. Men marry women hoping they will not. So each is inevitably disappointed.” – Albert Einstein
  • “Honesty is the key to a relationship. If you can fake that, you’re in.” – Richard Jeni
  • “A new survey has revealed that for Valentine’s Day, 30 percent of women prefer sex over flowers. The survey was from a sampling of women I’ve never encountered in my life.” – Conan O’Brien
  • “Oh here’s an idea: let’s make pictures of our internal organs and give them to other people we love on Valentine’s Day. That’s not weird at all.” – Jimmy Fallon

Along with some great quotes to share, many people are also looking to learn a bit about the history of Valentine’s Day. It actually started through the Roman Catholic St. Valentine (there were actually three of them), who was martyred. “One legend contends that Valentine was a priest who served during the third century in Rome,” History.com noted. “When Emperor Claudius II decided that single men made better soldiers than those with wives and families, he outlawed marriage for young men. Valentine, realizing the injustice of the decree, defied Claudius and continued to perform marriages for young lovers in secret. When Valentine’s actions were discovered, Claudius ordered that he be put to death.” As this story spread, St. Valentine became one of the most popular saints in Europe, and somewhere around 270 A.D. his feast day was moved to the middle of February to merge with the pagan holiday of Lupercalia, a fertility celebration dedicated to the Roman god of agriculture. During the middle ages, it was also celebrated as the beginning of mating season for migratory birds, and around this time written greetings also became popular.

Valetine’s Day has been celebrated in the United States since the 18th century, and it took shape as the holiday we know today in the mid 1800s, when Esther A. Howland began selling the first mass-produced Valentine’s Day cards. Today, it is one of the most popular holidays on the calendar, with an estimated 1 billion cards sent each year. Anyone who is still looking for some great quotes to share on Valentine’s Day 2016 can check out other collections here, here, and here.

[Photo by Brandon Thorne/Getty Images]

Share this article: Valentine’s Day 2016: Best Quotes About Love, Plus History Of The February 14 Holiday
More from Inquisitr